New high-speed rail link spanning two European destinations opens

Passengers will travel between Vienna and Trieste in less than seven hours

The Railjet connection between Vienna and Trieste will take six hours and 38 minutes (ÖBB / Harald Eisenberger)

A new high-speed rail link connecting Vienna and Trieste will cut three hours off journeys between Austria and Italy.

From 14 December, the new daily service, operated by Austrian rail operator ÖBB’s Railjet trains, will link Vienna and northeast Italy in less than seven hours.

The connection between Vienna and Trieste will take six hours and 38 minutes, instead of the original nine-hour 18-minute-long journey.

Trains will depart daily from Vienna Central Station at 6.53am, arriving in Trieste at 1.31pm.

The link follows the opening of the 130-kilometre-long Koralm Railway, connecting Graz and Klagenfurt on Sunday, which cuts through the new Koralm Tunnel in Austria’s Koralpe mountains.

The route will now run with stops in Graz, Klagenfurt, Villach, Udine, and Grado for “faster travel options between the Adriatic coast and the capital city”.

Railjet passengers will also be able to reach Venice in around seven hours – 30 minutes quicker than the original travel time.

Kurt Bauer, head of ÖBB long-distance passenger services, said: “With the new timetable starting December 14, the opening of the Koralm Railway marks the beginning of a new era in rail travel. We are not only increasing the number of services on the rail network, but also significantly reducing travel times: Trieste can be reached from Vienna in just 6 hours and 38 minutes, bringing Italy and Austria even closer together.

“I am very pleased that we have taken an important step towards strengthening climate-friendly mobility and connecting important regions even faster.”

The ÖBB train service has also introduced a half-hourly service between Vienna and Graz as part of the new timetable. This will increase daily connections to 33 from 18, with 29 journeys per day from Graz to Klagenfurt instead of the previous eight by bus, and 26 links from Vienna to Klagenfurt up from a previous 10.

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