8 ms·

Koralm Railway

317 points by fzeindl 10mo ago

roflmaostc 10mo ago
In case you wonder, the Koralm Tunnel has a length of 32.9km https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel
- tomw1808 10mo ago
  "The Koralm Tunnel opened on the 14th of December 2025" ... wikipedia living in the future past :)
  - roflmaostc 10mo ago
    Haha, check who updated this article. Only afterwards I realized we're not past the 14th yet...
    - teraro 10mo ago
      Already fixed!
  - groestl 10mo ago
    I guess it's the opposite of Futur III: https://www.der-postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-iii-eingefuhrt-um.html https://www.der-postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-ii...
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
the_mitsuhiko 10mo ago
I really waited for this since I was a child. It’s fascinating to see it actually be here.
- spacechild1 10mo ago
  Me too! But why did you need a quick connection between Klagenfurt and Graz as a child? I would have rather longed for a high speed train between Hermagor and Villach ;-)
  - butlike 10mo ago
    What kid doesn't go through a 'train phase?' and a grand plan to improve the railway could be exciting to a child even if it's more spectacle than utility.
    - bombcar 10mo ago
      Especially since a child will see all the visualizations and such that are put out before work begins.
      - rsynnott 10mo ago
        When I was a kid, in the early 90s, there was a diagram in the local library of the planned Dublin metro. It was, at that point, an old plan, I think from the early 80s. The third attempt at a Dublin metro just got planning permission a few weeks ago; said planning is now bogged down in a judicial review. Somewhat envious of Austria’s speed in this sort of thing, really…
  - the_mitsuhiko 10mo ago
    At least I got to enjoy the highway connection between Noetsch and Villach when I was a child. Both of those things were big things due to local politics (hi Haider) when I grew up. Practically I did not care. But it was ubiquitous for a while in the news.
  - rcbdev 10mo ago
    I would have never expected to read about Hermagor in an HN thread. Greetings from the Werbutz Alm!
franciscop 10mo ago
This headline is a bit odd and doesn't represent the original title nor article content. What does "within budget" mean here? That it costed what the original budget set out to cost? Couldn't find anything related to the budget within the article.
- fzeindl 10mo ago
  It is mostly within budget, estimated in 2005 were 5.5 billion €, total cost as of today are 5.9 billion €, the difference being largely attributed to the pandemic and later addition of sections.
  - franciscop 10mo ago
    Sure, I'm just pointing out that this article doesn't follow the HN Guidelines, so I was confused at not seeing any mention of the budget within the article: > "Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important." > "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize"
    - fzeindl 10mo ago
      Agreed, it was just important to me to point it out, since staying within such a massive budget on such a long timeline is a rare achievement.
      - bigbinary 10mo ago
        Considering the original title is just the name of the railway, and I do not think “within budget” is editorializing, I think the commenter is being overly pedantic
        franciscop 10mo ago
        I opened the article expecting to see news about the budget and how they stayed within it, since that SEEMS like the biggest surprising news in a project like this. How is that overly pedantic?
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
saubeidl 10mo ago
I know its a small nitpick, but I got unreasonably annoyed at the two "Financed by EU fund x" banners having different flag sizes, paddings, fonts etc. How is there no unifying design language for these?
- brnt 10mo ago
  Is there any design? It's just the flag and a title + subtitle. Also, the EU is the most efficient government in terms of overhead, and having seen some of it up close not wasting time or money on "unifying design languages" for every single funding billboard is very much EU style. Just copy-paste by some local authority in Powerpoint in most cases, I bet.
  - wongarsu 10mo ago
    Looking at the modern iterations of the program guidelines for these programs, especially [1] and [2], you basically have to use the flag, the text over, under or to either side of the flag (your choice) in one of 6 fonts (Arial, Auto, Calibri, Garamond, Tahoma, Trebuchet, Ubuntu or Verdana), and have some rules for minimum distance, minimum size and proportionality. They absolutely could have made those two match visually. But each program offers premade banners that match the design criteria, and those don't always harmonize. As you say, nobody cared 1: https://hadea.ec.europa.eu/programmes/connecting-europe-facility/cef-telecom-2014-2020/publicity-guidelines-logos_en https://hadea.ec.europa.eu/programmes/connecting-europe-faci... 2: https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/3192a0ef-6bda-4e1a-81ca-65ade2ffad73_en?filename=eu_emblem_rules.pdf https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/3192a0ef-6bda... 3: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/information-sources/logo-download-center_en https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/information-sources/log...
  - tasuki 10mo ago
    What are the funding billboards for, anyway? They're an eyesore, and it's all paid by us EU taxpayers anyway. They should say "financed by you", or better yet, not exist to begin with.
    - 10mo ago
djoldman 10mo ago
