AUSTRIAN rail regulator Schienen-Control has received track access applications from Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), which is seeking to introduce five new international services to Germany, Italy, Poland and Slovakia.
The first new route would be introduced on December 12, and would run from Vienna via Salzburg, Munich, Augsburg and Ulm to Stuttgart.
According to ÖBB’s application, the IC services would be operated with six-car double-deck Kiss EMUs each offering a total of 501 seats.
Three new services would follow on December 10 2023 with the introduction of the 2024 timetable.
A EuroCity (EC) service would connect Munich with Innsbruck and Milan, operating daily in each direction. ÖBB says that it would be operated with Trenitalia ETR 610 trains, offering 430 seats each.
An ICE service will be introduced between Vienna and Berlin, also operating daily in each direction, and calling at Regensburg, Nuremburg, and Erfurt in Germany. Rolling stock would be seven-car ICE-T trains, offering 359 seats each.
The third service to be introduced in 2023 is an EC service from Vienna to Kraków/Wroclaw, to be operated daily in each direction with a locomotive and five coaches offering around 360 seats.
From September 1 2024 nine Railjet/EC services per day, departing Vienna at 06.44 and then every two hours until 22.44, would be extended from Marchegg across the border to Bratislava in Slovakia, following the completion of electrification between Marchegg and Devinska Nová Ves.
Railjet trains would each provide a total of 321 seats on this route, with EC rolling stock offering around 350 seats.
