A new rail line and tunnel in Austria has opened the way for direct no-change high-speed rail service between Vienna and Trieste, cutting the time from 9 hours and 18 minutes to just over 6 and a half hours.
The cut is made possible by Austria’s opening of the new Koralm line and tunnel between Graz and Klagenfurt; almost all of the speed improvement comes from that stretch. The first train on the route operated by Austrian rail operator ÖBB’s Railjet trains, leaves Vienna at 6:53 a.m. The return trip leaves Trieste at 2:22 pm.
The route linking the two cities was once one of Austria’s most important, linking the capital to its only major seaport, which it lost to Italy in the aftermath of World War I. The route followed by the new train is a bit to the west of the original Transalpina route opened in 1857, traveling over the challenging Semmering Pass and reaching Trieste through Gorizia. That route may at some point be revived, as a tunnel is now being built at Semmering to replace the high crossing over the pass.
