Vienna Underground – A quick History

The public transport in Vienna just isn’t alone around the subway. There are driving busses, trams and also the overground train. You do not have a perfect date for your first day, when drives began on the subway from Vienna. It was a very complicated system. The very first date in the books is 1898 with all the opening of Otto Wagners citytram – a system that is nearly the identical today. We speak from Line 4 plus a part of Line 6, known today as modern trains plus 1898 as rail steam locomotive. The real difference is simply a matter of changing times.

U-Bahnnetz Wien, 2017

Timetable
1925 was the season, the location where the City Train was reopened as a possible urban transport system after being electrified through the town of Vienna. The operation occurred, however, with streetcar sets.
In 1969, three lines were built: U1, U2 and U4 and connected plenty of places within the city. In the time between 1883 and 2000 came two new lines in the center: U3 and U6 and in the following years to 2028 will build the extension in the lines U1, U2 and U5.

New dates for opening
The third first date in the subway of Vienna was 1976 when the first new subway train ran on the route between Heiligenstadt and Friedensbrucke. This is termed as a “test operation”. In addition, the traveled route had been operational since 1901.
Last but not the least, in 1978, was built the initial new tunnel between Karlsplatz and Reumannplatz. It was opened with big celebrations. Nevertheless, subway trains had been recently on the U4 line for 2 years.

1898
I am inclined to view the year 1898 as correct, analogous towards the opening date with the London Underground in 1863: this coming year too a steam locomotive-powered metropolitan railway was opened in open cuts or shallow tunnels and their electrification happened some time later. The first electric subway in mining tunnels was opened there in 1890, but there’s nowhere a reference – the London Underground do not need been opened until 1890. In this sense, 1898 appears to me to be acceptable to U2 Wien.

The midst of a lifetime
After The second world war, the decission was taken in 1946 to come back two-thirds from the area “Greater Vienna” to reduce Austria. The emergence of the “Iron Curtain” and the occupation of Vienna from the four Allies, which lasted until 1955, also acted like a brake on growth. Although a reconstruction-enquiry declared world war 2 project from the Siemens Building Union being an official subway network; it had been aimed at a town of 3 to 4 million inhabitants, and even today isn’t on the horizon. In 1954, Karl Heinrich Brunner therefore presented a streamlined concept – but with no possibility of realization. Another utopian project was Rudolf Maculan’s trackless subway (1953).

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