Consider the Westbahn line, which offers fares between Vienna and Salzburg for half the price of the OBB outfit. In December 2012, on OBB, the per person fare is approximately 50 Euro whereas it is 25 Euro per person on Westbahn (but note, for some reason our credit card did not work so we paid cash like everyone else). Plus, on the WB, you get a leather seat, an in-seat electrical outlet, and free wifi that was pretty speedy. The trains leave Salzburg every hour or two. The 2.5 hour trip will be up before you know it. Just get on board and buy your ticket from the attendant once you are underway. If headed from Salzburg to Vienna, pick up an assortment of inexpensive groceries from the SPAR market in the train station to have a picnic lunch on board. NOTE: OBB will not tell you about this line of train service. There will be little to no signage about WB in the train station.... that is because WB is new competition for OBB... Check with your hotel or the WB's website for information. read more

Westbahn - Public Transportation Near Me - Vienna, 9

Westbahn is a new train line that I think only has one train line, and it links Salzburg and Vienna. It is not necessarily shorter in time (I think it might even be just a bit longer) then the traditional OBB line, but it is so much better, and cheaper that my discount OBB pass. Crazy. It also goes almost every hour (from around 5 am in the morning until about 19'00, watch out that the times are different depending which way you go). In Vienna, you leave from the Westbanhof station, in Salzburg from Salzburg Hfb (of Hfp I forget). The good: The staff were all very friendly on both trips and actually looked happy to be at their job and interact with the clients. The train was kept extremely clean and the staff were continuously cleaning up without bothering anyone. It is a double floor train, there are small cafeteria areas I believe in every car, and on the top floor is a little "lounge/couch" area in the back. The big benefit is that the tickets are open tickets, which means you buy it for a direction, but you don't have to specify when you go, nor time, nor date. They send you pdfs of the tickets you buy online, and you can use them for up to a year. Yay! without having to put a date or time, and its also a benefit we have a The website is in German and English. I think they miss to finish pages or link right things like "specials". The e-mail they send the tickets in are also in German and English. You also can collect miles points with your Austrian Airline miles number if you have one! Cool. If you don't have one, let me know and I'll book your train ticket for you. They don't specify that the miles are linked to this ID, so I randomly tried and it worked. there are also two outlets under the armrest between the seats. Fantastic. Did not try if there was wireless. The bad: On the screens in the Salzburg station, the train is listed as "West". Now I know better, so I will recognize this. But I was very unsure. Plus I had found the 2011 schedule on the westbahn website before leaving, but they had not posted for 2012 yet. Turns out OBB has a train going in the same direction at the time on the 2011 schedule, so if you don't know that Westbahn in a double decker train with a blue and green colour scheme (as opposed to red with OBB, or their trains are sometimes also in grey or yellow I believe), you may get confused. OBB office did not want to help at all (in fact they were practically worthless about their own trains when I took one in the morning... may have just been the guy I spoke too since I spoke to him both in the morning and the evening, and he was giving me attitude and wrong information, completely different then my experience with OBB in Vienna.... so they'll loose customers to Westbahn if they are not friendly....) Luggage space. Well there just is not real significant space. The overhead bins would not take a carry on luggage (hand luggage) and there was space but certainly not enough for more than a few people. There were not so many people on the train so we could use the seats next to us, but as they gain popularity, this will become an issue. There is not a lot of sitting space. I was comfortable but if you are a person with very long legs, you may be uncomfortable. Go sit in the lounge area I guess. Overall: I was very pleased. Open tickets, clean train, friendly staff. Biggest room for improvement is with the luggage. read more

A clean, fast, and cheap way to get from Vienna all over. Just took it to Salzburg so I can get to Munich. Cheaper then taking the ÖBB all the way! I'm also writing this from the train - so - free wifi. Though seats are tough to find on a packed Friday afternoon train! read more

I don't know how anyone had a problem with this train. It's clean, timely, and reasonably priced. There is room between the seats for large suitcases to be stored. There is also a luggage rack on the lower level. I'm almost wondering if someone from a competing line wrote bad reviews about this line. A great train! read more

A pure disaster. Way worse than the OEBB. It may be cheap but there is no room for luggage, total chaos at boarding, rude staff. I will stay with the OEBB anyday. read more

Some of the OEBB conductors don't believe in using the electronic smart phone and tablet tickets. A conductor on my recent trip made me buy a new ticket, without even looking at the phone screen, because according to him the OEBB only accepts printed tickets. So had to pay twice. The unpleasant part of this experience was also the embarassment that I had to deal with. Later I was informed, on three occasions, by employees of OEBB including another conductor that the electronic version of tickets is OK. Jiri M. read more

Clean, fast, and way cheaper than ÖBB even with a discount. You can download the tickets right to your phone which makes it easier. There is a snack and drink cart as well. The selling point for me is that there is free wifi on the train! The staff is also very friendly read more