page_title: Mariazell Railway
section_title: Power supply
hierarchical_section_title: Mariazell Railway / Power supply
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Wasserkraftwerk Erlaufboden
context_page_description: The Mariazell Railway is an electrically operated narrow-gauge railway which connects the Lower Austrian capital of Sankt Pölten with the Styrian pilgrimage centre of Mariazell. The line was opened in stages between 1898 and 1907, and had a, now closed, branch to Wieselburg an der Erlauf. The railway is operated by NÖVOG, which is owned by the provincial government, and is a part of the Verkehrsverbund Niederösterreich-Burgenland.
context_section_description: Due to its history and early provenance, the Mariazell Railway is run on the unusual voltage of 6.5 kV and frequency of 25 Hz, provided by its own supply from the EVN power company.
  For the power supply of the whole Mariazell Railway and the region along the line, three 25 Hz multi-phase generators at the Wienerbruck power station were used with an apparent power of 6600 kVA. This accounts for the single-phase railway supply's apparent power of 4500 kVA. The equipment is driven by water from the Lassing and the Erlauf. The railway current generated at the Wienerbruck power station at 6.5 kV was partly fed directly into the power lines near the power station, and also partly stepped up to 27 kV to be transmitted to the substations at Kirchberg and Ober-Grafendorf. As a backup against power outages, a power station consisting of two diesel generators, each producing 420 kVA single-phase apparent power, was built at the Alpenbahnhof in St. Pölten.
  Right from the beginning, the power cables for public supply and those for the railway supply were mounted on crossbars above the catenary on the wire gantries. Even today – although the public supply has been changed to three-phase at 50 Hz – about 21 km of community power lines are still in service. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, a separate 20-kV line was built between Loich and Frankenfels by the power supplier EVN, which is responsible for public power supply in the area, leaving only the 27-kV line for the railway and the catenary itself on the wire gantries.
  In 1923, below the Wienerbruck power station, the Stierwaschboden Reservoir and the Erlaufboden power station were built with three generators. In the second half of the 1960s, the aging power generation and distribution system was renewed. The railway power is now usually generated by the 2.8-MVA equipment at Erlaufboden power station. It consists of a synchronous machine for 25 Hz single-phase AC, 50 Hz multiphase, and a Francis turbine. An old, smaller inverter set in Erlaufboden and two old 25 Hz machines in Wienerbruck power station serve as reserves for the railway. Two further generators in Wienerbruck and three in Erlaufboden with all together 11.5 MVA generate 50 Hz multiphase current.
  The railway network's backbone nowadays is formed by the 27-kV loop between the two power stations and the newly built Gösing substation as well as the transmission lines from there to the newly built Rabenstein substation. After these facilities went into operation, the direct catenary feed at Wienerbruck and the substations at Kirchberg and Ober-Grafendorf were taken out of service. This improved the power supply on the mountainous section of the line considerably. Nowadays, the switch room at Erlaufboden power station controls its own equipment and that at Wienerbruck power station. The substations at Gösing and Rabenstein are run and overseen remotely by the EVN system operator in the company headquarters at Maria Enzersdorf.
  The following facilities are, or have been, operated.
caption: Erlaufboden power station
exif: {}