|
Vienna: Tramwaytag 2005.
Vienna is a long missing town from my homepage. Not because I have only a few pictures, but
beacuse I have too many, and I can't really put them on this site in a compact way, not to
occupy much space on my homepage, ordering in different themes with only a few photos. Not
this time, I don't let them piling up anymore. :-) Last time our special apropos to visit
Wien (Vienna) was this year's Tramwaytag, the Day of the Trams on 11th June 2005.
We're on the Ring, the inner boulevard of the city. A low floor tram of the Wiener Linien
company, ULF (Ultra Low Floor tramway car) is coming towards us, but we take another one in the
other direction. A local tramwayfriend, Mr. Heinz Heider led us today in town, whose pictures
from the Budapest trams from the 1970's - among others - make my friend Hamster's homepage more colorful.
Two different nostalgic services ran this day. One of them made special round trips near
the depot Brigittenau, the other (on picture) carried visitors of the event from the city,
namely from Schwedenplatz. This is a train of a motor car type M1 and a trailer
type m3. Some say that they have so many working ones of this type, they could
operate a complete line with them! And then we didn't even speak about other ex-Vienna M-cars
all over the World!
An E1+c3 train runs on line 21, the same type which can be seen in the
Hungarian town Miskolc. I heard that the line will be shut down after lengthening the metro
line U2.
Trailer no. 1269 is in a really bad shape, I guess, it has not much more time to go on the
Vienna tracks.
And here we are now in front of the depot, I like this traffic jam of oldie and normal cars!
An ULF again, on line 31. To locate where we are now, you can find the Hundertwasser-design
incinerator in the background.
The nostalgic round trips from the depot took around 10-15 minutes, and this service was
arranged using museum piece motor cars which normally cannot be seen on the streets. On picture:
a motorcar type G4 from 1903, coming out of the depot.
The depot was divided in two: in the halls on the left the normal daily work went on as usual,
these were closed from the visitors. The halls on the right served the guests.
Let's go on, first of all this working car type GP, no. 6408. welcomes us. It was used today
as occasional stage, however in the last weeks it ran all across Vienna just to advertise
the Tramday.
This tiny little gnome, a Steyr minibus was familiar to me, in the end of the eighties or the
beginning of the nineties - I don't know exactly - they ran in the narrowest streets in the
inner city core. And why is it so familiar? In the age of falling of the iron curtain, due to
an event called something like "Budapest greets Vienna" or something, these small
buses were guest vehicles on the Budapest bus line 15 for a short time. I remember, each one
followed another normal Ikarus 415 bus of the Budapest transport company BKV in a short
distance, not to lose their way. :-))))
Now they sold some books and other publications of the Wiener Linien company inside.
But its successor, this Volkswagen minibus was also displayed, which I have seen here for the
first time.
Of course, talking about a Day of Trams, they are the most important ones today. Let's see some
of them. The working car type MR (a modified version of an M-car), no. 6150 was also a souvenir
shop, they sold books, tramway models among other things.
Once normal duty vehicles, now museum or nostalgic pieces: these were displayed in the same
look just as they once had been sent out from this depot to the streets every day. For example:
F type articulated motor car no. 746. on line 32. It's a quite interesting vehicle: the first
half of it has conventional two-axle undercarriage...
...while its semi-trailer reminds us the E type, and has bogies. The last pieces of the two-axle
type L4 have been built this way in the early 1960's, this is why the usual two-axle
design at front, lengthened by a semi-trailer.
A two-axle trailer type l3 is coupled to it, this was their familiar look on line
32.
In the same manner, the M-type motor car no. 4078. is coupled to...
...the trailer type c3 no. 1110. This kind of train (Halbstarke Garnitur, what I
don't know really what does that mean, maybe the point is that an oldie tram was coupled to a
brand new kind of trailer?) have been a familiar sight on line 5 for years.
Of course, a short, three-section ULF was also displayed.
Representing the Wiener Lokalbahn (or Badener local railways) you can see the salon car no. 200.
This four-axle, bogie motor car was built in 1899 by the Grazer Waggonfabrik. You can read its
story here. In 1955 it was
bought by a railwayfriend association in Vienna (Verband der Eisenbahnfreunde, VEF), they
restored the car in 1977 in a way that it is able to run both on the Vienna city tramway tracks
and on the Badener local railway line. You have to know that the power system of the overhead
electric wirings were changed many times during the past 100 years.
This means that its controller only looks like the original, does not work like that.
Beside it one could buy tramway spare parts, too. Am I right, are those radio equipment over
there, among the get-off signals?!?
Flea market: conductor's bags, direction display shields, even today's metro information panels,
stickers etc.
Brigittenau depot maintains working cars nowadays, this means other special vehicles were
displayed, too. On the left there is a snow bagger one, nicknamed Post Box, due to its color
and its shape. As usual, a sand spreading trailer is coupled to it. On the right you can see
the opened freight motor truck type KO2, no. 6133., coupled to a tank wagon.
Other attractions: stamping rememberance medals.
Small trams for the small ones...
...big stage and beer mugs for the bigger ones. :-)
To Continue >>>
Text and photos by András Báti, except
where otherwise mentioned (C) 2005
|
|
