The Karawanken Tunnel is the fourth longest railway tunnel

Tunnel

A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

 in Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 and the longest in Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

 with a length of 7976 metres (26,168 ft). The railway passes under the Rožca

Rožca

Rožca is a grassy high-altitude mountain pass over the Western Karawanken Alps. The saddle is located between the Karawanken peaks of Hruški vrh and Klek, and straddles the border between Slovenia and Austria, above the town of Jesenice. Its slopes serve as sheep pastures.-External links:*...

 saddle between Rosenbach

Sankt Jakob im Rosental

Sankt Jakob im Rosental is a town in the district of Villach-Land in Carinthia in Austria.According to the 2001 census 16.4% of the population are Carinthian Slovenes....

 in southern Austria and Jesenice in northern Slovenia. The tunnel was an important part of the Karawanken Railway, which was - together with the Bohinj Railway

Bohinj railway

The Bohinj Railway or Transalpina is a railway in Slovenia extending into Italy. It connects Jesenice in Slovenia with the towns of Nova Gorica in Slovenia and Gorizia in Italy through the Julian Alps. It was built by Austria-Hungary in 1904 as a strategic railway to the port of Trieste...

 - built to connect the port of Trieste

Trieste

Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

 with Klagenfurt

Klagenfurt

-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...

, the capital of the federal state of Carinthia

Carinthia (state)

Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...

 in Austria.

Between 1867-1918, Trieste was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was Austria's first seaport and the principal outlet for the ocean trade of the dual monarchy

Dual monarchy

Dual monarchy occurs when two separate kingdoms are ruled by the same monarch, follow the same foreign policy, exist in a customs union with each other and have a combined military but are otherwise self-governing...

, but it lacked adequate railway communication with Austria's interior. To give a great impetus to the trade of Trieste in particular and to the over-sea trade of Austria in general, it was decided in 1901 to build the Karawanken Railway, connecting Trieste and Klagenfurt. The railway was built over and through the Karawanken

Karawanken

Karavanke or Karawanken is an Alpine mountain range on the border between Slovenia and Austria. With a total length of 120 km, the Karavanke chain is one of the longest ranges in Europe....

 Alps, Europe's longest (120 km/70 mi) mountain range, on the border between what are now Slovenia and Austria. The Karawanken Tunnel was opened on October 1, 1906, by Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The tunnel is still of importance to international train

Train

A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...

traffic. It is traversed by more than 80 trains a day.