Rajoice and Sing at Semmering (1)

The Train's The Thing At Semmering

The Semmering railway was constructed between 1848 and 1854. The construction features 14 tunnels (among them the 1,431 m summit tunnel), 16 viaducts (several two-storey) ...

... and over 100 stone arch bridges and 11 small iron bridges. The stations and the buildings for the supervisors were often built directly from the waste rock dug out when making the tunnels.

Across an overall track length of 41 km the Semmering railway overcomes an altitude difference of 460 m; on 60% of its length the gradient is equivalent to a 1 metre difference in altitude on a 40 m route distance.

16% of the line exhibits a curvature radius of only 190 m.

Even while being built, the Semmering railway was perceived as an effort of "landscape gardening" ...

... i.e. it attempted a harmonious combination of technology and nature. Numerous hotels and mansions are witnesses of this epoch. 

A trip on the Semmering railway, which is in full use 160 years after its building, still impresses the traveller.

In 1998 the Semmering railway was added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage sites.

So, fbb, verschütte die Bohnen - where is it?

It is 95 autobahn kilometres from Vienna (Wien) on the E59.

Until the railway arrived, Semmering was a non event; Early pictures show a rural station with horse and cart transport awaiting the trains.

But the railway brought hyper expansion to this little isolated community. It brought summer holidays ...

... and winter sports.

And, to cater for the jolly holiday makers, along came some huge hotels ...

... at least one of which is closed and bereft of visitors and their attentive staff.

Whether the railway has maintained its supremacy as the travel mode of choice is doubtful as the E59 now caters for the motoring fraternity.

Here is the train route from Wien.

Note the wiggles to conquer the mountainous area round Semmering. The curvatious nature of the route on the approaches to Semmering is shown to advantage on this rail only map.

the station is a few road wiggles away from the village centre ...

... with station at the top and village at the bottom of the aerial view above. Basically everything is a wiggle away from the village ...

... and the station is eschewed by Streetview, so fbb can only peer across from the nearest wiggle. Take note of the tower bottom left below.

Here is a better view showing more of the appurtenances hidden below fbb's viewing wiggle ...

... where the tower (ex signal box?) is seen next to the blue carriage.

The preserved blue and white is part of a small railway museum at the station.

The basic train service consists of a two-hourly all stops "local" between Wien and Graz with an hourly "intercity" (it isn't called that) as shown on table 500.

fbb guesses that the longer distance trains are traditionally loco hauled ...

... and the stoppers are MUs.

But Railjet is the most recent long distance stock on the route.

But it is probably not quite as simple as that. More research needed!

So, tomorrow, a bit more about trains, a glimpse at the buses and, inevitably, a look at cable car transport. There will be a bit of skiing as well.

Doing It The Hard Way

Back in the days of fbb's youth, railway modellers were very much engineers in miniature. In OO gauge there were ready-to-run trains from the likes of Hornby, Triang and Trix and some specialist manufacturers. 

Plastic kits began to appear (Airfix and Kitmaster) and Anbrico made metal kits, as did Wills Finecast. But in O gauge, things were much harder.

One manufacturer of coach kits was CCW.

The coach bodies were made of wood ...

... and, as supplied, the chassis was fairly crude.

There was no glazing, no lightning and very little interior detail.

A dedicated modeller would expect to do all the upgrade work from his own resources.

Now you can buy ready-to-run fully detailed O gauge coaches.

They cost a bit more than CCW, though.

 8 Days to Go 

 Next Semmering blog : Thurs 26th Sept