A forgotten railway line in the Styrian mountains by Bas van der Gronde

A thin strip of track, running dead straight through a sea of conifers. This photograph was taken above the Obdacher Sattel, the mountain pass between Styria and Carinthia in Austria. The railway line you can see here, the Lavanttalbahn, was built in 1900 to connect the Mur Valley on the Styrian side with the Lavant Valley on the Carinthian side. More than a hundred years later, the track is still there, although nowadays only freight trains run on it. Passenger trains have not been seen here for years.

What makes this photograph special is how nature has reclaimed the landscape without concealing the tracks. It is no coincidence that the forest is so dense. Styria is Austria’s most forested state, with over 60 per cent forest cover. These forests are not an unspoilt nature reserve, but have been a working landscape for generations: forestry here provides employment for tens of thousands of people and generates a production value of billions of euros's per year, and by law, no more timber may ever be felled than is allowed to regrow. It is precisely this balanced management that has kept this forest so dense and healthy that, viewed from above, it almost completely conceals an entire railway line from view.

This photograph is ideal for those who appreciate calm, orderly compositions with a story behind them: a diagonal line cutting through the chaos of treetops, and a piece of industrial history hidden beneath the greenery.