Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis

Karola Ludwika) was a privately owned railway company in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia operating during the time of the partitions of Poland in the second half of the 19th century.

Once finished, the line crossed whole Galicia from west to east at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, connecting the main urban centers of the province - Kraków, Tarnów, Rzeszów, Przemyśl, Lwów (Lemberg) and Tarnopol.

It started in Kraków and ended at the border rail station of Podwołoczyska (today Pidvolochysk), where it was connected over Zbruch with railroads of the Russian Empire at Wołoczyska (Volochysk).

To the west, the Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis was connected with the rail systems of Bohemia and Austria at the junctions of Cieszyn and Bohumin.

Today the Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis remains one of Poland's most important trunk lines.

After the soviet occupation of Eastern Galicia as a result of World War II the segment from Medyka to Lwów and beyond has been converted to Russian broad gauge along with almost all other lines in present day Ukraine, and remains as such as of 2025.

This greatly limits interoperability with the European rail network, despite many low key efforts to improve the situation since the collapse of the Soviet Union.