110 years ago, to be precise on 9 May 1898, the Vienna Urban Railway was ceremonially opened by Emperor Franz Josef. This public means of local transport continued to bear the same name until 1989, and today its routes are part of the underground network and the Vienna rapid transit railway. As early as the first expansion of the city of Vienna in the mid-19th century, plans were made for an urban railway, but decades were to elapse before the first work began in 1892.
The urban r ...
more110 years ago, to be precise on 9 May 1898, the Vienna Urban Railway was ceremonially opened by Emperor Franz Josef. This public means of local transport continued to bear the same name until 1989, and today its routes are part of the underground network and the Vienna rapid transit railway. As early as the first expansion of the city of Vienna in the mid-19th century, plans were made for an urban railway, but decades were to elapse before the first work began in 1892.
The urban railway was built as a full double-track railway, the main aim being to link the many railway termini in Vienna. In technical terms, the urban railway was a mountain railway, with the steam locomotives having to deal with inclines of up to 2.5%, and the tightest curve radiuses of 125 m.
For practical reasons, the lines, of a total length of 39 km, followed the Wien River and the Danube Canal, the former city wall (the Gürtel) and a route through the suburbs. The application to the Commission for Transport Systems provided for the construction of the following routes: the suburban line from Hütteldorf-Hacking to Heiligenstadt via Ottakring, the Gürtel line, and the Wien Valley and Danube Canal line with a link from the Main Customs Office (today Vienna Central) to the Northern Railway Station (today the Praterstern).
The Vienna Urban Railway was the only transport system in the world to be planned and designed as a whole by a single architect. This was k.k. Oberbaurat Prof. Otto Wagner, who created a unique combination of art and technology, structure and design. Not only the station buildings but also bridges, viaducts and tunnels were integrated in the work of art. Wagner’s architect office designed basic types of station buildings which were then modified according to the local conditions and built. Particularly elaborate are the pavilions at Karlsplatz and the Court Pavilion in Hietzing. Otto Wagner’s urban railway buildings, designed in the Jugendstil, are today regarded as one of the most important works of art in Vienna.
As a mass means of transport for the Viennese, the steam urban railway was not very successful. Smoke was a nuisance in the tunnels and there were very few possibilities to change to the tram network, which together made the whole system not very user-friendly. With a separate ticket system, it was also too expensive. In the 1920s, the City of Vienna took a lease on the Gürtel, Wien Valley and Danube Canal lines , opening them in 1925 as the Vienna Electric Urban Railway. From 1976, the routes of the Electric Urban Railway were gradually integrated in the new Viennese underground network. The suburban line and the link from Landstrasse to Praterstern were retained by the Federal Railways and are now part of the rapid transit network.
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