The Koralmbahn has been built for 20 years. The 130-kilometer section of the route costs 5.4 billion euros. Once completed, it will take 45 minutes to travel from Klagenfurt to Graz.
The excavators rolled in more than two decades ago. Now the construction of the Koralm railway line is turning into the home straight – a construction site of superlatives: the 130 kilometers between Klagenfurt and Graz will be one of the most modern railway lines in history. “After completion in 2025, passengers will be able to travel in an environmentally friendly and comfortable manner from the Graz clock tower to Lake Wörthersee in just 45 minutes. No car comes along, ”says ÖBB boss Andreas Matthä himself enthusiastically.
Meanwhile, a hundred engineers, miners, technicians, construction workers and security guards are still working. You’re doing great around the clock.
Excavation world record
The most spectacular was the 33-kilometer breakthrough of the Koralm, 1200 meters below the summit cross and finally succeeded in the Corona year 2020. The “Kora” tunnel borer had been milling its way from Carinthia towards Styria for seven years. Together with the rock eater sisters “Mauli 1” and “Mauli 2” in Styria, a world record was set for excavations. The 10,000 hp machines fought their way through the mountain for a total of 45,480 meters and removed six million cubic meters of material.
Completion in December 2025
Even along the 52-kilometer route from Klagenfurt to St. Paul, the construction sites never rest: twelve new train stations were built and eleven modernized along the route. But the superlative is far from enough: The project is also remarkable in terms of the construction time. After two “corrections” in the past, when one of the drills “got stuck”, you are currently on schedule.
It looks like this: Completion on the Carinthian side up to the tunnel by the end of 2023, commissioning in Styria up to the “Weststeiermark” train station near Deutschlandsberg in 2024 and completion in December 2025. So compared to the total construction time, soon.
Cost plan holds up
Finally another superlative; especially if you look at “explosions” in other construction lots, the costs are “well on target”. The 5.4 billion have been around for years.