Arlberg Railway

Thirty years after Ghega proved a railway could cross a mountain at the Semmering, Austria went and did the hard one.

The Arlbergbahn runs 136.7 kilometres from Innsbruck to Bludenz, over a summit at 1,311 metres, and it exists because the western province of Vorarlberg was otherwise cut off from the rest of the country by a wall of rock. Building started on 20 June 1880 and finished on 21 September 1884, under a planning director named Julius Lott.

Ninety-two men died doing it.

That number matters, and it is why this line reads differently from the Semmering. Nobody recorded what the Semmering cost in lives — the figure simply doesn't exist. The Arlberg's does. Ninety-two, in four years, mostly inside a ten-kilometre tunnel driven through a mountain with hand tools and blasting powder, in the dark, in the 1880s.

The tunnel is still the point of the whole thing. It opened at 10.22 km, single track, and was doubled later. Then — and this is a detail that tells you something about modern Austria — in 2001 they made it longer, to 10,650 metres, because St. Anton am Arlberg was moving its station for the World Ski Championships. A Victorian tunnel, extended to accommodate a downhill race.

The line's famous picture is the Trisanna bridge: a single arch thrown across a gorge, with the castle of Wiesberg on the hillside above it. Photograph it, by all means. But know what you are photographing — the bridge is from 1964. The 1884 original is gone, replaced on the same spot, and almost everything written about this line lets you assume otherwise. What survives from Lott's day is the setting, the alignment, and the tunnel.

Then the Alps got electrified — the tunnel in 1924, the ramps in 1925 — and the Arlbergbahn settled into what it still is: not a heritage line, not a tourist attraction, but the way west. Railjets run it. So do the ski trains, packed from December with people and their gear.

It is the workaday twin of the Semmering: less decorated, less celebrated, no UNESCO plaque — and considerably more brutal in what it cost. Ride them both, in that order, and you have the whole story of what it took to get Austria over its own mountains.

Innsbruck is a good place to start a railway journey — a city wedged into the Inn valley with mountains standing over the rooftops, close enough that you can see the snow from the platform.

The line goes west, up the Inn, and for a while it is easy: a wide valley, villages, farmland, the river alongside. Imst-Pitztal. Then the valley narrows and the character changes. The railway climbs onto a ledge above the water and stays there, rock overhead and green river below, and this stretch — the Inn gorge — is the loveliest part of the whole line and goes on for a satisfying length of time. Sit on the right leaving Innsbruck.

At Landeck-Zams the mountains take over properly, and shortly after comes the moment everyone waits for. The train swings out over the Trisanna gorge on a single steel arch, 87 metres above the bottom, with Schloss Wiesberg on the hill above it. It lasts a few seconds. It is on every postcard of this railway that has ever been printed — and, as above, the arch you are riding on was put there in 1964, not by Lott's men.

Then the climb. The western ramp works at up to 3.4 per cent — about 1 in 29, which is genuinely steep for a main line — and the train grinds up through St. Anton am Arlberg, which in winter is less a station than a mass migration of skis.

And then it goes dark for a long time.

The Arlberg Tunnel is 10.65 kilometres now and there is nothing whatever to see. But this is the part worth being awake for, because it is the whole reason the railway exists and it is where the ninety-two died. Four years of hand-drilling and blasting, from both ends, hoping to meet. They met. You cross their work in the time it takes to read this page, and then you are out the other side at Langen am Arlberg, in a different province.

Vorarlberg feels different immediately. The Klostertal drops away west towards Bludenz, the villages look subtly more Swiss than Tyrolean, the accent shifts, and the border is not far. This is what the tunnel was for: not a scenic route, but a country stitching its western end onto itself.

Bludenz at the bottom. About two and a half hours from Innsbruck.

Go in winter if you want to understand it. The Klostertal under snow — steep, white, avalanche-country, the line clinging to the side of it — explains in about thirty seconds why they went under the mountain instead of over, and why it cost what it cost.

Like the Semmering, this is a main line, not an excursion. You ride whatever ÖBB is running.

How it works:

Good to know:

• Sit on the right leaving Innsbruck for the Inn gorge and the Trisanna crossing. Left, coming the other way.
• The Trisanna bridge goes by fast. It is a few seconds, on a curve, shortly after Landeck-Zams. Have the camera ready or just look at it — the second is better.
• The regional trains are better than the Railjet for scenery: slower, more stops, and you can break the journey at Landeck or St. Anton.
• Innsbruck to St. Anton is the good half. If you don't need Bludenz, that's the ride: the gorge, the bridge, the climb, about ninety minutes.
• Winter is the season, and the problem. The line is at its most dramatic under snow, and it is also when the ski trains fill it — St. Anton is on this railway. Reserve if you're on a Railjet in season.
• Don't expect anything in the tunnel. Ten and a half kilometres of nothing to look at. It is still the most important part of the line.

There is nothing special to buy. The Arlbergbahn is an ordinary ÖBB main line, so an ordinary ticket rides it — Innsbruck to Bludenz for the whole crossing in about two and a half hours, or Innsbruck to St. Anton for the good half: the Inn gorge, the Trisanna bridge and the climb to the tunnel mouth in ninety minutes, without the ten kilometres of darkness. Eurail and Interrail are valid, and Railjet reservations are optional.

Two things worth planning. Reserve in ski season: from December, St. Anton fills these trains with people and equipment, and a Railjet without a reservation in February means standing. And the regional is the better ride — slower, more stops, and it lets you get off at Landeck or St. Anton and pick up a later one.

The Arlberg is a working line through two very different provinces, and the stops are the reason to break it.

One practical warning: the good places are spread thin. Innsbruck to Bludenz takes about two and a half hours, so getting off properly means a night somewhere rather than an afternoon — and between December and April, booking that night a long way ahead.

The Arlberg is two and a half hours end to end, so you don't have to sleep on it at all — but it runs between two very different places, and which end you pick changes the trip.

Innsbruck is the obvious base and the better city: a compact baroque old town with the Nordkette standing directly over it, a proper range of hotels from design places to student-priced guesthouses, and enough going on to justify a couple of nights either side of the ride. Everything is walkable from the Hauptbahnhof.

St. Anton am Arlberg, up at the tunnel mouth, is the opposite proposition. In winter it is one of the great Alpine ski towns and priced accordingly — book months out, and expect to pay. In summer the same hotels are cheap, half-empty and surrounded by superb walking, which is the version we'd recommend if the railway rather than the skiing is why you came.

Bludenz, at the Vorarlberg end, is an underrated place to stop: a real, lived-in old town rather than a resort, cheaper than either of the above, and sitting at the mouth of five valleys — so if you want to do something after the railway, this is the end to be at.

Two practical notes:

• Don't stay at Langen am Arlberg unless you have a specific reason. It's the tunnel mouth, and not much else.
• In ski season, everything on this line is expensive and full. December to April, the Arlberg is one of the busiest corners of Austria. If your trip is about the railway, come in September or October: the trains are empty, the Klostertal is turning, and the hotels will be glad to see you.

If you're doing the Semmering as well — and you should — note that they are at opposite ends of the country, about five hours apart by train. That is a perfectly good day's travel in Austria, and most of it is scenic too.