Webcams! https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railway-lines/southern-line-vienna-villach/koralm-railway/webcams-koralm-railway https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railwa...
throwaway2037 10mo ago
First, this is a massive accomplishment. When I looked at the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Railway ... it looks like a multi-multi-multi-phase project. Hats off to making this work. Second, I noticed how long it took to build this tunnel: Koralm Tunnel -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel It is 33km, and it took from 2008 to 2025 to build it. That is a damn long time! The Toei Oedo line in Tokyo is 40+km and was built in about 10 years. My guess about the wild difference: The geoengineering of the Koralm Tunnel is way more complex, and/or the rock is much harder. Can anyone with experience in this area comment? I would like to learn more. I guess that most of central Tokyo is aluvial plains (Shanghai is similar), so you are basically digging through clay and sand -- easy stuff for modern tunnel boring machines.
- nasmorn 10mo ago
  It is very strange that countries like Austria, Japan or Switzerland have some of the best rail systems in the world even though their bridge and tunnel requirements are huge. In the US building rail on any terrain seems to be more expensive than basically anything one can build in Austria.
  - kaon_2 10mo ago
    Not strange at all! If you want to go by car you must build even more tunnels. Mountainous regions favor rail just like urban areas do. Furthermore, 19th century investments into rail still pay off in mountainous regions, because once you build a railway bridge or tunnel, you are kind of dumb not to use it. In the USA competition from trucks or cars is much tougher.
    - bluGill 10mo ago
      Note the US has the number one freight rail system in the world by most measures (there are lots of ways to measure this depending on how you want to abuse the statistics). Some of this is Europe has better river routes to work with (I don't know Asia), but some of this is Europe has focused more on passengers to the point where freight is unable to get through forcing trucks.
apexalpha 10mo ago
I thought this was about the new base tunnel under the Alps and was very confused for a bit.
- MadDemon 10mo ago
  The Brenner base tunnel is still under construction.
flowerthoughts 10mo ago
Actually, the tunnel itself was only 17 years: 1998: Start of construction of the Koralm Railway 2008: Start of construction of the Koralm Tunnel 2018: Breakthrough Koralm Tunnel 2020: Final Koralm tunnel breakthrough 2025: This announcement (https://orf.at/stories/3414173/ https://orf.at/stories/3414173/ in German) https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railway-lines/southern-line-vienna-villach/koralm-railway/about-the-project https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railwa...
- alephnerd 10mo ago
  Given the terrain and the amount of tunneling needed, completing such a project in 17 years isn't that bad. Seems software neckbeards on HN are equally as guilty of underestimating the difficulty of other people's work like the managers they complain about.
  - flowerthoughts 10mo ago
    Yeah, and the last five years has not been drilling, but installing. The last year has been testing and tweaking (accordingt to the ORF article.) Seems like a great project outcome. Mostly within budget, no political chaos due to delays (AFAICT) and allowing several months for testing before announcing it open.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- usr1106 10mo ago
  Yeah, the submitted page misses the real news: Ordinary traffic will start tomorrow, Sunday.
DeathArrow 10mo ago
While staying within budget for infrastructure developments is no small achievement these days and I applaud them for it, 27 years seems a bit much.
tasuki 10mo ago
> Crossing the Koralpe massif more quickly and with more comfort. That’s what the future of train travel from Graz to Klagenfurt looks like. With the Koralm Railway, you will arrive at your destination even quicker. The fastest connection will shrink from three hours to just 45 minutes. There aren't any big mountains between Graz and Klagenfurt. It's an hour on the Autobahn. That it took three hours by train... well, they just had shitty railroad? Best of luck, Southern neighbors!
- syberspace 10mo ago
  There is, the Koralpe massif. Previously to get to Klagenfurt from Graz you first had to go north through a somewhat tight valley for about 50km before the train would turn to the south-west towards Klagenfurt, again tough alpine valleys, and with a lot of stops inbetween. The new route goes south/south-west immediatley, is very straight compared to the old route, and has at most 3 stops.
  - tasuki 10mo ago
    > [...] and with a lot of stops inbetween. The new route [...] has at most 3 stops. I think this explains a lot. Adding a couple of stops adds a lot of time to the total!
- febusravenga 10mo ago
  > they just had shitty railroad The terrain is just hard railroad had do huge detour on this section Look at map: https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=15.0703419&y=46.7076432&z=11&ovl=3 https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=15.0703419&y=46.7076432&z=1... Passes in those mountains are only ~1200m above valley level (~1650 abs). Yeah, perfectly ok to run railroad there. Your autobahn climbs 600m on this section (to 1050m absolute) - it's way to high for railway to be effective.
buybackoff 10mo ago
Just yesterday B1M published an interesting video about the future longest tunnel between Lyon, France and Turin, Italy. It will be more than 50km, deeply below the Alps. The project has finally secured funding, from both countries and EU, and is on track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFrr-L_BcC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFrr-L_BcC4
