Karwendel Bridge Innsbruck

In 1830, the world’s first public railway line for passenger traffic, operated by a steam locomotive, was put into service between Liverpool and Manchester. Shortly thereafter, this new means of transport rapidly spread across the entire continent. Until then, travel had been expensive, long, and arduous—undertaken by carriage, on horseback, or on foot—something that hardly anyone did at all, and certainly not with pleasure. Innsbruck’s mayor, Joseph Valentin Maurer (1797–1843), recognized the importance of the railway as an opportunity for the Alpine region at an early stage. In 1836, he advocated the construction of a railway line in order to make the beautiful but hard-to-reach region accessible to as broad and affluent a public as possible and to re-establish Innsbruck as a European transport hub during economically difficult times for the city. The first practical pioneer of railway transport in Tyrol was Alois von Negrelli (1799–1858). At the end of the 1830s, when the first railway lines of the Danube Monarchy were being put into operation in the eastern parts of the empire, he presented an “Expert Report on the Route of a Railway from Innsbruck via Kufstein to the Royal Bavarian Border at the Otto Chapel near Kiefersfelden.” Negrelli, later one of the many intellectual fathers of the Suez Canal, had served in his youth in the Imperial and Royal Building Directorate in Innsbruck and knew the city well. His report already contained sketches and a cost estimate. As a location for the main railway station, he had proposed the area around the Triumphal Arch and the Hofgarten. In a letter, he expressed himself about the railway line through his former home city as follows:

"...I also hear with the deepest sympathy that the railway from Innsbruck to Kufstein is being taken seriously, as the Laage is very suitable for this and the area along the Inn is so rich in natural products and so populated that I cannot doubt its success, nor will I fail to take an active part in it myself and through my business friends when it comes to the purchase of shares. You have no idea of the new life that such an endeavour will awaken in the other side..."

Friedrich List (1789–1846), known as the father of the German railway, proposed a railway connection from the northern German Hanseatic cities through Tyrol to the Italian Adriatic. The intellectual liberal economist and advocate of the largest possible customs union in Central Europe saw the expansion of the railway network as the key to economic prosperity. On the Austrian side, Carl Ritter von Ghega (1802–1860) inherited overall responsibility for the railway project within the vast Habsburg Empire after Negrelli’s early death. List did not live to see his dream of a meaningfully connected Central European economic area fulfilled; in despair over the conservative political situation in the German states, he shot himself in 1846 on Tyrolean soil in Kufstein. Five years later, Austria and Bavaria declared their intention in a treaty to build a railway line to the Tyrolean capital. In May 1855, construction began on what was then the largest building site Innsbruck had ever witnessed. The station area was created between Museumstraße, Pradl, and Wilten. The station forecourt soon became one of the new centers of the city. Modern hotels were no longer located in the old town but here. To the east, the tracks led out of the city over newly constructed viaducts. On November 24, 1858, after only three years of construction, the railway line between Innsbruck and Kufstein—and onward via Rosenheim to Munich—was opened. The line was ahead of its time. Unlike the rest of the railway network, which was only privatized in 1860, it was opened as a private railway from the outset, operated by the previously established Imperial and Royal Privileged Southern State, Lombardian, Venetian, and Central Italian Railway Company. This move allowed the expensive construction to be kept out of Austria’s perpetually strained state budget. With this opening toward the eastern parts of the monarchy, especially Munich, the first step toward the modernization of Tyrol had been taken. Goods and passengers could now be transported quickly and comfortably between Bavaria and the Alps. In South Tyrol, the first trains ran between Verona and Trento in the spring of 1859.

