1865-1880

With gathering pace, the railways replaced horse-drawn transportation in Austria.
Alfred Krupp was indispensable to operations at the steel works in Essen. In 1844, his younger brother Hermann came to Berndorf in his stead, taking over the technical direction of the factory. Hermann Krupp recalled: “In Berndorf I actually only wanted to get the spoon factory going... but I have ended up getting married and have to admit that I prefer life here to life in Prussia.”

Hermann was a pioneering figure in the wave of modernisation growing up around him, and forged new paths for the people of Berndorf. Among other initiatives, he personally set in motion the building of a railway link between Leobersdorf and St. Pölten. The project took almost ten years to realise, and was finally completed in 1877. The Triestinghof railway station provided the perfect connection for transportation from the factory. Thanks to this access to the railway network, the Berndorf plant was able to deliver goods to its customers faster and more easily. But Hermann Krupp wasn’t satisfied at that: his efforts continued, and with the construction of the Berndorf Stadt station, he ensured that the town itself was linked with the transport network.

The whole of Austria profited from the rapid expansion of the railways during this period. Without this new transport infrastructure, huge events like the World’s Fair held in Vienna in 1873 – which attracted seven million visitors – would have been almost impossible to implement.
Berndorf was in fact unable to take part in the World’s Fair, for an unusual reason – there were no competitors for the goods the company produced, and so they were ineligible for entry into a competition.