- sofixa 10mo ago
  It would be brilliant. Currently the Paris-Milan train line is barely competitive with flying between the two; knocking off 2-3 hours from the trip would make it around 4 hours in total, which is very competitive with flying (1h30 flight, but both CDG and Malpensa are big airports far outside the city, with significant time wasted getting to them, through security, etc). And of course it would be massive for Lyon - Turin, and Lyon - Milan too, where flying wouldn't even make sense any more.
  - ur-whale 10mo ago
    And now that Italy has built a tax haven for HNWI [1], the faster commute will IMO make business boom. https://nomoretax.eu/italy-a-new-tax-haven/ https://nomoretax.eu/italy-a-new-tax-haven/
- seqastian 10mo ago
  Another one between Italy, Austria and by extension Germany is scheduled for 2032 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel
  - ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
    Isn't Italy a little geologically unstable? I'd be a bit nervous, going through a long tunnel, in a region known for vulcanism and earthquakes.
    - AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
dachris 10mo ago
Its sister tunnel - the Semmering Base Tunnel [0] - is scheduled to be completed in 2030. These two combined greatly reduce the travel time from Vienna to Graz and Klagenfurt (combined 1h 15m time saving). You don't hear that much about great engineering projects today, yet it's still an incredible feat to build those. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Base_Tunnel
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago
  > You don't hear that much about great engineering projects today Here's a great engineering project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_test_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_test_tunnel
  - MattRix 10mo ago
    is it though?
    - groestl 10mo ago
      I guess sarcasm.
      - ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago
        ;-)
  - jimnotgym 10mo ago
    Serious question about hyperloop trains running in a vacuum. How do you cool the carriages?
    - sawjet 10mo ago
      The tunnels aren't perfect vacuums
      - 10mo ago
alberto_ol 10mo ago
English is not my language, is the headline grammatically correct?
- groestl 10mo ago
  Not by a long shot.
- showerst 10mo ago
  It's a little awkward, but what it's trying to communicate doesn't really work well in one sentence. As a native US English speaker, I would probably write something like "Austria opens the world's sixth longest railway tunnel: 27 year long project arrives on schedule and under budget." That's a long headline, though.
groestl 10mo ago
Booked a trip yesterday, without knowing this has happened. ~1h off my usual trip time, which I got accustomed to in the last two decades. It's extremely awesome!
sandworm101 10mo ago
Lol. And in north american train news, canada's newest rail line in only 10km long, was way over budget, years late, and is slower than jogging. >> A CBC Toronto reporter rode the entire 10.3-kilometre line from east to west Monday morning, finding it took roughly 55 minutes to complete. As a reference point, over 400 runners ran this year's Toronto Marathon 10-kilometre event in under 55 minutes https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/finch-west-lrt-first-monday-9.7006698 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/finch-west-lrt-first-...
- jasona123 10mo ago
  And yet the Eglinton Crosstown still isn't open... I'm so close to making a site that just lists every project that's started and finished in the entire time that thing has been "under construction".
  - Ensorceled 10mo ago
    A friend of mine works beside one of the Eglinton line sites and called me a few years ago to tell me they were taking down the hoardings... because the hoardings had rotted and needed new plywood and studs.
hans_castorp 10mo ago
For those that can read German, here is a little article that explains some of the obstacles over time: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000299789/traum-vom-sueden-wie-der-koralmtunnel-nach-34-jahren-wirklichkeit-wurde https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000299789/traum-vom-sue...
contrarian1234 10mo ago
Austria is the only European country I've been to that doesn't have cheap affordable intercity buses. Seemingly none at all. It was kind of strange... Does anyone know why? The only options to get around was the expensive train system - and anyone I asked was bewildered why I would want to take a bus.. Maybe next time I should look in to carpooling or some other options. How do low income people get around typically? I need to go to attend a conference, but it's not cheap coming from Asia EDIT: Seems I was wrong! Sorry. There are buses, (maybe fewer than other countries?)
- lxgr 10mo ago
  Flixbus definitely exists in Austria, but people generally take the train, which is much faster and more comfortable. There are various discount membership plans available that sometimes pay for themselves after just one round-trip or even one-way ride, and on the most popular connections there's now a private operator competing with the state-owned railway. A yearly flat-rate ticket for intercity trains is also relatively affordable for EUR 1400 per year.
  - contrarian1234 10mo ago
    Oh really? I took the Flixbus from the Czech Republic and is stopped near the border and then after that it was train only. Maybe I ended up in a weird spot then! I just checked and there are indeed buses in-country. Strange that I somehow couldn't find any then Thank you for the info!
