Austrian Trams 3 - Graz & Gmunden
The
city of Graz is the capital city of the Austrian federal state of Styriain and
the second largest city in Austria. This industrial city has a very pretty
preserved historic city centre.
Electric trams started here in 1899 and today, though owned by the city
are operated by Graz Linien, who also
operate the bus network. There are eight
routes on standard gauge track of 1,435mm.
At the time of filming, in September 2016, this interesting tram fleet
consisted of trams manufactured by SGP,
Bombardier (Flexity Outlook Cityrunner) and Stadler (Variobahn). Our
filming begins in the city centre.
Starting on the Erzherzog-Johann Bridge and moving along to Murgasse,
Hauptplatz, Herrengasse, Am Eiseman Tor we end up at the busy transport
interchange at Jakominiplatz. There is
plenty of action for you to view, with all types of trams seen in service. Our first journey is on SGP GT8, tram 502 on line 4 to Andritz. From here we take Stadler Variobahn tram 242 on line 5 to Maut Andritz where we
change to 612, a newer type of SGP GT8
tram with a low floor centre added, on line 5 to Sackstraße for further filming
in the city centre. Our next location is within the Hauptbahnhof, where we see
the trams running under the station. To
complete our visit to Graz, we board tram 660, a Bombardier Flexity Outlook
Cityrunner on line 3 for a brief ride to Südtiroler Platz. This tram makes an interesting comparison
with the other trams we have ridden on during our visit to this very smart fleet
and city.
We
now turn our attention to the smallest tram fleet in Austria – that
of the small town of Gmunden. The beautiful
lakeside town of Gmunden was built on a hillside and is surrounded by
mountains,
it is an idyllic location to film trams which date back to the 1950s
and 1960s. The tramway opened in 1894 and is the oldest
and shortest tramway in Austria. The line
is only 2.3km long and is metre gauge.
It has a maximum gradient of 9.6% making it the world’s steepest
surviving adhesion-only tramway. It is
operated by the light railway group of Stern
& Hafferl. The route links the OBB Hauptbahnhof at the top of the town
to the lakeside in the centre of the town at Franz-Josef-Platz. This tramway will soon link with a new
tram-train (Traunseebahn) line to
Vorchdorf as part of the StadtRegio Tram
project. This line will open during
2017. The tram fleet at the time of
filming in September 2016 was made up of No.8, a Lohner/Kiepe dating from 1962 and No.9 and 10, Düwag/Kiepe trams dating from 1952.
There are also two heritage trams kept at the small depot, and used on
special occasions. These date from 1898 and 1912. We begin our visit to Gmunden at the
Hauptbahnhof and ride on tram 8 to Franz-Josef-Platz to view the pretty
lakeside town. We then do a return
journey on tram 10 to the Hauptbahnhof and back to the lakeside getting a
drivers eye view on our way down, and a passenger’s perspective back to the
Hauptbahnhof. On the way we stop off at
the little depot and have good look around thanks to the very kind man in
charge! We hope you enjoy your visit as
much as we did…
|
|
| Filmed
: |
2016 |
| |
|
| Duration
: |
62 mins |
| |
|
| Price
: |
Within UK - £16 |
| |
Rest of world -
£18 |
| |
|
| Format
: |
DVD -R |
| |
Picture Aspect 16:9 |
| |
|
| Order
Ref : |
D287 |