The north–south corridor, however, initially remained incomplete. Serious considerations for the Brenner Railway began in 1847. Conflicts south of the Brenner Pass and the economic necessity of connecting the two parts of the region led, in 1854, to the establishment of the Permanent Central Fortification Commission. After Austria’s loss of Lombardy in the war with France and Sardinia-Piedmont in 1859, the project was delayed due to political instability in northern Italy. In 1860, the Imperial and Royal Privileged Southern State, Lombardian, Venetian, and Central Italian Railway Company was reorganized as the Imperial and Royal Privileged Southern Railway Company in order to begin detailed planning. The following year, the mastermind behind this outstanding infrastructure project, engineer Carl von Etzel (1812–1865), began surveying the terrain and drawing up concrete plans for the railway line. The planners were instructed by the private investors to keep costs as low as possible and to avoid large viaducts and bridges. Contrary to Ghega’s earlier considerations of mitigating the gradient by starting the line in Hall, Etzel developed a plan that included Innsbruck. Together with his construction manager Achilles Thommen, he selected the Sill Gorge as the best route. This not only saved seven kilometers of track and considerable expense but also secured Innsbruck’s status as a key transport hub. The alpine terrain, landslides, snowstorms, and floods posed major challenges for the builders. River courses had to be diverted, rocks blasted, earthworks excavated, and retaining walls built to control nature. The greatest difficulties, however, were caused by the war in Italy that broke out in 1866. Particularly patriotic German-speaking workers refused to work alongside the “enemy.” Fourteen thousand Italian-speaking workers had to be dismissed before construction could continue. Nevertheless, the highest regular railway line in the world at the time, with its 22 tunnels blasted out of rock, was completed in a remarkably short period. How many men lost their health or lives during the construction of the Brenner Railway is unknown.

The opening ceremony was remarkably understated. Many people were uncertain about the new technology. Economic sectors such as horse-drawn freight services and post stations along the Brenner route faced decline, as had already been seen with the disappearance of rafting after the opening of the railway to the lower Inn valley. Even during construction, farmers had protested, fearing the import of agricultural goods and the resulting loss of income. As with the construction phase, no grand celebration was held. Due to the execution of Archduke Maximilian of Mexico, the brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I, Austria was in a state of mourning. Instead of a priestly blessing and festive inauguration, the Southern Railway Company donated 6,000 gulden to the poor fund. Even the Innsbrucker Nachrichten did not mention the revolution in transportation, apart from reporting on the last express carriage over the Brenner and publishing the railway timetable.

(The last express coach). Yesterday evening at half past seven the last express coach to South Tyrol departed from here. The oldest postilion in Innsbruck was driving the horses, his hat was fluttered with mourning, and the carriage was decorated with branches of weeping willows for the last journey. Two marksmen travelling to Matrei were the only passengers to pay their last respects to the express coach. In the last days of 1797, the beautiful, otherwise so lively and now deserted road was conspicuously dead.

Until the opening of the railway line over the Brenner Pass on 24 August 1867, Innsbruck was a terminus station of regional importance. The new, spectacular Brenner railway across the Alps connected the northern and southern parts of the country as well as Germany and Italy. The new Brenner road had already opened the year before. The Alps had lost their divisive character and their terror for transit, at least a little. While an estimated 20,000 people crossed the Brenner in 1865, three years later in the first full year of operation of the railway line there were around ten times as many. In addition, a whole flood of goods found their way across the new north-south axis, boosting trade and consumption.

The second alpine obstacle that had to be overcome for territorial unity was the Arlberg. Initial plans for a railway line connecting the Lake Constance region with the rest of the Danube Monarchy existed as early as 1847, but the project was repeatedly postponed. In 1871, export bans on food due to the Franco‑Prussian War led to famine in Vorarlberg, because supplies could not be transported quickly enough from the eastern parts of the vast empire to the far west. The economic crisis of 1873 delayed construction yet again. Only seven years later did parliament decide to realize the railway line. In the same year, complex construction work began east and west of the Arlberg massif. A total of 38 mountain streams and 54 avalanche-prone zones had to be secured with 3,100 structures under precarious alpine weather conditions. The most remarkable achievement was the ten-kilometer-long tunnel carrying two tracks. On June 30, 1883, the last transport of mail by horse-drawn carriage departed from Innsbruck to Landeck in a ceremonially mournful setting. The very next day, the railway took over this service. With the opening of the railway from Innsbruck to Landeck and the final completion of the Arlberg Railway to Bludenz in 1884—including the breakthrough of the Arlberg tunnel—Innsbruck was once again definitively established as a transport hub between Germany and Italy, France, Switzerland, and Vienna. In 1904 the Stubai Valley Railway, and in 1912 the Mittenwald Railway, were opened. Both projects were planned by Josef Riehl (1842–1917).

