Franzensfeste, although not real, is still a place someone might have to travel through once in a while. Whether it be to travel to Innsbruck or Bolzano - everyone from the Pustertal valley dreads going through this godforsaken place. This guide will try to prepare you for the horrors to come: all the strange occurrences and supernatural encounters you will have to evade to get to your destination.
So let's go through some common scenarios together and how to deal with them so you can stay safe:
Cigarettes
There have been multiple reports made to our team over the years about a very, very strange glitch occurring if you find yourself craving some nicotine while waiting for a delayed train.
The cigarette vending machine outside the station seems to only give you 20 cent coins as change. We haven't found out why this happens... We speculate it has something to do with the lack of cash flow going through the town - the abundance of coins suggests they are either smelting something as a cover-up, to make that metal travel outside of the event horizon, or there are simply too many coins coming in. Why this happens still needs to be uncovered. Another theory is that there is some sort of extraterrestrial experiment gone wrong which left them with too many coins to carry, hiding in the tunnels under the town.
Food
There are only a few ways to get food in Franzensfeste - 4 to be exact.
- A bar
- A kebab place
- The vending machines inside the station
[REDACTED]
The bar is a mystery in itself - we will probably need to dedicate its own wiki post to it. In short: it's always closed, you can't go there...
The kebab place is probably run by aliens who know nothing of our culture. "De hoben mir an Döner in an Semmel geben" (They gave me a kebab in a bread roll), a user once reported. We haven't verified this claim yet - further investigation needs to be done. We suggest high caution. We don't know what the meat is made of or what ingredients are being used. You might be swallowing a tracker or get infected by some strange alien disease.
The safest option when it comes to nutrition is the station's own vending machine. The station grounds are generally considered safe. Of course, standard Franzensfeste procedures apply.
Broken bathroom wall
The bathroom in the station is not in good shape - there is a hole in the wall behind the faucet and we don't know where it leads. Be careful drinking water from it.
Tunnel entrance at the end of the platform
There is an entrance at the end of the platform that appears to lead into the underground tunnels. At the reopening of the station in 2025 there was strange tape covering the entrance. There are no stairs, just a hole dropping down and a tunnel leading to the left and right.
Wind and weather conditions
- It is always windy
- It is always foggy
- It is raining most of the time, except in summer where it might be sunny but somehow still cold
The extreme weather conditions are probably caused by the weather experiments being done under the glass dome we theorized about - or partly because you seem to be in an entirely different place and time upon entering the town.
Train delays and cancellations
The space-time warp happening in the station leads to delays. Calculations we did for this site suggest about 40% of trains are delayed, 10% of which are cancelled entirely.
Should curiosity get the best of you and you dare to travel deep into the town, time will warp, you will lose your sense of self, you might not come back out alive... So, fellow traveller, keep yourself safe and stick to the tracks.
Should you see something you think you shouldn't about the dark things going on in this town, make sure to report it on our forum so we can finally uncover all of its secrets once and for all.