He was attached to the Imperial board of Public Buildings when the railway movement commencing throughout Europe attracted his attention.

In 1842, entrusted with the entire planning of the future state railway, he made a study trip to North America.

In 1856, the Borovnica viaduct, one of the most imposing railroad bridges of the era, was built upon the plans by von Ghega as part of the Austrian Southern Railway from Vienna to Trieste.

Carl von Ghega was next assigned to the building of a railway in Transylvania, but he could not see this project to its end because of his death in Vienna from tuberculosis.

According to the authors of Encyclopedia of North American Railroads – page 493, Carl Ritter von Ghega was "An ethnic Italian".