privilegierte Kaiserin Elisabeth-Bahn ("Imperial and Royal privileged Empress Elisabeth Railway", KEB) company under Hermann Dietrich Lindheim.

A few weeks before the official opening Empress Elizabeth used the line to travel to her home in Bavaria.

Emperor Franz Joseph and Maximilian II of Bavaria were present at the official opening on the line on 12 August 1860.

[2][3] As a result of Austria's loss of coal reserves at the end of the First World War under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, it was decided to electrify the line, starting from the west.

[3] Numerous enhancements and additions were made during the period of management of operation by Deutsche Reichsbahn (during the annexation by Germany from 1938 to 1945).

Also, the construction of a second marshalling yard in Wels was started (to the south of the Western Railway), but it was left unfinished at the end of the war.

At a press conference in 1983 Austrian Transport Minister Karl Lausecker outlined details of plans for the development of the Western Railway.

The travel time without stopping between Vienna West station and St. Pölten was reduced as a result from 41 to 25 minutes.

The new section of the New Western Railway begins at the exit of Wien Meidling station and runs through the Lainz Tunnel, which leads directly to Hadersdorf junction.

The start of the high-speed line at the entrance of the Vienna Woods Tunnel is west of Hadersdorf junction.

The high-speed line has been connected to the Franz Josef Railway by the reactivation of disused Tulln western curve, promoting regional traffic.

Shortly after the western portal the new and old lines come together again and, about 2 km later, reach Ybbs an der Donau station, where the maximum speed is cut to 160 km/h.

The Old and New Western Railways run parallel as far as St. Peter-Seitenstetten, before the new line makes a tighter curve than the existing route through the St. Peter “green” tunnel.

(In 2005, in the course of the upgrade to four tracks between Ennsdorf and Enns, a junction was built towards Mauthausen, allowing direct operations of trains from Linz towards the Danube Bank Railway).

From Asten-Fisching 1 junction the speed limit is reduced to 200 km/h (120 mph) on the two parallel lines to Linz Kleinmünchen, the current end of the four-track section on the Western Railway.

The New Western Railway has been equipped with the European Train Control System (ETCS) on the newly built section of the line from Vienna to Wagram junction.

The so-called “registration” (Anmelde) line starts at the entrance to Lainz Tunnel, which is equipped with both ETCS and with the old Punktförmige Zugbeeinflussung (PZB) system.

From Hadersdorf junction it was originally intended that the line be exclusively signalled with ETCS level 2, but it was decided to have PZB as a fallback.

Not only is a large part of the Austrian National rail traffic on the western railway line, but long-distance services between Vienna and cities such as Hamburg, Dortmund, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich also run on the Western Railway.

In the long term there are expected to be direct services on these routes with modern high-speed train sets.

This upgraded condition of the line has allowed ICE T services to run from Vienna to Frankfurt, Munich and Bregenz since the timetable change in 2006 in Austria and Railjet services to run between Budapest, Vienna, Munich and Zurich since the timetable change in December 2008.

After the start of operations through the Lainz Tunnel on 9 December 2012, which connects the New Western Railway route through Tullnerfeld directly to the mainline tracks of the new Vienna Hauptbahnhof (to open in 2014), long-distance trains will mostly run there.

[8] The reconstruction of the east end of Amstetten station to increase top speed from Ybbs to 230 km/h continued until 2016.

In 2017, the St. Pölten freight bypass railway (Wagram junction–Rohr junction), which is designed for a maximum speed of 120 km/h, will be opened to traffic.

On 10 January 2013 the fixed route selected for the Neumarkt–Salzburg Kasern section was presented with a start expected in less than 20 years.