Semmering Railway
The Semmering Railway, built over 41 km of high mountains between 1848 and 1854, is one of the greatest feats of civil engineering from this pioneering phase of railway building. The high standard of the tunnels, viaducts and other works has ensured the continuous use of the line up to the present day. It runs through a spectacular mountain landscape and there are many fine buildings designed for leisure activities along the way, built when the area was opened up due to the advent of the railway.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/785
The Semmering Railway is the first mountain railway which crossed a high-mountains area and counts therefore as the prototype of railway lines mastering very difficult terrain and considerable altitude difference. Its construction lead to "a novel synthesis of nature and architecture".
The railway was constructed between 1848 and 1854 by some 20,000 workers under the project's designer and director Carl Ritter von Ghega. He had to develop new surveying methods and instruments to mark out the terrain.
The construction features 14 tunnels (among them the 1,431 m vertex tunnel), 16 viaducts (several two-story) and over 100 curved stone bridges as well as 11 small iron bridges.
It uses an Alpine crossing that had been in use since the Middle Ages, and which linked Vienna with Venice and later Trieste (then an Austrian port). Transport across was done with wagons and pack animals. Archduke Johann wanted to connect the northern and southern parts of his monarchy by means of a railway. Travel time was cut in half, and it opened up the Semmering region as an early Alpine resort.
http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/semmeringrailway.html
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