Come 2014 at the latest, Vienna will no longer be the dreaded bottleneck of the European railway network. By then, the new Vienna Central Station will offer fast connections on Central Europe’s three major railway corridors. On the premises of the former South and East Stations, instead of the previous terminal stations which were highly obstructive to transit traffic, a modern through station is being constructed, enabling trips from the Black Sea and Adriatic Sea to the Baltic Sea without the need to transfer. ÖBB is investing 220 million EUR in the station facility alone, while a total of two billion EUR will go towards the construction of the new residential and office district as well as the shopping centre on the land surrounding the station. These are important investments for both the rail system and the city: With the new Vienna Central Station, the federal capital will not only receive a new, architecturally sophisticated gateway into the city, but also one of Europe’s most frequented railway hubs. After all, Vienna is where three important trans-European railway lines (TEN) meet. TEN 17 will connect Paris and Bratislava, TEN 22 runs from Athens and Constanza by the Black Sea via Budapest and Vienna to Dresden and Nuremberg, and TEN 23 connects Gdansk and Vienna as well as - once the expansion of the Koralm railway line is completed - Trieste, Venice and Bologna.

High-Capacity Railway Station for Europe

Every day, 1,000 international and domestic trains will stop at the Vienna Central Station, and approximately 145,000 passengers will arrive or depart from here. For passengers, the new Central Station brings additional travel comfort thanks to easier transfers. By closing this gap, the European capitals will move closer together and borders will disappear. The train trip from Salzburg to Budapest will be shortened to five hours in the future; one hour less than before. And in regional traffic, come 2014, passengers will be able to ride the municipal railway from St. Pölten to Wr. Neustadt and from Eisenstadt to Hollabrunn without having to transfer. Vienna Mayor Michael Häupl: “With this project, we are laying the foundation for the city’s further development into a multifaceted economic centre for the Central and Eastern European area. The second positive effect is the enormous upgrade this represents for the entire expansion area. At this location, where by 2014 the major European railway lines will be linked to the city’s transport network, a new, premium district will emerge, with plenty of space for working and living.”

A New District for Vienna

The new district is being developed at full speed. Demolition of the old South Station began on December 13, 2009; the East Station will follow in 2010. Demolition of the former freight and logistics facilities on the premises of the former freight train station is as good as completed. In 2011, construction of the residential buildings on the Central Station premises will begin on the side facing the 10th district. Between the streets of Sonnwendgasse, Ostbahnstraße and Gudrunstraße, approximately 5,000 apartments for 13,000 people will be created by 2014, which will be built around an eight hectare park. A local school campus will make the area even more attractive as a residential location. “Construction of the first apartments and offices on the 59 hectare area surrounding the Central Station will begin in 2011,” says Rudi Schicker, Vienna’s City Councillor for Traffic and Urban Planning. Directly at the railway station, a shopping and recreational area with 100 shops and restaurants will be built, and there are also plans for a banking and office centre along Gürtel Street, which will be marked by two prominent towers next to the station building. In the tower located south of the station, ÖBB will establish their new headquarters with workspace for 4,500 employees. The new 24-storey ÖBB headquarters will also be a gateway to the district of Favoriten. Via the spacious front plaza, people will be able to directly access Favoritenstraße from the railway station. Claus Stadler, Director of ÖBB Immobilienmanagement GmbH.: “Of course it suggested itself that the new group headquarters will be built on the premises of the Central Station that are currently under development. The location of the group’s headquarters also has a symbolic meaning and stands for the entire organization, just like the new Central Station itself. It rings in a modern era of railway traffic.” The ÖBB headquarters are scheduled to be completed at the same time as the new station building, the residential projects of the City of Vienna, a part of the recreational park grounds, and the other large group headquarters on the northern part of the premises along Wiedner Gürtel Street, which will belong to Erste Group. All in all, multiple office buildings are planned to be built along Wiedner Gürtel Street, offering 550,000 square metres for approximately 20,000 new workspaces.

Comprehensive Metro Connection

Unlike the old South Station, the new Central Station will be equipped with direct metro connections. The U1 metro line can be accessed via a new underground passage and in the southern part of the premises, a new station is planned for the U2 metro line, which will also extend to the Central Station by the time construction is completed. This way, the U2 line will be linking two different points to the important railway connections to Bratislava: the Central Station, as well as the planned new Flugfeld train station in aspern Urban Lakeside. The two metropolises of Vienna and Bratislava with a total of 2.7 million inhabitants are growing ever closer in terms of transportation, making them even more attractive as a business location for internationally operating companies. During the construction phase, the Meidling train station, which was also renovated completely to the tune of 63 million EUR and opened in November of 2009, will serve as the terminal station for all trains on the southern railway line, as well as a stop for airport buses. For trains arriving into Vienna from the East, a temporary station will be built at the east end of the BahnhofCity area.