    - lxgr 10mo ago
      There's definitely bus service (not just Flixbus, also Regiojet and probably others) between Vienna and Prague.
  - jack_tripper 10mo ago
    >Flixbus definitely exists in Austria, but people generally take the train, which is much faster and more comfortable. Not always true. The Graz-Vienna(Airport) trip is often quicker by flixbus than by OBB train. Trains in Austria are quite slow , often travelling at the same speed as cars on the highway or often times even slower.
TheAtomic 10mo ago
A map, just put a &^%^$^#@$%! map showing the rail line on your web page. Somewhere. Anywhere!
- erikvanoosten 10mo ago
  Its one click further :) https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railway-lines/southern-line-vienna-villach/koralm-railway/about-the-project https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railwa...
- tacker2000 10mo ago
  Here are 2 maps https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/de/geschaeftspartner/transportlogistic/koralmbahn https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/de/geschaeftspartner/transport... https://www.sn.at/panorama/oesterreich/koralmbahn-bringt-salzburg-schnellere-zuege-nach-graz-art-569994 https://www.sn.at/panorama/oesterreich/koralmbahn-bringt-sal...
mattcantstop 10mo ago
Interstate 70 in Colorado is very problematic. It is constantly backed up. Colorado needs to learn from this and get serious about rail for shipping and for human travel.
- jeingham 10mo ago
  I feel you man. Problem is that would be a major dollar infrastructure problem that would need federal dollars. With a deficit over 40T dollars and political wind blowing against more federal spending generally and Colorado not being a favored state at the moment I'd say the chances are slim of it happening in the next three years. It would be boffo if some liberal corporate billionaire put his shoulder against the project like that enough to inspire a combination of a Colorado bond issue, some state funding and support. The way California handled its high speed rail in Central valley here is not an inspiration I'll tell you that right now. What a fcuk-up and embarrassment that is. What were they thinking?
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    IF Colorado did this all alone they could potentially avoid a lot of the high costs that result from getting federal dollars. Maybe - Federally funded projects tend to cost 4-7x would they would elsewhere in the world - but nobody really knows why and so it is questionable if Colorado could figure out how to build cheap. Still the potential is there. Colorado's costs would be a lot higher at 7x the cost with federal funding vs doing it all themselves for reasonable costs - but only if they solve all the issues the drive costs up. Note that I have no confidence Colorado will tackle the issues driving costs up. Several of the known factors are places where politically powerful people (from all sides so don't bring in class warfare) are increasing costs and they let you cut them off. There are a lot of unkonwen issues left after factoring the above, and it is likely they also have politically powerful people increasing costs.
  - dmix 10mo ago
    > and political wind blowing against more federal spending generally Federal non-defense spending in the US is as high as ever (ignoring the brief COVID spike) https://www.cato.org/blog/century-federal-spending-1925-2025 https://www.cato.org/blog/century-federal-spending-1925-2025
davidu 10mo ago
It turns out, you can build new high speed railways. Take note California!
- jeingham 10mo ago
  Eh, not really.
upvotenow 10mo ago
[flagged]
PeterStuer 10mo ago
Looking forward to some nice cabride vids from this line. My favorite from this part of Europe is the Bernina Express across the alps from Switzerland to Italy. Definetly worth a slow tv watch if you love trains. (e.g. https://youtu.be/Mw9qiV7XlFs https://youtu.be/Mw9qiV7XlFs )
igogq425 10mo ago
This is the first time I've read anything in English about Kärnten and Steiermark. Styria and Carinthia are impressive names. It's as if the Roman Empire were still there.
- tacker2000 10mo ago
  Im sure you know about the Styrian Oak?
- primes4all 10mo ago
  Considering, both, that most of the austrian states are the successors of duchies that existed already more than 500 years ago in the HRE, and that their governors today are also jokingly called „princes“, your idea is not that far fetched.
f1codz 10mo ago
Can i please say something about the announcement itself. I marvel at its simplicity and focus on the outcomes & benefits. Especially its lack of trying to link it to a political party / person is very refreshing to see and i wish can be emulated in some of the more developing nations.
ITniggah 10mo ago
[flagged]
lcuff 10mo ago
I remember reading some time ago that there is a real difficulty running passenger trains and freight trains over the same rails. With freight, you can tolerate bumps at the rail-join points, and freight tends to create such bumps because the heavy loads push the rails slightly out of place. Also, freight routes should be limited to a 2% grade, whereas 4% can be tolerated for the lighter passenger cars. Have these problems been mitigated on the Koralm Railway? Anyone know how?
- joushx 10mo ago
  The rails are welded together (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_welding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_welding), so there are no joins.
  - lcuff 10mo ago
    Interesting. I wonder how the expansion and contraction of the rails with changes in temperature is accommodated.
_jzlw 10mo ago
[flagged]

