New uses for old railways
rama which was published in 2010). When that line was opened at the beginning of the 1850s, there was no railway station at the village of Küb. A train stop with a simple waiting room was built in 1899, 50 years after the Semmering line opened. The waiting room was originally made of wood but renovated 60 years later as a concrete building, with the proportions staying nearly the same.
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All these examples illustrate that railways are complex systems in continuous development for transporting people and goods. More than 170 years of railways leave numerous remains worthy of preservation. The Venice Charta declared in 1964:“the conservation of monuments is always facilitated by making use of them for some socially useful purpose”. Given these affirmations, railway Heritage can be distinguished into three areas: -
using: useful for travelling and freight transport (eco-efficient); re-using: useful for getting experience and feeling; preserving: useful for education and identity of people.
Finally, handling the railway heritage is linked up with different actors and the following examples should illustrate these three areas.
USING… The Semmering railway in Austria is in operation since 1854, and since 1998 it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But what is the worldwide importance of that railway line? Let’s have a look back. In the 1830s, Vienna was the capital of the Habsburg Empire in Central and Eastern Europe. The transport to and from