Wäldletobel: Construction of the Arlberg Railway

Klösterle was significantly shaped by the Arlberg Railway

The first plans for a railway connection across the Arlberg date back to the 1840s. Carl Ganahl, an industrialist from Feldkirch and president of the Chamber of Commerce, was particularly vocal in his support for the construction of a railway to link Vorarlberg and Tyrol. Concrete planning regarding the route design and construction began in the 1860s and received an additional boost from the construction of the Vorarlberg Railway, which ran from Lindau to Bludenz. What followed was an eight-year struggle—a “parliamentary saga of suffering,” as one author put it. Various route options were conceived and then discarded until, finally, the solution of a tunnel between Langen and St. Anton was chosen. The bill for the construction of the railway connection between Innsbruck and Bludenz was approved by the Imperial Council in 1880 and signed by Emperor Franz Joseph.

The construction director of the Arlberg Railway was Julius Lott, born in Vienna in 1836. However, he died in 1883, a year and a half before the completion of the work (of tuberculosis, not, as is often claimed, by suicide). The 136.6-kilometer-long railway line from Innsbruck to Bludenz was divided into a 72.8-kilometer-long valley section from Innsbruck to Landeck, a 27.7-kilometer-long eastern ramp from Landeck to St. Anton, a 10.3-kilometer-long summit section from St. Anton to Langen (the Arlberg Tunnel), and a 25.8-kilometer-long western ramp from Langen to Bludenz.

Work on the Arlberg Tunnel began in St. Anton am Arlberg and Langen am Arlberg as early as June 1880. The breakthrough of the pilot tunnel in the Arlberg Tunnel was achieved on November 19, 1883, much earlier than planned. During the final year of construction, work focused primarily on building the ramp sections, until finally, on September 3, 1884, a train was able to travel the route from Landeck to Bludenz for the first time. The ceremonial inaugural ride by Emperor Franz Josef took place on September 20, 1884, and regular operations on the Arlberg Railway began the very next day.

At least as significant as the changes to the landscape brought about by the construction of the Arlberg Railway were the social upheavals associated with this massive construction project. The number of workers employed at the Arlberg Tunnel on the Langen side peaked in October 1883 at 2,689 men. On the western ramp between Langen and Bludenz, the peak in June 1884 was 4,829 men. By comparison, the population of Klösterle in 1869—a good decade before construction began—had been just 526 people. These figures illustrate the enormous challenges the community’s residents faced due to the tunnel and railway construction sites. In Langen, a separate workers’ settlement consisting of residential buildings and barracks was established. In Stuben, Klösterle, and Danöfen, entire workers’ families were housed in private accommodations. Economic life flourished, not least due to the opening of numerous inns and pubs.