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Koralm Railway

infrastruktur.oebb.at

201–206 of 206 posts

Re: Koralm Railway

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, we do, e.g. flixbus. and some others I think. Haven't been traveling for a while by bus around Austria. Apples/Oranges probably, but I do know vienna bratislava has like 3-4 different companies operating the same route with similar busses at similar times with different prices. And talking about apples/oranges, let me add apples/bananas: Vienna to Budapest by train cost a lot when booking via öbb. And not a lot…

Yep, single tickets on Austrian ÖBB is not cheap at all without subscriptions or discounts. Prices are good only if you use it regularly as a commuter via a yearly subscription (Klimaticket), but for one off trips, prices are more expensive than flying.

That is the point! Austria is on the verge of overtourism, it's a conscious political decision in this case to tax transport of tourists highly and allow the population cheap subscription plans.

No voter in Austria would want it any other way.

Re: Koralm Railway

#202

I really waited for this since I was a child. It’s fascinating to see it actually be here.

Me too! But why did you need a quick connection between Klagenfurt and Graz as a child? I would have rather longed for a high speed train between Hermagor and Villach ;-)

I would have never expected to read about Hermagor in an HN thread. Greetings from the Werbutz Alm!

Re: Koralm Railway

#203
post #198

I remember reading some time ago that there is a real difficulty running passenger trains and freight trains over the same rails. With freight, you can tolerate bumps at the rail-join points, and freight tends to create such bumps because the heavy loads push the rails slightly out of place. Also, freight routes should be limited to a 2% grade, whereas 4% can be tolerated for the lighter passenger cars. Have these pr…

The rails are welded together (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_welding), so there are no joins.

Re: Koralm Railway

#204
post #110
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austria tends to have pretty rigorous bean-counters overseeing budgets like this, especially when it comes to public-good services such as railway. It is one of the things that makes living here so .. infuriating at times .. but also .. rewarding.

Interesting. In UK, I think the big construction companies would hire these bean-counters then use them to out-manoeuvre the ones that are hired to replace them. Quickly nobody knows what a reasonable price is, and the govmnt has to go with choice of one out of two overpriced bids. (I have no direct experience, this is just what it looks like from an observers perspective)

Chalk it up to the differences between socialist-adjacent and capitalist-adjacent societies, I guess ...

Re: Koralm Railway

#206
post #203
post #198

I remember reading some time ago that there is a real difficulty running passenger trains and freight trains over the same rails. With freight, you can tolerate bumps at the rail-join points, and freight tends to create such bumps because the heavy loads push the rails slightly out of place. Also, freight routes should be limited to a 2% grade, whereas 4% can be tolerated for the lighter passenger cars. Have these pr…

The rails are welded together ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_welding ), so there are no joins.

Interesting. I wonder how the expansion and contraction of the rails with changes in temperature is accommodated.
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