Take Me Back To Vienna .(1)

Picking up the totally illogical extract from the Goon's "Ying Tong" song, fbb has to admit that he has never been to Vienna; but is planning a trip with Shearings and Mrs fbb later in the year.

Vienna (Wien in German - as in Wiener Schnitzel, yummy yummy) ...

...  is the national capital, largest city, and one of nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's most populous city, with about 1.9 million inhabitants (2.6 million within the metropolitan area, nearly one third of the country's population), and its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 6th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union.

No 3 son has just spend Tuesday to Saturday in the city as part of his new job based in Eastbourne. The company specialises in stands and presentations at conferences etc, largely for the pharmaceutical industry. No 3 son is and important cog in the IT and technology machine.

This blog takes a "broad brush" overview of the city's public transport in preparation for solving a series of puzzle pictures sent by "the lad" to challenge fbb's perceptive (?) brain.

First, the buses.

The city-run network is branded ...

... and consists of the expected mix of buses, trams and underground (U-bahn).

There are 43 daytime bus routes and 23 night bus services.

Every "city" route has an "A" suffix letter which simply stands for Autobus; those with a "B" suffix are run by other operators under contract. For example, the 5B is operated by Gschwindl ...

... who also offer coach hire including several vehicles under the generic heading of "oldtimerbus" (translation available on request).

The current city fleet range from artics ...

... to electrics.

And, of course, as you would expect, There is an autonomous microbus experiment in progress.

Whether it is necessary to differentiate between Wiener Linien and "others" is debatable and fares are fully inter-available throughout the city network!

Mention should be made, in passing, of two sightseeing tour companies.

Next comes the trams.

Approx 29 lines are operated, all with route numbers except the D and the O. Operation began with horse trams ...

... then steam, then electric. The latter followed a fairly standard pattern of vehicles types as operated on continental networks ...

... and tours are operated from time to time using the heritage trams.


In amongst the red "city" tram lines is one coloured in blue.

This is a tram-train line to Baden with blue and cream stock.

It is also owned by the Vienna municipality.

And, Finally, The Underground
There are FIVE U-Bahn lines, numbered 1 to 4 and 6. The route of a possible line 5 has been under discussion for years!

The modern U-Bahn opened on 25 February 1978 (after test operations began on 8 May 1976), but two of the lines extended and later designated as U-Bahn (U4, U6) date back to the Stadtbahn ("city railway") system, which opened in 1898.

Parts of the U2 and U6 lines began as subway tunnels built to accommodate earlier tram lines. Only the U1 and U3 were built wholly as new subway lines.

Line 5 (now actually happening!) is shown below in light blue.

Back to the upper U-Bahn map; you will see a pink dotted line. This is the core route of the S-Bahn, effectively Vienna's suburban (state) railway.

Finally - The S-Bahn
Too complex to cover in an introductory blog ...

... fbb may return to this topic later (when, and IF, he manages to understand it all!). Suffice it to say that the operator is ÖBB, thee Austrian State Railways.

One anomaly remains. The Vienna CAT!

CAT is, of course, (im)peccable German for "City Airport Train" (again, translation available on request. It runs every 30 minutes from Wien Mitte station to the airport terminal.

The City Air Terminal Betriebsgesellschaft m.b.H., owned 50.1% by Vienna Airport and 49.9% by Austrian Federal Railways, was founded in 2002 to operate the express train service. At the airport as well as at Wien Mitte, the CAT departs from specially designated platforms. In Vienna the departure point, called City Air Terminal, is located on the ground floor of the shopping center Wien Mitte The Mall.

So, tomorrow, we return to No 3 son's puzzle pictures which will take us on a more detailed experience of most of these transport modes.

 Next Vienna blog : Tuesday 18th February