Not an Austrian, but your talking about "excuses for such slow ass trains" seems to be missing the fact that the Austrians are building two large rail tunnels:

Not an Austrian, but your talking about "excuses for such slow ass trains" seems to be missing the fact that the Austrians are building two large rail tunnels: The Semmering base tunnel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Base_Tunnel which will shorten travel between Vienna and Graz, and the Koralmbahn tunnel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel Also, no Alps between Vienna and Graz? Have you looked out of the window? If you haven't, here is the map. The heights of the peaks are in meters, so 3x for feet: https://mapy.cz/s/bokococuza https://mapy.cz/s/bokococuza That is a bona fide mountainous terrain.