Construction work in the Tauern tunnel: rail connections to Salzburg and Innsbruck affected

Construction work in the Tauern tunnel: rail connections to Salzburg and Innsbruck affected

From November 18, 2024, there will be a significant change in the accessibility of Salzburg for travelers from Lienz. Due to extensive construction work, the Tauern tunnel, a significant part of the railway line between Böckstein in Salzburg and Mallnitz in Carinthia, will be closed for about eight months. This means that the connection between Lienz and Salzburg is interrupted via the rail until July 2025. Against a similar background, the rail connection to Innsbruck will also no longer be possible from December 15, since construction measures are due in South Tyrol in the Puster Valley.

The Tauern tunnel itself has an impressive length of 8,371 meters and was put into operation in 1909. Since his last major update in 2004, he has not gone through comprehensive renovation work. However, modernizations are now necessary to bring the safety and performance of the tunnel to the latest state of the art. The construction work requires a complete lock of the route, since a single -in -law lock cannot be carried out for structural reasons.

planned construction work and rail replacement traffic

The construction work includes several phases, with the first phase of November 2024 to July 2025. The second phase for modernizing the southern portal is already being planned for the first half of 2027. In the meantime, travelers will have the opportunity to take advantage of a rail replacement traffic. From November 18, an hourly bus traffic between Salzburg and Carinthia will be offered, which runs without intermediate stops between Bischofshofen and Spittal an der Drau. In traffic jams, the bus line will use the reserved track on the highway to avoid delays as far as possible, a procedure that has already proven itself in the previous year, as ÖBB confirms.

For the Spittal-Millstättersee railway line to Lienz, the timetable of the ÖBB remains unchanged. Travelers can call up information about the current timetable on the ÖBB website, via the hotline 05-1717 or the Mobil-App Scotty to find out about possible changes and rail replacement traffic. The current situation shows how important it is to continuously modernize the infrastructure in order to ensure safe and reliable transport. Further details about the upcoming changes can