Koralm Railway links Graz and Klagenfurt after 27 years of construction

Since 14 December 2025, the Koralm Railway connects Graz and Klagenfurt via a new 127 km, double-track, electrified line built for speeds up to 250 km/h. Its centerpiece is the 32.9 km Koralm Tunnel, which drastically cuts travel time between the two provincial capitals. Construction took about 27 years, with ÖBB citing total costs of roughly EUR 6 billion. Update (6 Dec 2025): ÖBB puts total investment in the Koralmbahn at about EUR 5.9 billion; the first cost estimate in 2005 was about EUR 5.4 billion, and adding project parts included later, such as the Feldkirchen–Weitendorf section, also gives EUR 5.9 billion (report of 21 Oct 2025). Freight trains of ÖBB Rail Cargo Group have been running on the line since early November 2025 (one of the first, a single-wagon train, on 4 November), each train can carry 250 to 280 t more and up to 300,000 train-kilometres a year are saved. For passengers, the RJX journey from Graz to Klagenfurt falls from over two hours to 41 minutes; the opening is celebrated in both provincial capitals on 12 December 2025, and regular service follows at the timetable change on 14 December 2025. (LOK Report, 21 Oct, 4 Nov, 5 Nov and 6 Dec 2025) Update (13 Feb 2026): According to ÖBB the new line is 130 km long with 12 tunnels (50 km in total), more than 100 bridges and 23 stations; about EUR 5.9 billion was invested, and the EU co-financed it with more than EUR 600 million (including EUR 543 million from NextGenerationEU). In the first hours after service began on 14 December 2025, about 30 trains and roughly 10,000 passengers used the line. Freight has been running since 1 November 2025: in a little over 100 days about 1,050 freight trains with more than 21,000 wagons and over one million tonnes of goods ran over the route, whose maximum gradient of 10 instead of 16 per mille allows heavier trains; together with the existing line over the Neumarkt saddle the southern axis now has four tracks (up to 30% more capacity) (LOK Report, 12 Dec 2025, 14 Dec 2025 and 13 Feb 2026). Merged (06.10.2026): the entry ec747eec on the Koralm Tunnel, initially recorded separately, has been merged into this one. The roughly 32.9 km base tunnel under the Koralpe between St. Andrä (Carinthia) and Frauental an der Laßnitz (Styria) is Austria's longest railway tunnel; construction began in December 2008, the final breakthrough came in 2020, the shell was completed in May 2022, and it was formally opened on 12.12.2025.