This beatiful cover came from Netherlands and depicts a miniature sheet celebrating the UNESCO World Heritage Site
Semmering Railway. The
Semmering railway (German: Semmeringbahn) in Austria, which starts at Gloggnitz and leads over the Semmering to Mürzzuschlag, was the first mountain railway in Europe built with a standard gauge track. It is commonly referred to as the world's first true mountain railway, given the very difficult terrain and the considerable altitude difference that was mastered during its construction. It is still fully functional as a part of the Southern Railway which is operated by the Austrian Federal Railways. The Semmering railway was constructed between 1848 and 1854 by some 20,000 workers under the project's designer and director Carl von Ghega born in Venice as Carlo Ghega in an Albanian family. The construction features 14 tunnels (among them the 1,431 m summit tunnel), 16 viaducts (several two-storey) and over 100 stone arch bridges and 11 small iron bridges. The stations and the buildings for the supervisors were often built directly from the waste rock dug out when making the tunnels. In 1998 the
Semmering railway was added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage sites.
