The Semmeringbahn or Semmering railway in Austria runs 41.7 km between Gloggnitz and Mürzzuschlag, although "as the crow flies" the distance between the two points is only 21 km; it overcomes an altitude difference of 460 metres; on 60% of its length the gradient is 2 to 2.5%. The line was constructed between 1848 and 1854 by some 20,000 workers under the project's designer and director Carl von Ghega. This makes it Europe's earliest alpine railway.
The construction features 14 tunnels (the most notable being the 1,431 metre vertex tunnel), 16 viaducts (several two-story) and over 100 curved stone bridges as well as 11 small iron bridges. The stations and the buildings for the supervisors were often built directly from the waste material produced in the course of tunnel construction. The line was electrified in the 1950s. Today it is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
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