Vienna Underground – A quick History

The general public transport in Vienna isn’t alone on the subway. There are driving busses, trams as well as the overground train. There isn’t an exact date for your first day, when drives began around the subway from Vienna. It had been a really complicated system. The very first date inside the books is 1898 with all the opening of Otto Wagners citytram – a method that is nearly the identical today. We speak from Line 4 and a a part of Line 6, known today as modern trains and in 1898 as rail steam locomotive. The real difference is only a a few changing times.

Timetable
1925 was the year, where the City Train was reopened as a possible urban transport system after being electrified by the capital of scotland- Vienna. The operation took place, however, with streetcar sets.
In 1969, three lines were built: U1, U2 and U4 and connected plenty of places in the city. Within the time between 1883 and 2000 came two new lines inside the center: U3 and U6 plus the following years to 2028 will build the extension from the lines U1, U2 and U5.

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

1898
I tend to see the year 1898 as correct, analogous to the opening date with the London Underground in 1863: this year too a steam locomotive-powered metropolitan railway was opened in open cuts or shallow tunnels and their electrification took place some time later. The very 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 seems to me to become acceptable to U2 Wien.

The Middle of a lifetime
After The second world war, the decission was taken in 1946 to go back two-thirds of the area “Greater Vienna” to reduce Austria. The emergence from the “Iron Curtain” and also the occupation of Vienna through the four Allies, which lasted until 1955, also acted being a brake on growth. Although a reconstruction-enquiry declared world war 2 project from the Siemens Building Union as a possible official subway network; it was aimed at a town of three or four million inhabitants, and even today isn’t in sight. 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
Inside the city, motorized private transport increased strongly in the fifties. The resulting conflict of use in public areas roads was then often solved in favor of private transport: As in numerous avenues in Europe, the tram network was reduced from 1958, although not as radical as in other cities. The tasks of the abandoned tram lines were transferred mostly for the new bus lines. In these years, there is also an unlucky politicization with the subway question, since the conservative OVP inside the municipal election campaigns in 1954 and 1959 massively advocated for that subway, the dominant SPO and also the housing in the foreground. Roland Rainer’s traffic concept 1961 was accordingly pronounced as U-Bahn enemy. It absolutely was assumed that the Viennese subway would result in excessive promotion from the centrality with the inner city.
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