A Greener Hauptbahnhof Unveiled

On 9 Dec., the ÖBB’s Hauptbahnhof partially opens for regional train services, including the regional express trains to/from Bratislava. Five tracks and four platforms will be available as of now, and by 2015, the €1 billion infrastructure project will be completed and open for international train journeys, which are currently departing from Wien Meidling and Wien Westbahnhof. Meanwhile, ÖBB announced that this […]
All Change at Westbahnhof: The History of a Crossroads

On 14 Dec. 2009, the fabled Orient Express pulled into Vienna’s Westbahnhof for the last time, a victim of high-speed trains and cut-price airlines. In the months that followed, the station at the top of Mariahilferstraße was dramatically overhauled. Now as much a shopping centre as a railway station, it contains reminders of a past […]
From Südbahnhof To Hauptbahnhof
It was a cold winter day as I stepped through the partial ruins of what was one of the oldest Viennese train stations, the Südbahnhof/Ostbahnhof. What existed in front of me were only men operating clawed machine monsters, ripping apart the concrete and paving the way for something new: the Vienna Hauptbahnhof. I was with […]
South Station Bids Farewell
A swarm of rail enthusiasts in Vienna’s Südbahnhof crowded around tables strewn with second-hand clothing, outdated timetable books, and paper placards indicating train lines like “Wien Westbahnhof – Linz – Salzburg.” A row of familiar blue signs, which once adorned stations in unfamiliar places like Aspang and Hartberg, lined a nearby wall like snowboards waiting […]