Westbahn

Westbahn may refer to:

Western Railway (Austria)

The Western Railway (German: Westbahn) is a two-track, partly four-track, electrified railway line in Austria that runs from Vienna to Salzburg via St. Pölten and Linz Hauptbahnhof and is one of the major lines of Austria. It was originally opened as the Empress Elisabeth Railway in 1858 (Vienna–Linz). The line is owned and operated by Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB).

Routes

The Western Railway consists of the double-track Old Western Railway (Alten Westbahn, line 1) and the double-track New Western Railway (Neuen Westbahn, line 30).

For operational reasons the Western Railway is supplemented by the suburban track (line 23) from Vienna Hütteldorf to Unter Purkersdorf and the relief track (line 3) from Pottenbrunn via St. Pölten to Prinzersdorf.

History

The line was opened from Vienna Westbahnhof to Linz on 15 December 1858 and was extended to Salzburg on 1 August 1860. The continuation to Munich was opened on 12 August 1860. The line was built by the k.k. privilegierte Kaiserin Elisabeth-Bahn ("Imperial and Royal privileged Empress Elisabeth Railway", KEB) company under Hermann Dietrich Lindheim. In addition to the Vienna–Salzburg line, it also built the Wels–Passau Railway (1861) and the St. Valentin–Summerau–České Budějovice line (1872).

Hanoverian Western Railway

The Hanoverian Western Railway was a line from the Löhne to Emden, built by the Royal Hanoverian State Railways in the mid-19th century in the west of the Kingdom of Hanover in the modern German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Route and construction

The development of Hanover’s western railways began in 1847 with the construction of the Hanover–Minden line. This line connected to the trunk line of the Cologne-Minden Railway Company from Cologne via Hamm.

The Hanoverian Western Railway branches off the Hamm–Minden line at Löhne station and runs along the valleys of the Else and the Hase south of the Wiehen Hills via Bünde and Melle to Osnabrück. As the next section from Osnabrück via Ibbenbüren to Rheine was located in the Prussian Province of Westphalia, it was built by the Prussian government and leased by the Royal Hanoverian State Railways. From Rheine, the line then runs along the Ems river to the north and through Salzbergen, Lingen, Meppen and Papenburg to Emden.