New Life in Wien Mitte

Another railway station construction project is also going ahead at full speed in the federal capital. At Wien Mitte, with 130,000 square metres of gross floor space currently the largest inner-city development area in Vienna, the complex foundation work, which had to be conducted during uninterrupted railway operations, has been completed. After all, 650 trains daily run the route from Meidling to Floridsdorf, and the Landstraße train station serves approximately 100,000 passengers every day. On roughly 3,200 cornerstones, a one to two metres thick concrete slab is being built, on which buildings will be erected. In 2010, construction above ground level will begin, including the “Golden Bar”, the 70 metre high, 17-storey centrepiece of the centre for offices, shopping and dining beside the Viennese City Park. By 2012, surface construction is scheduled to be completed, at which point a seven story building made completely from glass will rise towards Landstraße in a U-shape and be open-ended towards Marxergasse. They will surround a glass-covered hall, which will house a three-storey shopping centre. And from the centre of the U, the two office towers will rise into the sky, the upper stories of which will offer views as far as the mountains of the Vienna Woods.

BahnhofCity in the West

On the premises of the Vienna West Station, there is bulldozing and construction going on since the fall of 2008. Underneath the heritage-protected station concourse of the old West Station, a completely new underground shopping centre with approximately 17,000 square metres of retail space is being built. Furthermore, to the left and right of the station concourse, a hotel with 440 rooms is being erected as well as approximately 13,000 square metres of office space. The project is marketed by the international market leader in shopping centres, ECE, who has rented out over 40 percent of the available retail space already – two-and-a-half years before project completion. Above all, ECE Manager Jörg-Michael Zimmermann is targeting name-brand stores that are not yet represented at the nearby shopping street of Mariahilfer Straße. Zimmermann: “The demand for retail space on the Innere Mariahilfer Straße market is far greater than the available supply.” The high customer frequency is also a true asset for the planned shopping centre, according to Zimmermann: Besides the approximately 43,000 rail travellers, another 70,000 people are using the West Station daily as a transfer point between the U3 and U6 metro lines.

Expansion of the TEN Lines

In addition to the railway stations, ÖBB will also have invested a total of 13.9 billion EUR in the expansion and modernization of the domestic railway network by 2014. Centrepiece of this is the upgrade of the Salzburg-Vienna connector to a high-performance route, complemented by an end-to-end four-track expansion between Vienna and Wels. In 2012, the section between Vienna and St. Pölten (a newly built route through the Vienna Woods) and the gap closure between Ybbs and Amstetten are scheduled to be completed. This means that as of 2012, the Vienna-Linz route can run on four tracks almost end-to-end. In 2011, the new construction of the St. Pölten railway station, which is currently underway, should also be completed. The same applies to the Lainz Tunnel, built for a total of 1.3 billion EUR, which will connect the western railway line with the new Vienna Central Station as of 2012. As of 2011, the Götzendorfer Spange section, the last gap in the railway network surrounding Vienna, should be closed as well. By 2015, this section is set to connect the eastern railway line with Handelskai road and the Port of Freudenau, thereby significantly improving the connection between Vienna and Bratislava. Simultaneously with the development of aspern Urban Lakeside, the construction of the Marchegg railway line is being pushed ahead as well, which is meant to connect the Stadlau train station with the new Flugfeld train station and the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. The Stadlau-Marchegg route is planned to be tackled starting 2013.

Due to geological complications, the completion of the Koralm railway line (the high-performance line from Graz to Klagenfurt) will be delayed from 2018 to 2020. Andreas Matthä, spokesman of the board of ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG: “This is unfortunate, but we want to ensure that we build the fully financed Koralm railway line with the best quality possible, giving our customers a fantastic new high-performance line. There can be no talk of an early termination of the project.” Since late 2008, construction of the Koralm Tunnel, the project’s centrepiece and Europe’s fifth-longest railway tunnel with a length of 32.9 kilometres, has been going ahead at full speed. In spring of 2010, the idled Semmering Base Tunnel project is to be set into motion again as well. Thanks to new geological surveys, which incorporated the findings from 56 deep drillings, an alternate corridor can be presented this year, which will affect the mountains’ water balance and the local residential communities to a much lesser degree. Construction of the Semmering Base Tunnel, the last big gap in the railway corridor between the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea, is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2012.

Brenner Base Tunnel by 2022

The expansion of the railway network is also proceeding swiftly in Western Austria. In summer of 2009, Austria, Italy and the EU decided to build the Brenner Base Tunnel in order to permanently eliminate the Brenner bottleneck on the north-south traffic corridor. “After 29 years of preparation, construction is now finally starting in Tyrol. Without exaggeration, this is a historic event,” says transport minister Doris Bures with regard to the construction start of the seven kilometre long Innsbruck exploration tunnel in October of 2009. “Financing is secured, and all building permits are in place.” Once the world’s longest railway tunnel with a total length of 62 kilometres is completed in 2022, travel time from Innsbruck to Bolzano will be reduced from currently two hours to just 50 minutes. The Brenner Base Tunnel will also be the key part of the TEN 1 corridor, which leads from Berlin to Palermo. [ CN ]