The railway line was designed under the
Austrian Empire in the mid-19th century to ensure rapid and safe transport between
Tyrol and northern Italy, especially
Lombardy–Venetia. It was thus strategically important not only for economic but also for military reasons, as Austria was strongly committed to maintaining its borders south of the Alps. The first section to be built was the lower section between Verona and Bolzano/Bozen. The design of this section was approved on 10 July 1853 by the engineer
Alois Negrelli, an employee of the
Südbahn, known for having built other Alpine railway lines and for developing a project of the
Suez Canal. The section was opened in two different parts: on 23 March 1859 between
Verona to
Trento/Trent and 16 May 1859 from
Trento/Trent to
Bolzano/Bozen. This construction was handled by the
k.k. Nord-und-Süd-Tiroler Staatsbahn (German: "North and South Tyrol State Railways"), but the company was taken over by the new
Austrian Southern Railway (German:
Südbahn) at the beginning of 1859. Despite the loss of
Veneto in the
Third Italian War of Independence and its consequent shift of the border between Italy and Austria to
Borghetto on the current boundary of
Trentino and
Verona in October 1866, the upper section from Bolzano/Bozen to
Innsbruck was incomplete. The route from Innsbruck to Bolzano/Bozen took only three years to build. This section had been under construction and was finally opened on 24 August 1867. The main designer and engineer, Karl von Etzel, died in 1865; he was not able to witness the completion of his work. After the
Semmering Railway, this Brenner Line was the second mountain railway built within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was also the first through line to cross over the
Alps. The section south of Borghetto became part of the
Società per le strade ferrate dell'Alta Italia (
Italian for
Upper (Northern) Italian Railways, SFAI) in 1866. In the 1885 reorganisation it was absorbed by the
Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali (
Adriatic Network). The line came under the control of Ferrovie dello Stato upon its establishment in 1905. In 1919, Italy acquired
Trentino-South Tyrol under the
Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Austro-Italian border moved to
Brenner. The section from Trento/Trent to Brenner was subsequently electrified at 3,700 V at
three-phase 16.7 Hz between 1929 and 1934. Electrification was converted to 3,000 V
DC on 30 May 1965. In preparation for the proposed
Brenner Base Tunnel, the
Innsbruck bypass was completed in 1994 to improve access to the
Lower Inn Valley Railway. The bypass consists of a tunnel (Austria's longest) and aims to remove the bulk of the freight train traffic from Innsbruck. In Italy, several new sections have been built, removing sections of line with several short tunnels with small cross sections. These include the Sciliar Tunnel opened in 1994, the Pflersch Tunnel opened in 1999 and the Cardano Tunnel opened in 1998. ==Future==