Austrian Railway Group

Gaisbergbahn

The Gaisbergbahn, from the village of Parsch to the south of Salzburg, was born out of the idea for transporting tourists from the valley floor to one of the peaks in comfort. The Gaisberg, in the Salzach Valley south of Salzburg was a tourist area even in the 18th Century People climbed the mountain, or were carried in sedan chairs, to watch the sunset and sunrise, often staying overnight in the Zistelalm, on the summit. The opening of the Westbahn from Wien in 1860, and its' completion across the border to München, brought ever-increasing numbers to the area, partly because it was relatively accessible.

First planned in 1873, as a Riggenback-rack line, or even a funicular, the lack of capital meant that the scheme was not started. The Gaisberg plateau, together with the hotel, were bought by the Cathrein brothers in 1877, and they erected a new hotel. In the next four years almost 80,000 people stayed in the hotel, and Josef Cathrein acquired the concession to build the Gaisbergbahn, spurred on by the opening of Parsch station on the Federal Railway on 15 June 1885. Using the first locomotive, built in Florisdorf/Wien in 1886, to haul construction trains, a rock cutting and a shelf were hewn from the mountainside, the rock going to make the railway trackbed. The line was officially opened on 25 May 1887, and opened to the public four days later. The four locos (with later a fifth), were built to the plans of Krauss of München, and were identical to those built in the same works for the Achenseebahn.

The early days of the line were not without problems. The other landowners on the mountain refused access from the railway station to the rest of the mountain, including the Gaisberg Hotel and the Zistalm Gasthof. Negotiations continued until 19 February 1889, when the Gaisbergbahn bought out the land and hotel owners.

The land owners continued to be obstructive, causing the railway to have to carry water up the mountainside to use in the locomotives on the way down. Resolution of this problem in 1889 also provided enough water to feed the new Hotel Gaisbergspitze. In the same year the platform lines at the summit station, Gaisbergspitze, were lengthened to take two trains each. The line, with its five stations, now measured 5.31km. Three years later a brick-based coal platform was built at Parsch station, and the sharpest curve on the line, at Gefaellsbrüche, was eased from 200 m to 500m radius.

Speed on the line were governed by statute, 8 km/h uphill and 7 km/h downhill. A convoy system was put in place, and trains were "driven on sight" without the need for signals. This caused embarrassment on 19 August 1912 when an uphill train carrying the heir to the throne suddenly came upon a downhill service, and was forced to wait until the driver and fireman built up enough steam to reverse the train uphill to the passing place at Zistelalpe

These old postcards by Foto Salzburg 1903 are described by Stephen Ford via Hover titles

Traffic collapsed at the outbreak of war in 1914, and the SETG, who had been buying shares, proposed a merger. Although the contract was never signed, the SETG did run the line under instruction from the Railway Ministry. Trains ran until after the end of the War, when a coal shortage caused the line to suspend operations until the Spring of 1921.

Services restarted, but the number of visitors no longer covered the railways' costs, and although the line celebrated it's 40th anniversary in May 1927, only 6 months later one of the directors was advocating the electrification of the line, but also the construction of a cable car route. Immediately after the opening of the Schmittenhoehenbahn on the last day of 1927, plans were published for chair lift to Judenbergalm, with a cable car from there to the Gaisbergspitze. The railway operating company fought the proposal, but given mounting costs, proposed the closure of the railway and the building of a road. As the cable car idea had started with some of the railway directors, there was a suspicion that the idea was floated in order to gain acceptance of the road plan.

The railway carried all the concrete, stone and metalwork for the road which was to replace it, with even water being transported to the various building sites. A bridge was built over the line for the road, about 1.3 km from the upper end. The road, with a 1 in 10 gradient, was nearing completion when the railway ceased passenger operations for the Winter, on the last day of October 1928. The closure was not even remarked upon in the local paper. Three weeks later, the railway board voted not to continue passenger services. The line had carried over 1.2 million passengers, without a single accident. The concession lapsed on 6 July 1929. Only two months later, on 8 September 1929, the first in a series of road races (time trials) started on the road up the mountain.

The railway track was cleared from the mountainside in May 1930 by a scrap company from Wien, who also took locomotive number 4 and the goods wagons. It is thought that the last locomotive to steam on any part of the line did so on 20 May 1930. Much of the trackwork was taken to the Gebrueder Leube cement factory at St Leonhard, and may still be there.

Locomotive number 1 was taken to the Wien Railway Museum. Coach number 6, dating from the line's opening, also went to the museum, but has been restored as a buffet car on the Achenseebahn.

Klagenfurt Tramways acquired a coach, which it turned into a covered van – thought possibly to be Sch G1. Passenger coach number 8 became NR 7, then truck G12, before having the superstructure removed in May 1982, being adapted to carry a standard gauge truck – a röllbocke. The other locomotives and the remaining 6 coached were scrapped in Parsch.

The station in Parsch, separate from the Federal Railway, has been converted into a house. The loco shed was knocked down in 1937, and the coach shed was removed about the same time. Two of the three stations on the mountain still exist, with the Zistelalpe station being only slightly altered. The station at the summit, however, was cleared in 1947. The station area was built upon in the early 1930's (Ludwig Zeller-Weg 3a to 13 now stand on the site), Boundary markers on the mountain, and markers at the 2 and 3 km points are still visible, as are two of the railways' curved bridges.

The sesselbahn, or cable car, was eventually built and still runs today.

the local area for the gaisbergbahn (click to enlarge)