317 points by fzeindl 10mo ago

In case you wonder, the Koralm Tunnel has a length of 32.9km https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel

tomw1808 10mo ago
"The Koralm Tunnel opened on the 14th of December 2025" ... wikipedia living in the future past :)
- roflmaostc 10mo ago
  Haha, check who updated this article. Only afterwards I realized we're not past the 14th yet...
  - teraro 10mo ago
    Already fixed!
- groestl 10mo ago
  I guess it's the opposite of Futur III: https://www.der-postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-iii-eingefuhrt-um.html https://www.der-postillon.com/2012/08/neue-zeitform-futur-ii...
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

the_mitsuhiko 10mo ago

I really waited for this since I was a child. It’s fascinating to see it actually be here.

spacechild1 10mo ago
Me too! But why did you need a quick connection between Klagenfurt and Graz as a child? I would have rather longed for a high speed train between Hermagor and Villach ;-)
- butlike 10mo ago
  What kid doesn't go through a 'train phase?' and a grand plan to improve the railway could be exciting to a child even if it's more spectacle than utility.
  - bombcar 10mo ago
    Especially since a child will see all the visualizations and such that are put out before work begins.
    - rsynnott 10mo ago
      When I was a kid, in the early 90s, there was a diagram in the local library of the planned Dublin metro. It was, at that point, an old plan, I think from the early 80s. The third attempt at a Dublin metro just got planning permission a few weeks ago; said planning is now bogged down in a judicial review. Somewhat envious of Austria’s speed in this sort of thing, really…
- the_mitsuhiko 10mo ago
  At least I got to enjoy the highway connection between Noetsch and Villach when I was a child. Both of those things were big things due to local politics (hi Haider) when I grew up. Practically I did not care. But it was ubiquitous for a while in the news.
- rcbdev 10mo ago
  I would have never expected to read about Hermagor in an HN thread. Greetings from the Werbutz Alm!

franciscop 10mo ago

This headline is a bit odd and doesn't represent the original title nor article content. What does "within budget" mean here? That it costed what the original budget set out to cost? Couldn't find anything related to the budget within the article.

fzeindl 10mo ago
It is mostly within budget, estimated in 2005 were 5.5 billion €, total cost as of today are 5.9 billion €, the difference being largely attributed to the pandemic and later addition of sections.
- franciscop 10mo ago
  Sure, I'm just pointing out that this article doesn't follow the HN Guidelines, so I was confused at not seeing any mention of the budget within the article: > "Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important." > "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize"
  - fzeindl 10mo ago
    Agreed, it was just important to me to point it out, since staying within such a massive budget on such a long timeline is a rare achievement.
    - bigbinary 10mo ago
      Considering the original title is just the name of the railway, and I do not think “within budget” is editorializing, I think the commenter is being overly pedantic
      - franciscop 10mo ago
        I opened the article expecting to see news about the budget and how they stayed within it, since that SEEMS like the biggest surprising news in a project like this. How is that overly pedantic?

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

saubeidl 10mo ago

I know its a small nitpick, but I got unreasonably annoyed at the two "Financed by EU fund x" banners having different flag sizes, paddings, fonts etc. How is there no unifying design language for these?

brnt 10mo ago
Is there any design? It's just the flag and a title + subtitle. Also, the EU is the most efficient government in terms of overhead, and having seen some of it up close not wasting time or money on "unifying design languages" for every single funding billboard is very much EU style. Just copy-paste by some local authority in Powerpoint in most cases, I bet.
- wongarsu 10mo ago
  Looking at the modern iterations of the program guidelines for these programs, especially [1] and [2], you basically have to use the flag, the text over, under or to either side of the flag (your choice) in one of 6 fonts (Arial, Auto, Calibri, Garamond, Tahoma, Trebuchet, Ubuntu or Verdana), and have some rules for minimum distance, minimum size and proportionality. They absolutely could have made those two match visually. But each program offers premade banners that match the design criteria, and those don't always harmonize. As you say, nobody cared 1: https://hadea.ec.europa.eu/programmes/connecting-europe-facility/cef-telecom-2014-2020/publicity-guidelines-logos_en https://hadea.ec.europa.eu/programmes/connecting-europe-faci... 2: https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/3192a0ef-6bda-4e1a-81ca-65ade2ffad73_en?filename=eu_emblem_rules.pdf https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/3192a0ef-6bda... 3: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/information-sources/logo-download-center_en https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/information-sources/log...
- tasuki 10mo ago
  What are the funding billboards for, anyway? They're an eyesore, and it's all paid by us EU taxpayers anyway. They should say "financed by you", or better yet, not exist to begin with.
  - 10mo ago

djoldman 10mo ago

Webcams! https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railway-lines/southern-line-vienna-villach/koralm-railway/webcams-koralm-railway https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railwa...

