Vienna Underground – A brief History

The public transport in Vienna is not alone around the subway. You will find driving busses, trams and also the overground train. There isn’t a perfect date for your first day, when drives began around the subway from Vienna. It was a very complicated system. The very first date in the books is 1898 with the opening of Otto Wagners citytram – something which is nearly exactly the same today. We speak from Line 4 plus a section of Line 6, known today as modern trains as well as in 1898 as rail steam locomotive. The main difference is just a a few changing times.

U-Bahnnetz Wien, 2017

Timetable
1925 was the entire year, in which the City Train was reopened as an urban transport system after being electrified by the town of Vienna. The operation took place, however, with streetcar sets.
In 1969, three lines were built: U1, U2 and U4 and connected a lot of places inside the city. In the time between 1883 and 2000 came two new lines in the center: U3 and U6 as well as in the next several years to 2028 will build the extension from your lines U1, U2 and U5.

New dates for opening
The third first date from the subway of Vienna was 1976 if the first new subway train ran on the way between Heiligenstadt and Friedensbrucke. It was known as a “test operation”. Furthermore, the traveled route have been operational since 1901.
Last but not the very least, in 1978, was built the initial new tunnel between Karlsplatz and Reumannplatz. It absolutely was opened with big celebrations. Nevertheless, subway trains had recently been around the U4 line for two years.

1898
I am inclined to view the year 1898 as correct, analogous for the opening date from the London Underground in 1863: this season too a steam locomotive-powered metropolitan railway was opened in open cuts or shallow tunnels in addition to their electrification occurred time later. The first electric subway in mining tunnels was opened there in 1890, but there is nowhere a reference – the London Underground would not have been opened until 1890. In this sense, 1898 appears to me to be acceptable to U-Bahn.

The midst of a lifetime
After World War II, the decission was taken in 1946 to come back two-thirds from the area “Greater Vienna” to Lower Austria. The emergence of the “Iron Curtain” and also the occupation of Vienna by the four Allies, which lasted until 1955, also acted as a brake on growth. Although a reconstruction-enquiry declared the war project of the Siemens Building Union as a possible official subway network; it absolutely was targeted at a city of three to four million inhabitants, and also today just isn’t around the corner. In 1954, Karl Heinrich Brunner therefore presented a streamlined concept – but without the chance of realization. Another utopian project was Rudolf Maculan’s trackless subway (1953).

City Tram
In the city, motorized private transport increased strongly in the fifties. The resulting conflict of use in public places roads ended up being often solved in support of private transport: As in many places in Europe, the tram network was reduced from 1958, although not as radical such as other cities. The duties with the abandoned tram lines were transferred mostly towards the new bus lines. Over these years, there was clearly also an unlucky politicization with the subway question, since the conservative OVP in the municipal election campaigns in 1954 and 1959 massively advocated for your subway, the dominant SPO and the housing inside the foreground. Roland Rainer’s traffic concept 1961 was accordingly pronounced as U-Bahn enemy. It was assumed that the Viennese subway would lead to excessive promotion from the centrality with the inner city.
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