500 Tolarjev First Railway in Slovenia

Slovenia's first railway line ran from Vienna to Trieste, passing through Slovenian territory when the southern section opened in 1857 — part of the Südbahn, one of the most ambitious engineering projects in the Habsburg Empire. The Semmering section, completed in 1854, was the first mountain railway in the world built with a steam locomotive, and the broader line transformed Ljubljana from a provincial backwater into a node on a major continental route.

The 1996 issue marked the 140th anniversary of that opening.