By the latter half of the 19th century, there were seven main line railway lines radiating from Vienna. These were the Nordbahn opened in 1837, the Südbahn opened in 1841, the Ostbahn opened in the same year, the Westbahn opened in 1858, the Franz-Josefs-Bahn opened in 1870, the Nordwestbahn opened in 1872 and the opened in 1881. Each of the seven routes belonged to a different railway company and each had its own train station in the capital, which were, partly for reasons of space, taxation and the military, built far from the city centre. Moreover, six of them were designed as terminal stations, and only the last-opened station, the , was built as through station from the beginning. While the comparatively few passengers who did not have the capital as a starting point or destination were able to switch between the stations via the Vienna tramway, which was set up in 1865, this was much more difficult for transit freight traffic.