The Semmering Railway: what UNESCO inscribed, and where the official texts disagree

What the World Heritage site is

The Semmering Railway is on the World Heritage List as a line, not as a station or a town. The Austrian Commission for UNESCO says it was inscribed in 1998 with a core zone of 156 hectares and a buffer zone of 8,581 hectares, covering 41 kilometres of track from Mürzzuschlag over the Semmering to Gloggnitz, together with the viaducts, bridges, tunnels and railway buildings that belong to it. Gloggnitz is in Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) and Mürzzuschlag in Styria (Steiermark), so the property crosses a state boundary.[1]

The Commission tells the reason it was built. In the middle of the 19th century the Habsburg monarchy was building a railway from Vienna to the port of Trieste by way of Graz and Ljubljana, and the missing piece was the crossing of the Alps at the Semmering. The engineer Carl Ritter von Ghega built that section with 14 tunnels, 16 viaducts and more than 100 overpasses, overcoming a height difference of more than 450 metres; even the locomotives had to be developed for this line through an international competition. The Commission adds that the surviving planning and construction documents are part of UNESCO's Memory of the World register, a separate programme from World Heritage.[1]

Why UNESCO inscribed it

UNESCO's Statement of Outstanding Universal Value, in the Commission's German working translation, gives two criteria. Under criterion II, the railway represents an outstanding technical solution to a physical problem in the construction of early railways; under criterion IV, it made areas of great natural beauty easier to reach and opened them to housing and leisure, which created a new form of landscape.[3]

That second reason is why the inscription is about more than track. The statement describes the Semmering pass as known for the "summer architecture" of its villas and hotels, and calls it one of the first purpose-built Alpine resorts in the decades after the line opened.[3] The Commission's entry names guests who shaped the area's reputation, among them Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Franz Werfel, Oskar Kokoschka and Josephine Baker, and calls the hotel and villa style "Semmeringstil".[1]

The line, section by section

The statement follows the route from north to south. The site begins at Gloggnitz station, reaches its highest point after 29 kilometres at the pass, and ends 12 kilometres later at Mürzzuschlag station. On the way it passes Payerbach, crosses the Schwarza valley on the Schwarza viaduct to Eichberg, continues through the Klamm tunnel into the Adlitzgraben, and reaches the two-storey, curved viaduct over the Kalte Rinne before the Semmering tunnel and Semmering station; from there it runs down past Steinhaus and Spital am Semmering to Mürzzuschlag.[3]

The statement lists 118 smaller arched stone bridges and 11 iron bridges besides the large viaducts, and describes the two-storey lineman's houses about 700 metres apart, in rubble masonry with brick details, as a characteristic feature of the line. It also records the biggest change to the line's appearance: the masts for electric traction put up between 1957 and 1959.[3]

Where the official texts disagree

The Commission's pages and its annotated translation do not agree with each other on several points. None of the differences changes what was inscribed, but a reader comparing sources will meet them.

• When it was built. The Commission's site entry says 1848 to 1853; its overview page and UNESCO's statement in translation say 1848 to 1854.[3][2][1]
• What kind of first. The site entry calls it the first high-mountain railway in the world; the overview calls it the first standard-gauge high-mountain railway in the world.[2][1] XTOUR repeats neither as its own claim.
• Which criteria. The site entry's heading and UNESCO's statement give criteria (ii) and (iv); the facts box on the same entry gives (iii) and (iv).[3][1] XTOUR follows the statement.
• How high. The site entry gives the crossing as 894 metres; the statement says 895, and the translator's footnotes add 896 metres from the 2010 management plan and 898 metres for the line's highest point.[3][1]
• Tunnels and houses. The statement says the fourteen tunnels total 1,477 metres; the translator's footnote calls that figure wrong, says it was already in the nomination dossier, and gives about 4,274.8 metres after Ghega or 4,526 metres after Kubinzky. The statement counts 57 lineman's houses; the footnote says there were 55 originally and 47 survive.[3]

XTOUR's reading: the translator's footnotes are the Commission's corrections to UNESCO's English text, made in a document the Commission says was produced for the federal culture ministry with the Austrian World Heritage sites and ICOMOS Austria.[3] Where a footnote corrects a figure, XTOUR gives both.

What XTOUR knows about seeing it

Very little, deliberately. UNESCO's statement, as translated, says the line and its engineering works have been in continuous use since 1854, and treats continuity through change as part of the site's authenticity.[3] XTOUR has not read a railway operator's timetable, ticket or station page for the Semmering line, nor any official walking route along it, so it does not say how to ride it, where to view the viaducts from, or how long anything takes.

The Semmering is not one of XTOUR's Austrian destinations. The other Austrian World Heritage sites, and which of them XTOUR can link to a destination, are set out in Austria's World Heritage sites. For why the property sits in two states, see Austria's federal states and place names, or start from the Austria country page.