throwaway2037 10mo ago

First, this is a massive accomplishment. When I looked at the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Railway ... it looks like a multi-multi-multi-phase project. Hats off to making this work. Second, I noticed how long it took to build this tunnel: Koralm Tunnel -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koralm_Tunnel It is 33km, and it took from 2008 to 2025 to build it. That is a damn long time! The Toei Oedo line in Tokyo is 40+km and was built in about 10 years. My guess about the wild difference: The geoengineering of the Koralm Tunnel is way more complex, and/or the rock is much harder. Can anyone with experience in this area comment? I would like to learn more. I guess that most of central Tokyo is aluvial plains (Shanghai is similar), so you are basically digging through clay and sand -- easy stuff for modern tunnel boring machines.

nasmorn 10mo ago
It is very strange that countries like Austria, Japan or Switzerland have some of the best rail systems in the world even though their bridge and tunnel requirements are huge. In the US building rail on any terrain seems to be more expensive than basically anything one can build in Austria.
- kaon_2 10mo ago
  Not strange at all! If you want to go by car you must build even more tunnels. Mountainous regions favor rail just like urban areas do. Furthermore, 19th century investments into rail still pay off in mountainous regions, because once you build a railway bridge or tunnel, you are kind of dumb not to use it. In the USA competition from trucks or cars is much tougher.
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    Note the US has the number one freight rail system in the world by most measures (there are lots of ways to measure this depending on how you want to abuse the statistics). Some of this is Europe has better river routes to work with (I don't know Asia), but some of this is Europe has focused more on passengers to the point where freight is unable to get through forcing trucks.

apexalpha 10mo ago

I thought this was about the new base tunnel under the Alps and was very confused for a bit.

MadDemon 10mo ago
The Brenner base tunnel is still under construction.

flowerthoughts 10mo ago

Actually, the tunnel itself was only 17 years: 1998: Start of construction of the Koralm Railway 2008: Start of construction of the Koralm Tunnel 2018: Breakthrough Koralm Tunnel 2020: Final Koralm tunnel breakthrough 2025: This announcement (https://orf.at/stories/3414173/ https://orf.at/stories/3414173/ in German) https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railway-lines/southern-line-vienna-villach/koralm-railway/about-the-project https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railwa...

alephnerd 10mo ago
Given the terrain and the amount of tunneling needed, completing such a project in 17 years isn't that bad. Seems software neckbeards on HN are equally as guilty of underestimating the difficulty of other people's work like the managers they complain about.
- flowerthoughts 10mo ago
  Yeah, and the last five years has not been drilling, but installing. The last year has been testing and tweaking (accordingt to the ORF article.) Seems like a great project outcome. Mostly within budget, no political chaos due to delays (AFAICT) and allowing several months for testing before announcing it open.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
usr1106 10mo ago
Yeah, the submitted page misses the real news: Ordinary traffic will start tomorrow, Sunday.

DeathArrow 10mo ago

While staying within budget for infrastructure developments is no small achievement these days and I applaud them for it, 27 years seems a bit much.

tasuki 10mo ago

> Crossing the Koralpe massif more quickly and with more comfort. That’s what the future of train travel from Graz to Klagenfurt looks like. With the Koralm Railway, you will arrive at your destination even quicker. The fastest connection will shrink from three hours to just 45 minutes. There aren't any big mountains between Graz and Klagenfurt. It's an hour on the Autobahn. That it took three hours by train... well, they just had shitty railroad? Best of luck, Southern neighbors!

syberspace 10mo ago
There is, the Koralpe massif. Previously to get to Klagenfurt from Graz you first had to go north through a somewhat tight valley for about 50km before the train would turn to the south-west towards Klagenfurt, again tough alpine valleys, and with a lot of stops inbetween. The new route goes south/south-west immediatley, is very straight compared to the old route, and has at most 3 stops.
- tasuki 10mo ago
  > [...] and with a lot of stops inbetween. The new route [...] has at most 3 stops. I think this explains a lot. Adding a couple of stops adds a lot of time to the total!
febusravenga 10mo ago
> they just had shitty railroad The terrain is just hard railroad had do huge detour on this section Look at map: https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=15.0703419&y=46.7076432&z=11&ovl=3 https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=15.0703419&y=46.7076432&z=1... Passes in those mountains are only ~1200m above valley level (~1650 abs). Yeah, perfectly ok to run railroad there. Your autobahn climbs 600m on this section (to 1050m absolute) - it's way to high for railway to be effective.

