day of the stamp - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2013 - 282 Euro Cent

This year's special stamp "Stamp Day" - an additional mark with a face value of 2.82 + 1.41 euros - shows in its motif the former Salzkammergut Lokalbahn; In the background, as a backdrop, you can see the city of Salzburg with its imposing landmark, the Hohensalzburg Fortress on the Mönchsberg, which is visible from afar. The edge of the attractive miniature sheet is, however, beautifully decorated with drawings of various railcars and wagons of the Salzkammergut Lokalbahn in a very decorative way. The Salzkammergut Lokalbahn (SKGLB), also popularly called the Ischlerbahn or "Schnackerlbahn", connected the spa town of Bad Ischl in the center of the Salzkammergut with the city of Salzburg between 1891 and 1957 as a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 760 mm. In addition, the market town Mondsee was connected via a branch line at St. Lorenz to the main line and the pilgrimage town of St. Wolfgang can be reached via a private steamship line from the main line. The SKGLB, which transported more than two million passengers a year on steam over a distance of about 67 km, was discontinued in 1957 as the first railway line of considerable length and national importance in Austria despite strong protests from various parts of the population; An already planned electrification was not realized anymore. The fact that the SKGLB became a narrow-gauge railway was, unsurprisingly, due to the massive pressure of the former military authority, which demanded the appropriate gauge of the Heeresfeldbahn. 1917 was promptly the access of the military and it had to be delivered five locomotives for military needs, 1918 even a sixth, so that the fleet was already painfully reduced during this time. Although the young republic granted modest grants for the operation, the "Bähnle" remained the object of wild speculation for many years. From 1919 to 1925 was a Bavarian capital group, then a Romanian banking syndicate and from 1931 an English investor owner of the Ischlerbahn - what connected all these, of course, was their lack of interest in the long-needed expansion work. At that time, the founders of the railway believed that the romantic route would greatly enhance regional tourism. This bill was initially on, led the train but through a beautiful landscape; several tunnels and sometimes bold bridges underlined the mountainous nature of the route. However, some train accidents, a derailment and last but not least the increasing motorization brought in September 1957 the final out for the Salzkammergut Lokalbahn.