For a large part of the population, the railway was the most directly perceptible sign of progress. The railway viaducts, built from Hötting breccia quarried nearby, formed a physical and visible boundary to the east of the city toward Pradl. However, the railway did not change the region only from a technical perspective—it brought immense social transformation. Workers, students, soldiers, and tourists streamed into the city in large numbers, bringing new ways of life and ideas with them. Josef Leitgeb described this transformation in his novel The Untouched Year as follows:

“Even then, the railway had already brought many newcomers to Wilten. They lived in the new tall buildings that were springing up everywhere on land where grain had grown for centuries. Yet they were still perceived as outsiders; their Czech, Slovenian, and Hungarian names did not fit into the familiar sounds. They wore cheap ready-made clothing bought on installment, avoided church services, and instead attended meetings where the established citizens felt out of place. Seen clearly, they were quiet, hardworking, thrifty people who had simply brought different ways of life from the large cities and the lowlands. Anyone who looked at them askance could claim no other justification than that they did not want spectators for their own comfort. Nevertheless, the rejection of newcomers by the locals was still clearly palpable at the time; the father once heard a sermon in which the priest assured that all people could attain eternal salvation—‘even robbers and murderers, yes, even railwaymen.’”

The Federal Railway Directorate of the Imperial and Royal General Directorate of the Austrian State Railways in Innsbruck was one of only three directorates in Cisleithania. New social classes emerged as a result of the railway as an employer. People from all strata of society were needed to keep railway operations running. Workers and craftsmen could experience social advancement within the railway, similar to opportunities in state administration or the military. New professions such as track keeper, conductor, stoker, or locomotive driver emerged. Working for the railway carried a certain prestige. Not only was one part of the most modern industry of the time; titles and uniforms turned employees and workers into figures of respect. By 1870, Innsbruck’s population had grown from 12,000 to 17,000, largely due to the economic impulses generated by the railway. Local producers benefited from the ability to import and export goods quickly and at low cost. The labor market changed. Before the railway lines were opened, nine out of ten Tyroleans worked in agriculture; after the opening of the Brenner Railway, this figure dropped to below 70%. The new mode of transport contributed to social democratization and the rise of a bourgeois society. Not only wealthy tourists but also ordinary subjects—those who did not belong to the upper class—could now take excursions into the surrounding area. New foods altered people’s diets. The first department stores appeared with the arrival of consumer goods that had previously been unavailable. The appearance of Innsbruck’s inhabitants changed with new, fashionable clothing that became affordable for many for the first time. Not everyone welcomed this development. Shipping on the Inn River, previously an important transport route, almost immediately came to a standstill. The already weakened lower nobility and particularly strict clergy feared the collapse of local agriculture and a final moral decline due to the presence of strangers in the city.

The railway was worth its weight in gold for tourism. It was now possible to reach the remote and exotic mountain world of the Tyrolean Alps. Health resorts such as Igls and entire valleys such as the Stubaital, as well as Innsbruck city transport, benefited from the development of the railway. 1904 years later, the Stubai Valley Railway was the first Austrian railway with alternating current to connect the side valley with the capital. On 24 December 1904, 780,000 crowns, the equivalent of around 6 million euros, were subscribed as capital stock for tram line 1. In the summer of the following year, the line connected the new districts of Pradl and Wilten with Saggen and the city centre. Three years later, Line 3 opened the next inner-city public transport connection, which only ran to the remote village in 1942 after Amras was connected to Innsbruck.

The railway was also of great importance to the military. As early as 1866, at the Battle of Königgrätz between Austria and Prussia, it was clear how important troop transport would be in the future. Until 1918, Austria was a huge empire that stretched from Vorarlberg and Tyrol in the south-west to Galicia, an area in what is now Poland, and Ukraine in the east. The Brenner Railway was needed to reinforce the turbulent southern border with its new neighbour, the Kingdom of Italy. Tyrolean soldiers were also deployed in Galicia during the first years of the First World War until Italy declared war on Austria. When the front line was opened up in South Tyrol, the railway was important for moving troops quickly from the east of the empire to the southern front.

Carl von Etzel, who did not live to see the opening of the Brenner railway, is commemorated today by Ing.-Etzel-Straße in Saggen along the railway viaducts. Josef Riehl is commemorated by Dr.-Ing.-Riehl-Straße in Wilten near the Westbahnhof railway station. There is also a street dedicated to Achilles Thommen. As a walker or cyclist, you can cross the Karwendel Bridge in the Höttinger Au one floor below the Karwendel railway and admire the steel framework. You can get a good impression of the golden age of the railway by visiting the ÖBB administration building in Saggen or the listed Westbahnhof railway station in Wilten. In the viaduct arches in Saggen, you can enjoy Innsbruck's nightlife in one of the many pubs covered by history.