Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram

Opened in October 1883, it was the first tram and railway in the world that was run with electricity delivered by an overhead line in permanent service.

The tram was built and run by the Südbahngesellschaft (the private Austrian Southern Railway Company) that operated the main line from Vienna to Trieste, including the standard gauge railway station at Mödling.

The overhead line was bipolar and consisted of two downwards open tubes, in which the two pantographs hang like aerial trams.

This technique had been introduced by Ernst Werner von Siemens in his experimental Electromote trolleybus concept.

As a condition for permitting the traffic through the narrow part of the valley in 1884, the authorities ordered the availability of a steam engine as emergency traction.