The new approx. 21 km long section between Köstendorf and Salzburg is one of the last major milestones in the upgrading of the Salzburg–Vienna rail corridor to four tracks. The section comprises a multitude of different civil engineering structures, posing high demands on the interdisciplinary design team. The open sections of the alignment require many over‐ and underpasses and road diversions. In addition, the majority of the section runs underground through the Flachgau Tunnel, which has the particular feature of a tunnel bridge. The aim of the BIM project is to provide a software‐independent, integrated model of the whole project. All parties involved in the project collaborate to define the LOD for the terrain, existing building, land use and geological models, as well as the models for the proposed new infrastructure for the open section, tunnels, ventilation control building, bridges, civil structures and drainage. The LoD are defined in parallel with the AIA according to the KISTE infrastructure identification system used by ÖBB (Austrian Federal Railways). At the same time, the BIM execution plans are generated by the team and adapted to the new BIM processes. The opportunities provided by the element‐based display and evaluation are anticipated to lead to considerable improvements in the field of interdisciplinary design and visualisation studies. The present article describes the current state of work and provides a preview of future developments.

The BIM pilot project ”New Köstendorf‐Salzburg Line“ for ÖBB‐Infrastruktur AG covers a new twin‐track section about 21 km long involving a wide variety of different engineering structures and a corresponding need for close interdisciplinary collaboration within a sensitive project space. The pilot project successfully achieved its objective of generating a largely software‐independent overall model and transferring the knowledge gained to the Employer's Information Requirements and subsequently to a BIM execution plan. In addition to internal coordination meetings, a preliminary external meeting took place to discuss the model elements required for a government agency as part of an approval process and the availability of such elements by means of direct access to the model.By adopting an integrated, collaborative approach to project management, it was possible to define extensive procedures and workflows adapted to the needs of the respective project partners for the single‐discipline models (specialist models) and to coordinate an overall federated model. The results of the co‐ordinated overall model show the ample opportunities afforded by a parameterised ground model for transparent risk and project assessment, paving the way for a holistic, phase‐based infrastructure information model. In this regard, the authors felt that it was important to adapt the project partners' established internal procedures only minimally and to translate them into BIM‐compatible, cooperative workflows.