To conclude its 6-coin “Austrian Railways” series, the Austrian Mint is now issuing a 20-Euro silver commemorative coin dedicated to the “Railway of the Future”.

In the 15 decades of its existence the railway has revolutionised the transportation and through it, the economies of the world and the life styles of its peoples. Neither the spectacular developments in motor road transport or in flying have detracted from the railways pivotal position in the modern world of travel. In passenger travel the watchwords of the future are speed and comfort.
The “Shinkansen” …

The 1st Austrian electric train was a small locomotive circling in the exhibition pavilion in the Prater on the occasion of the Emperor Franz Joseph’s 50th birthday. The same monarch issued a licence in 1882 (2 years later) for the 1st public electric railway.

It used DC power supply and was a 5 kilometer long stretch carrying day-trippers from the country town of Moedling into the Bruehl valley. Other short branch lines soon followed. The introduction of AC proved the most reliable for longer railway lines, and in 1911 engines using AC were put into service on the 90 km stretch to the pilgrimage centre of Mariazell.

2009 has been designated “The International Year of Astronomy“. To honour this title the Austrian Mint in Vienna has chosen to dedicate its silver-niobium coin this year to this fascinating theme.
The new bimetal coin displays a three-quarter portrait of the famous astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei and scope with which he observed the surface of the Moon just 400 years ago in 1609.
In the background his drawing of the moon surface is reproduced, while the silver ring spans the development of the telescope from Newton’s telescope through the …