Austria is the home of the European alpine railways. The oldest, the Semmering Railway, constructed in 1848-1854, lies on the South Railway main line from Vienna to Trieste and is the first mountain railway conducted exclusively on the adhesive principle. Then followed the Brenner Railway (1864-1867), the shortest railway communication between central Germany via Tyrol to Italy (Verona), and the Arlberg Railway (1880-1884), which opened up the route via Tyrol and Vorarlberg to the west (Switzerland and France). Four great panoramas in the exhibition showing the above-mentioned alpine railways were witness to Austria's prominence in this special field of railway technique. One room in the pavilion was devoted to the models of alpine railways. There were also plans of the lines, photographic views of buildings and of the tracks of the first three mentioned lines, which are in full working order. The lines in course of construction were further illustrated by models of tunnels, scaffoldings, foundations of arched bridge (with span of 80 meters) over the Isonzo (littoral lands of Austria), with statistical calculations and charts of the largest vaulted bridges ever built, and photographic views of the working in the Karawanken and Wocheiner tunnels. Among the other exhibits in this department may be mentioned a model of the groundwork of the Austrian State railways for express trains, photos of the imperial court train and of the newest locomotives and passenger carriages of the Austrian State railways, as well as plans for iron bridges, groundwork, locomotives, and passenger carriages of the State railways. The work published for the Emperor's jubilee, "History of the Railways of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy," together with a number of other publications on the statistics, pedagogy, and technique of railways, were exhibited. Finally, there was a chart of the railways of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on a scale of 1:1000000.
For a long time the Austrian ministry of railways set itself the task of drawing the attention of the traveling public to the beauties of the scenery and the ethnographical charms in which Austria abounds, and thus inducing them to visit the country. To gain this end the ministry issued various publications, opened inquiry offices, and arranged exhibitions. The exhibition "Sceneries and People of Austria" in the Government pavilion was arranged, with the cooperation of several artists, for the same object. The exhibit principally consisted of a collection of views of the most beautiful parts of Austria, especially the Austrian Alps, and pictures of Austrian national life. Photographs taken by the best photographers, as well as a number of artistic amateur photos, representing important traveling districts in Austria (99 in all), were enlarged and reproduced as pigment prints or linographs. Two series of photographic prints were exhibited also, one consisting of Austrian castles and strongholds and the other of various favorite alpine resorts. Further, a selection of alpine and traveling works in luxurious editions were shown.
The whole exhibition was finished off with a collection of 14 pictures of costumes and sport, arranged like a frieze and illustrating special Austrian national scenes. Four bronze statuettes, viz, "Chamois-hunter," "Alpine tourist," "Ski sportsman," "Alpine dairy woman," had been placed in the room as decorations.
The exhibition of models, plans, and photographs of the existing and projected canal for deep-draft ships, arranged by the department of the ministry of commerce for the building of waterways, offered a general view of the whole network of the Austrian waterways, comprising those of the Danube, Moldau, and Elbe rivers, together with the system of canals.
The beautiful landscape of the river sides was shown by means of views of the Danube, contained in an album, while the plans, photographs, and models exhibited by the Danube Regulation Commission showed the river courses, the harbor in lower Austria and Vienna, as well as the construction for regulating the water level in the Vienna-Danube Canal. A map of Prague showed the harbor and canal construction works, some finished and others projected, in the precincts of the town. The drawings and photos exhibited in a corner of the hall by the Aussig-Teplitz Railway Company illustrated the position and traffic of the harbor of Aussig, the most important inland harbor of Austria. The charts, in addition to giving a view of the position of the canals and rivers, with canals projected, showed also longitudinal sections of the Danube-Oder Canal.
The exhibitions of the State professional art schools, arranged by the imperial royal ministry of public instruction, Vienna, gave an idea of the work done by these institutions. The exhibition was arranged in three divisions, the first two containing the exhibits of the schools for arts and crafts in Vienna and Prague (the largest of their kind in Austria) and the third the work of the other professional art schools.
The decoration of the two interiors of the schools for arts and crafts, Vienna (Director Felizian Freiherr von Myrbach) and Prague (Director Georg Stibral), as well as all the objects exhibited in these divisions, were designed at the above institutions and executed by the pupils. The organization of the "collective exhibition" of the other professional art schools was intrusted to the inspector of these schools and Hofrat Arthur von Scala, director of the Austrian Museum, Vienna. The interior and the exhibits themselves were executed in the workshops of 46 different professional art schools, with the cooperation of the pupils.
The amount of money appropriated by the Austrian Government for the participation of the Austrian Empire at the exposition was 1,100,000 crowns (about $220,000). The appropriation, however, was almost exclusively made for the display of Austria in connection with the Austrian Government Pavilion. The appropriated amount had to cover the expense for the erection of the pavilion and its installation, as well as the installation of two rooms in the Fine Arts Building, where the Vienna Artists' Association had an additional display. The appropriated amount had also to cover the transportation of the Austrian Government exhibits as well as the expense of the reshipment of same. The Government provided the 1,100,000 crowns not only for the erection of the pavilion and its sculptural works, but for the expenses of installation, transportation, etc. Part of this money was used by the various Government participants, viz:
(1) The imperial royal railroad ministry.
(2) The imperial royal department of waterways of Austria.