buybackoff 10mo ago

Just yesterday B1M published an interesting video about the future longest tunnel between Lyon, France and Turin, Italy. It will be more than 50km, deeply below the Alps. The project has finally secured funding, from both countries and EU, and is on track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFrr-L_BcC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFrr-L_BcC4

sofixa 10mo ago
It would be brilliant. Currently the Paris-Milan train line is barely competitive with flying between the two; knocking off 2-3 hours from the trip would make it around 4 hours in total, which is very competitive with flying (1h30 flight, but both CDG and Malpensa are big airports far outside the city, with significant time wasted getting to them, through security, etc). And of course it would be massive for Lyon - Turin, and Lyon - Milan too, where flying wouldn't even make sense any more.
- ur-whale 10mo ago
  And now that Italy has built a tax haven for HNWI [1], the faster commute will IMO make business boom. https://nomoretax.eu/italy-a-new-tax-haven/ https://nomoretax.eu/italy-a-new-tax-haven/
seqastian 10mo ago
Another one between Italy, Austria and by extension Germany is scheduled for 2032 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
  Isn't Italy a little geologically unstable? I'd be a bit nervous, going through a long tunnel, in a region known for vulcanism and earthquakes.
  - AnimalMuppet 10mo ago

dachris 10mo ago

Its sister tunnel - the Semmering Base Tunnel [0] - is scheduled to be completed in 2030. These two combined greatly reduce the travel time from Vienna to Graz and Klagenfurt (combined 1h 15m time saving). You don't hear that much about great engineering projects today, yet it's still an incredible feat to build those. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Base_Tunnel

ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago
> You don't hear that much about great engineering projects today Here's a great engineering project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_test_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_test_tunnel
- MattRix 10mo ago
  is it though?
  - groestl 10mo ago
    I guess sarcasm.
    - ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago
      ;-)
- jimnotgym 10mo ago
  Serious question about hyperloop trains running in a vacuum. How do you cool the carriages?
  - sawjet 10mo ago
    The tunnels aren't perfect vacuums
    - 10mo ago

alberto_ol 10mo ago

English is not my language, is the headline grammatically correct?

groestl 10mo ago
Not by a long shot.
showerst 10mo ago
It's a little awkward, but what it's trying to communicate doesn't really work well in one sentence. As a native US English speaker, I would probably write something like "Austria opens the world's sixth longest railway tunnel: 27 year long project arrives on schedule and under budget." That's a long headline, though.

groestl 10mo ago

Booked a trip yesterday, without knowing this has happened. ~1h off my usual trip time, which I got accustomed to in the last two decades. It's extremely awesome!

sandworm101 10mo ago

Lol. And in north american train news, canada's newest rail line in only 10km long, was way over budget, years late, and is slower than jogging. >> A CBC Toronto reporter rode the entire 10.3-kilometre line from east to west Monday morning, finding it took roughly 55 minutes to complete. As a reference point, over 400 runners ran this year's Toronto Marathon 10-kilometre event in under 55 minutes https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/finch-west-lrt-first-monday-9.7006698 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/finch-west-lrt-first-...

jasona123 10mo ago
And yet the Eglinton Crosstown still isn't open... I'm so close to making a site that just lists every project that's started and finished in the entire time that thing has been "under construction".
- Ensorceled 10mo ago
  A friend of mine works beside one of the Eglinton line sites and called me a few years ago to tell me they were taking down the hoardings... because the hoardings had rotted and needed new plywood and studs.

hans_castorp 10mo ago

For those that can read German, here is a little article that explains some of the obstacles over time: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000299789/traum-vom-sueden-wie-der-koralmtunnel-nach-34-jahren-wirklichkeit-wurde https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000299789/traum-vom-sue...

contrarian1234 10mo ago

Austria is the only European country I've been to that doesn't have cheap affordable intercity buses. Seemingly none at all. It was kind of strange... Does anyone know why? The only options to get around was the expensive train system - and anyone I asked was bewildered why I would want to take a bus.. Maybe next time I should look in to carpooling or some other options. How do low income people get around typically? I need to go to attend a conference, but it's not cheap coming from Asia EDIT: Seems I was wrong! Sorry. There are buses, (maybe fewer than other countries?)

lxgr 10mo ago
Flixbus definitely exists in Austria, but people generally take the train, which is much faster and more comfortable. There are various discount membership plans available that sometimes pay for themselves after just one round-trip or even one-way ride, and on the most popular connections there's now a private operator competing with the state-owned railway. A yearly flat-rate ticket for intercity trains is also relatively affordable for EUR 1400 per year.
- contrarian1234 10mo ago
  Oh really? I took the Flixbus from the Czech Republic and is stopped near the border and then after that it was train only. Maybe I ended up in a weird spot then! I just checked and there are indeed buses in-country. Strange that I somehow couldn't find any then Thank you for the info!
  - lxgr 10mo ago
    There's definitely bus service (not just Flixbus, also Regiojet and probably others) between Vienna and Prague.
- jack_tripper 10mo ago
  >Flixbus definitely exists in Austria, but people generally take the train, which is much faster and more comfortable. Not always true. The Graz-Vienna(Airport) trip is often quicker by flixbus than by OBB train. Trains in Austria are quite slow , often travelling at the same speed as cars on the highway or often times even slower.

