Tag Archives: Austria

Vienna’s Frankenstein low floor test tram

Vienna was an early adopter of low floor trams on their network, so much design and development work was required before a wider rollout. And one part of this program was a ‘Frankenstein’ tram that combined a low floor test […]

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Crazy tram junctions of Innsbruck

Innsbruck is one of many Austrian cities with tramways, but the network has one interesting feature – exceedingly complicated junctions. Photo by trams aux fils., via Wikimedia Commons Peerhofsiedlung terminus has a interleaved scissors crossover on a curve. Google Street […]

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Underground trams in Vienna

Like many cities the Austrian capital of Vienna has both a Straßenbahn (tram) system alongside their underground U-Bahn rail system, but it also has something in between – the untergrundstrassenbahn or “underground tramways”. Under the beltway The first section of […]

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ÖBB switching from left to right hand running across Austria

Trains switching between left and right hand running has been a theme on this blog for some time, and here is one example I’d missed – Austria. When I visited Austria I only found trains running on the right hand […]

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Underground archaeology at the metro station

During my visit to Vienna, I found something interesting when passing through the U-Bahn station of Stephansplatz – a window into an underground crypt. The Vergilius Chapel (German: Virgilkapelle) dated back to the early 13th century, with the Magdalene Chapel […]

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Mobile traction substations for powering trains and trams

The power for an electric railway has to come from somewhere – and that place is a traction substation, a facility that convert hogh voltage electricity from the power grid to the voltage and frequency that trains or trams use. […]

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Crossing international borders by train

When I travelled across Europe by train, I crossed a few international borders. Some were simple, but others were more involved. The uneventful My first border crossing by train was on my journey from Germany and Austria, and it was […]

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Switching from right to left on the Wiener Straßenbahn

Trams on the Wiener Straßenbahn run on the right hand side just like every other road vehicle in Austria, but there is one exception – the elevated tracks of line 26. Opened in 2013, the 4.7 kilometre long extension of […]

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‘Do Re Mi’ music as the train powers out of the station

It’s normal for electric locomotives to make some kind of ‘buzzing’ noise as their accelerate, due to the way that power is applied to their traction motors. But the Siemens EuroSprinter family of electric locomotives make an unexpected sound – […]

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Freight trams of Europe

Trams are usually used to carry passengers, but across Europe there are a handful of tramway networks that also carry freight. Pure freight The best known in the English speaking world is the ‘CarGoTram‘ of Dresden, Germany. Photo by kaffeeeinstein, […]

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