The Wels–Passau railway—also called the Passauer Bahn ("Passau Railway") in German—is a two-track, electrified main line railway mainly in Austria, which was originally owned and operated by the k.k. privilegierte Kaiserin Elisabeth-Bahn ("Imperial and Royal privileged Empress Elisabeth Railway", KEB) company. It runs from Wels in Upper Austria to Passau in Bavaria and is part of the core network of the Austrian Federal Railways (Österreichischen Bundesbahnen, ÖBB).
History
During the construction of the main line of Empress Elisabeth Railway, financial difficulties were encountered by the company. This caused a delay in the construction of the branch railway between Linz and Passau. The Bavarian Eastern Railway Company had already finished construction of the railway near the border, where the Austrian railway was supposed to be connected. On the other hand, the KEB had only undertaken project planning until the beginning of 1860. As a result, the terminus had to be changed to the Wels station because the line length was able to be shortened. The construction begann on 6 August 1860 and was completed by the KEB on 1 September 1861. It is an 81.2 km (83 km to the Passau freight yard) long double-track electrified main line. It runs through 79.6 km of Austrian territory and through 1.6 km of German territory, where it becomes the Regensburg–Passau railway in Passau station.
This line has particular significance for international freight traffic between Austria and northern Europe. International long-distance passenger traffic has also always been of great importance on the route from Hamburg and Frankfurt to Vienna and the east. Since about 1894, the Ostend–Vienna Express has operated via this line and in 1971 the Trans Europ Express Prinz Eugen ran between northern Germany and Vienna via this route; the route and the name were later used by a EuroCity service and an Intercity-Express (ICE). This received its name in 2002 and operated as a direct service between Hamburg and Vienna until late 2007, when it was closed. There has been a direct Hamburg-Vienna ICE service again since the timetable of 2011/2012.
A peculiarity of this line was that, until the opening of the branch line from Passau to Hauzenberg in 1904, the line on German soil was also controlled by an Austrian dispatcher. Until the accession of Austria to the European Union in 1995, there was a station at the end of the line in the Austrian part of Passau, where the necessary border and customs checks were carried out.
Current operations
Since the timetable change in December 2007, the international long-distance services between Frankfurt and Vienna have been operated in cooperation between DB and ÖBB using ICE T trains with tilting technology only. Curves on the Western Railway between Wels and Vienna line were improved to reduce the journey time for tilting trains between Frankfurt and Vienna. Apart from day services, the line is still used by an overnight train, which runs from Vienna to Hamburg, with a portion running to Cologne.
In addition to the international long-distance services on this route, there are also ÖBB local services at two-hour intervals, some of which continue to or start at Linz. These are currently operated with loco-hauled CityShuttle carriages. These will be replaced in the coming years by class 4024 railcars; currently only 4 pairs of services are operated with these Bombardier Talent sets. As a special feature, some local services have run between Vienna and Passau as trains with a Danube theme using historic rolling stock; this service has only run in the summer since the timetable change on 14 December 2008.