TheAtomic 10mo ago

A map, just put a &^%^$^#@$%! map showing the rail line on your web page. Somewhere. Anywhere!

erikvanoosten 10mo ago
Its one click further :) https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railway-lines/southern-line-vienna-villach/koralm-railway/about-the-project https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/en/projects-for-austria/railwa...
tacker2000 10mo ago
Here are 2 maps https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/de/geschaeftspartner/transportlogistic/koralmbahn https://infrastruktur.oebb.at/de/geschaeftspartner/transport... https://www.sn.at/panorama/oesterreich/koralmbahn-bringt-salzburg-schnellere-zuege-nach-graz-art-569994 https://www.sn.at/panorama/oesterreich/koralmbahn-bringt-sal...

mattcantstop 10mo ago

Interstate 70 in Colorado is very problematic. It is constantly backed up. Colorado needs to learn from this and get serious about rail for shipping and for human travel.

jeingham 10mo ago
I feel you man. Problem is that would be a major dollar infrastructure problem that would need federal dollars. With a deficit over 40T dollars and political wind blowing against more federal spending generally and Colorado not being a favored state at the moment I'd say the chances are slim of it happening in the next three years. It would be boffo if some liberal corporate billionaire put his shoulder against the project like that enough to inspire a combination of a Colorado bond issue, some state funding and support. The way California handled its high speed rail in Central valley here is not an inspiration I'll tell you that right now. What a fcuk-up and embarrassment that is. What were they thinking?
- bluGill 10mo ago
  IF Colorado did this all alone they could potentially avoid a lot of the high costs that result from getting federal dollars. Maybe - Federally funded projects tend to cost 4-7x would they would elsewhere in the world - but nobody really knows why and so it is questionable if Colorado could figure out how to build cheap. Still the potential is there. Colorado's costs would be a lot higher at 7x the cost with federal funding vs doing it all themselves for reasonable costs - but only if they solve all the issues the drive costs up. Note that I have no confidence Colorado will tackle the issues driving costs up. Several of the known factors are places where politically powerful people (from all sides so don't bring in class warfare) are increasing costs and they let you cut them off. There are a lot of unkonwen issues left after factoring the above, and it is likely they also have politically powerful people increasing costs.
- dmix 10mo ago
  > and political wind blowing against more federal spending generally Federal non-defense spending in the US is as high as ever (ignoring the brief COVID spike) https://www.cato.org/blog/century-federal-spending-1925-2025 https://www.cato.org/blog/century-federal-spending-1925-2025

davidu 10mo ago

It turns out, you can build new high speed railways. Take note California!

jeingham 10mo ago
Eh, not really.

upvotenow 10mo ago

[flagged]

PeterStuer 10mo ago

Looking forward to some nice cabride vids from this line. My favorite from this part of Europe is the Bernina Express across the alps from Switzerland to Italy. Definetly worth a slow tv watch if you love trains. (e.g. https://youtu.be/Mw9qiV7XlFs https://youtu.be/Mw9qiV7XlFs )

igogq425 10mo ago

This is the first time I've read anything in English about Kärnten and Steiermark. Styria and Carinthia are impressive names. It's as if the Roman Empire were still there.

tacker2000 10mo ago
Im sure you know about the Styrian Oak?
primes4all 10mo ago
Considering, both, that most of the austrian states are the successors of duchies that existed already more than 500 years ago in the HRE, and that their governors today are also jokingly called „princes“, your idea is not that far fetched.

f1codz 10mo ago

Can i please say something about the announcement itself. I marvel at its simplicity and focus on the outcomes & benefits. Especially its lack of trying to link it to a political party / person is very refreshing to see and i wish can be emulated in some of the more developing nations.

ITniggah 10mo ago

[flagged]

lcuff 10mo ago

I remember reading some time ago that there is a real difficulty running passenger trains and freight trains over the same rails. With freight, you can tolerate bumps at the rail-join points, and freight tends to create such bumps because the heavy loads push the rails slightly out of place. Also, freight routes should be limited to a 2% grade, whereas 4% can be tolerated for the lighter passenger cars. Have these problems been mitigated on the Koralm Railway? Anyone know how?

joushx 10mo ago
The rails are welded together (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_welding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_welding), so there are no joins.
- lcuff 10mo ago
  Interesting. I wonder how the expansion and contraction of the rails with changes in temperature is accommodated.

_jzlw 10mo ago

[flagged]