All lines of the former Rudolf Railway in modern Austria belong to the
Austrian Federal Railways. Today the name Rudolf Railway is only used for the northern section, although the street name
Rudolfsbahnstraße (Rudolf Railway Street) that occurs in some places along the line still refer to it. This is because the St. Valentin/Amstetten–Villach–Tarvisio route as such is no longer significant. The term
Rudolfsbahn is used particularly for the Amstetten–Waidhofen–Kleinreifling–Selzthal route through the
Ybbs and
Enns valley (timetable route 130). Individual sections of the original Rudolfsbahn now form parts of other lines. The
Schober Pass line between Selzthal and St. Michael also forms part of the long-distance line between Linz and Graz via Selzthal (including the
Pyhrn Railway) and the Innsbruck–Bischofshofen–Selzthal–Graz line (including the
Enns Valley Railway). The Leoben–Klagenfurt line via St. Michael, the
Neumarkt saddle and St. Veit an der Glan is now often considered to form part of the
Southern Railway (although this is not historically correct): Vienna–Bruck an der Mur–Leoben–Klagenfurt–Villach. All
Railjet and EuroCity services on the
Vienna–
Klagenfurt Hbf Villach Hbf route as well as some freight trains, which mainly go to Italy or Slovenia, use this section of the line (until the
Koralm Railway opens). Between the stations of
Friesach or
St. Veit an der Glan and
Villach (via Klagenfurt Hbf), the line was integrated into the
S-Bahn Kärnten (Carinthian S-Bahn) as line S1 at the timetable change in December 2010. Line S2 of the Carinthian S-Bahn has been running between St. Veit an der Glan and Villach (via
Feldkirchen in Kärnten) since December 2011. As part of the new S-Bahn operation, the frequency and the number of local trains have increased significantly, although in some cases this had already happened with the introduction of the Kärnten-Takt (Carinthian cycle) in December 2008. The St. Michael–Unzmarkt section has been part of the S8 of the
S-Bahn Steiermark since December 2016.
Partial closure of passenger services Passenger traffic on the section between Selzthal and Weißenbach-St. Gallen was discontinued on 6 September 2009, with the exception of a pair of trains on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, as the ÖBB considered the route no longer economical for passenger traffic. It was replaced by a service with normal buses. A second pair of trains towards Selzthal in the afternoon and towards Weißenbach-St. Gallen in the morning was reintroduced at the start of the 2019/2020 timetable. In addition, both pairs of trains connect to/from Vienna West.
Amstetten–Kastenreith branch line The Amstetten–Kleinreifling route is served every hour. In the mornings and evenings, some trains from Amstetten only run to Waidhofen a.d. Ybbs; on weekdays except Saturdays, some trains continue from Kleinreifling to Weißenbach-St.Gallen. Until December 2017, trains from Eisenwurzen reached Amstetten mostly at 55 minutes after the hour and departed at 5 minutes after the hour. On the hour, there was a crossing of the Vienna–Salzburg
Railjet services, which provided connections to Linz and Vienna. Since the private operator
WESTbahn has been assigned the Railjet routes by
ÖBB-Infrastruktur since December 2017, the meeting of ÖBB services on the hour in Amstetten has been abandoned. As the result of a new timetable concept geared towards Linz commuters and the replacement of most of the
Bombardier Talent (class 4024) services with
Siemens Desiro (class 4744) services, which have more rapid acceleration, connections are guaranteed at Amstetten to Linz in the morning and from Linz in the afternoon. A regional train runs between Amstetten and Selzthal on weekends. It is the only passenger train that still serves the Gesäuse section. == Notes and references ==