The Lindau – Bludenz railway runs from the town of Lindau (Lake Constance) on the German-Austrian border in Bavaria via the Vorarlberg state capital Bregenz through the Rhine Valley and Walgau to Bludenz, where it connects to the Arlberg Railway and the Montafon Railway. The continuously electrified line belongs to the Deutsche Bahn (DB) border and then to the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB); the common border station has been Lindau-Reutin station since December 2020. Similar to the branch lines to St. Margrethen and Buchs SG, it is also called the Vorarlberger Bahn or Vorarlbergbahn for short. As early as 1847, the entrepreneur Carl Ganahl, later described as the most important representative of railway construction in Vorarlberg, recognized the importance of a railway line through Vorarlberg. Initially, however, many problems opposed this request, the greatest of which were naturally given. A mountain railway, as it was necessary to cross the Arlberg, had not yet been built in Austria and a route without a connection to the Tyrolean areas seemed useless. In addition, Vorarlberg was not an independent crown land of Austria-Hungary and therefore had no representatives in Vienna. In 1854 traffic on the Bavarian Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn to Lindau and in 1857 on the Swiss routes from Rorschach to Rheineck and from Rheineck to Chur was opened. On the Austrian side, Innsbruck was connected to the railway network via Kufstein and Wörgl in 1859. As early as 1856, the now president of the newly founded Vorarlberg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Carl Ganahl, submitted an application for approval of preparatory work. Then just two years later he had his first detailed project worked out, which he paid for out of his own pocket. In the same year he submitted a definitive application for a license to the k.u.k. Ministry of Commerce. There the application was temporarily postponed, as first consultation with the neighboring states had to be held. These could only be concluded in 1865 with the signing of a state treaty. Train of the ÖBB series 4024 with destination Bludenz in Lindau
