CLIMBING THOSE MOUNTAINS. The first International Railway Historical Association conference, focusing on railway investments, was in Semmering, Austria, and coincided with the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Semmering Pass railroad line, which the locals hail as the world's first mountain railroad. I'm not sure what the basis for this "world's first" is, as the Pennsylvania Railroad's Horseshoe Curve also observed its 150th anniversary this summer, and Charles S. Roberts's excellent Triumph I reports an all-rail service from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia as early as 1851, although The Pennsylvania Railroad's own line was not in full operation until December of that year. By contrast, the Baltimore and Ohio's Sand Patch grade, intended to ease the West End crossing that the chief engineer of the Semmering line, Karl Graf von Ghega, researched in his proposal to build the Semmering Pass, was not in full operation until much later.

The Semmering line anticipates the much later Milwaukee crossing of St. Paul Pass in its use of tributary stream valleys to gain elevation and with its many viaducts -- in those days built with multiple levels of stone arches for additional strength -- and tunnels, including one rather interesting tunnel open on one side. The Pennsylvania, by contrast, relied on cuts and fills on the east slope, with tunnels where required on the west slope, as well as multiple crossings of the Conemaugh River. The Pennsylvania's crossing is much lower, starting with Altoona at 1200 ft (366 meters) above sea level, and the highest summit at Portage Tunnel 2200 ft (671 m.) The Mürzzuschlag end of the grade is also at 671 m (that's where you'll find both the railway historical museum for the Semmering line and a Brahms museum, as Mr Brahms wrote the Fourth Symphony in Mürzzuschlag, something I didn't learn until after I'd left, although that is as good a reason as any to hold a Brahms-Dvorak festival the weekend of the conference, which I also missed!) The top of the grade at Semmering is 895 m (that works out to 2936 ft, no wonder I got a bit winded walking any distance there) and the foot of the grade at Gloggnitz is 437 m or 1434 ft, about the same elevation as the base of the Horseshoe Curve.

Yes, there was some intellectual work at the conference. Details on that later.

SECOND SECTION: Look at all these convergences, from the announcement of the Brahms-Dvorak festival:

Brahms and Dvorak during the years of their aquaintance (1874 to 1897). In the anniversary of the Semmering railway we can meet Dvo?ák as an enthusiastic friend of the railway.

Beside the music program you will have the possibility to visit the new exhibition about the Semmering-Railway „Südbahn-Kulturbahnhof“, to take a literary and musical journey on the Semmering-Railway, to listen to a concert in the romantic spa hotel „Thalhof“ in Reichenau and to look to the unveiling of the Brahms portait-head by Josef Pillhofer.