Christmas with a difference is being offered to visitors to the Hallein Salt Mine in the province of Salzburg. Instead of arriving on a sleigh Santa arrives on one of the giant wooden slides that leads into the massive Salzbergwerk Dürrnberg tunnel network, part of the underground salt mine located in the Dürrnberg plateau above […]
Outgoing People’s Party (ÖVP) parliament member (MP) Ferdinand Maier has suggested to let Austrians decide about the future of the various Austrian railway tunnel projects. The Social Democrats (SPÖ) of Chancellor Werner Faymann and Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger’s ÖVP decided to spend more than three billion Euros on the Semmering tunnel. Only last week, the […]
Decision-makers have defended the construction of the Semmering tunnel. Social Democratic (SPÖ) Traffic Minister Doris Bures praised the agreement between the provinces of Lower Austria and Styria, Federal Railways (ÖBB) and the state as an “important signal for future generations”. ÖBB boss Christian Kern pointed out that a train journey from Vienna to Graz would […]
The Austrian government coalition has decided to inject more than 30 billion Euros into Federal Railways (ÖBB). Werner Faymann’s Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the team of People’s Party (ÖVP) ministers agreed yesterday (Weds) to support the railway company with 33 billion Euros. The money will be invested in the coming years. The subsidisation is supposed […]
A famous steep sided river valley known as the Rappenlochschlucht in Austria is set to be reopened after a massive rockfall closed it in 2011. The Austrian town of Dornbirn has now agreed to invest between 300,000 and 500,000 Euros in the project to put a tunnel along the side of the river that is […]
Austrian women have taken their clothes off in protest against the building of a railway tunnel south of Vienna. Countryside protection organisation “Alliance for Nature” has bought out a scantily clad calendar in efforts to prevent the building of the Semmering base tunnel. The historical Semmering mountain railway was built in 1854 and since 1998 […]
Dozens of Austrian pilgrims had a narrow escape as their coach crashed on a motorway in Croatia.Local police announced today (Thurs) no one was injured when the vehicle ploughed into a fence erected alongside a motorway near Sestanovac yesterday.Officials told the Croatian Times online newspaper that the group consisting of 47 Austrians were […]
Vienna public transport agency Wiener Linien faces fresh pressure after an underground train got stuck in a tunnel for several minutes yesterday afternoon (Thurs).Newspapers reported today that the U2 line train stopped in the middle of a tunnel between the Volkstheater and Museumsquartier stations. It stood still following a power supply outage on the service, […]
A Vienna underground line came to a halt for two hours after an armed Egyptian man sat down on the rails yesterday (Thurs).Ahmed M. handed out leaflets at the U4 U-Bahn line Landstraße station which criticised authorities for not awarding him Austrian citizenship after having lived 10 years in the country. The 38-year-old then took […]
Passengers trapped in a crowded underground train for two hours in Vienna will receive nothing but tickets worth less than 30 Euros as compensation by the citys public transport agency.Answer Lang, a spokesman for Wiener Linien announced today (Thurs) that the company had decided to offer the eight-day rider tickets costing 28.80 Euros to the […]