Austrian Southern Railway
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The Austrian Southern Railway (German Österreichische Südbahn or just Südbahn) was an Austrian railway company established in 1841. It was the main railway company in the Austrian Empire (later Austria-Hungary) operating train services between Vienna and Trieste until 1923.
Today, the term Südbahn is still used to refer to the railway lines which were formerly operated by it: from Vienna via Bruck an der Mur, Klagenfurt and Villach into Italy (Tarvisio), and the branch from Bruck into Graz and Slovenia.
History
The railway company was established to create train services between the capital city of Vienna and the busy Adriatic sea port city of Trieste in order to meet trade demands in the upcoming age of industrialization.
Costruction began in 1839 and the first section between Vienna and Gloggnitz was completed by the private Wien-Gloggnitzer Eisenbahn Gesellschaft in 1842. It followed the costruction of the section from Mürzzuschlag via Graz and Ljubljana to Trieste, completed by the Imperial government in 1857. The two lines were connected by the Semmering Railway, when the railway over the Semmering mountain pass was built according to construction plans by Carl Ritter von Ghega between 1848 and 1854.
In 1858 all lines were sold to the private Südbahn Gesellschaft, which constructed another line from Maribor via Klagenfurt, Villach and Lienz to Franzensfest. The Austrian Southern Railway lifted trade to and from Trieste manyfold. It lifted Austria-Hungary's international sea trade and established Trieste as the main sea port of all Southern and Eastern Central Europe (Lloyd Triestino). Trieste became the Empire's fourth largest city after Vienna, Budapest and Prague and the railway had substantial influence in developing tourism along the surrounding Adriatic coasts which made Trieste the center of the so called Austrian Riviera.
After World War I Trieste felt to Italy in 1921 and in 1923 the remaining Austrian part of the company was nationalized. During World War II the Vienna South Station was damaged and rebuilt only in 1956, while Vienna East Station was integrated into it.
During the Cold War trade between Vienna and Trieste was mainly run through Tarvisio in Italy which tracks had been equipped with electric power by 1963; the same for the branch from Vienna into Graz and Yugoslavia by 1966.
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