Vienna Stadtbahn
The oldest dates back to 1844, when the engineer Heinrich Sichrowsky designed an atmospheric railway based on system of George Medhurst and Samuel Clegg and emulating such lines in London and Paris.
While the rival railway companies at that time had no interest in a central urban solution - the present-day Vienna Hauptbahnhof finally went into operation in 2012 - the Austrian military, after the March Revolution of 1848, demanded measures to prevent a recurrence of such events.
Equally important was the possibility to connect the large inner-city barracks to the main lines in the event of war, including, in particular between 1849 and 1856, the Arsenal, built as a consequence of the March Revolution.
At an early stage, it also became apparent that, for synergy reasons, it would make sense to link the Stadtbahn construction with two other major urban projects in the second half of the 19th century.
After almost ten years without progress, the German capital Berlin finally gave the immediate impetus for a renewed discussion of the Viennese city rail question.
The first proposal was submitted in August 1881 by a consortium of British engineers including James Clark Bunten and Joseph Fogerty, which reached the stage of obtaining a concession on 25 January 1883.
Specifically, the new committee had the task of coordinating the following three planning authorities: Consequently, the Commission was not only responsible for Stadtbahn construction, but also acted as the builder for the two parallel river settlement projects, most of which were to be paid by the municipality of Vienna.
Thus, for example, the already existing Gürtelstraße was freed from the many salient old buildings and erected on their mirror grounds, where previously stored behind wooden crates and dilapidated fences, construction materials, stones, scrap iron and the like, the city railway arches.
The new inner-city transport network of the capital was considered a state-owned prestige object of Cisleithania, which is why the state guaranteed all necessary funds and thus made a speedy realization possible.
Among them were mainly Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Slovenians, Lower Austrians and Styrians, to a lesser extent workers from other parts of Austria-Hungary and even from abroad, including from France and Greece.
However, because the suburban line should nevertheless receive a connection in the direction of Innere Stadt, a second pair of tracks had to be laid between Penzing and Hütteldorf-Hacking parallel to the existing Westbahn for the Stadtbahn.
In addition, on 11 July 1895, the Commission decided to postpone the Donaustadt line, which was still allocated to the first phase of construction, and for which to date 264,915 Austrian crowns have been incurred for preparatory work, projection costs and land acquisition.
Baudirection for the Wiener Stadtbahn as a separate department in the Ministry of Railways was called into being and Friedrich Bischoff von Klammstein appointed as Baudirektor or section chief, she replaced the then disbanded Directorate General of k.k.
However, the saved connection between Gumpendorfer Straße and Matzleinsdorf threatened to have a negative impact on the future operation, because the belt line from the main customs office station would not have been possible without a change of direction.
Instead, the - originally light yellow - clinker bricks and the cornices made of solid natural stone masonry are now visible, as was the case previously with the Verbindungsbahn and the Berliner Stadtbahn.
In addition, the flood events that occurred at that time caused widespread destruction of the buildings in the critical state of foundation and led to construction interruptions.
Due to the lowering of his starting point, he could no longer take Brigittabrücke to the station Nußdorfer Straße, i.e. in place of today's Nordbergbrücke, because otherwise the slope of the ramp to the bridge over the Franz-Josefs-Bahn would have been too strong.
The ceremonial opening of the Wiener Stadtbahn took place on 9 May 1898 with the participation of Emperor Franz Joseph I, the Vienna Archbishop Anton Josef Cardinal Gruscha, the Minister of Railways.
From this ceremony the following quotation of the emperor is handed down: "Created by the harmonious cooperation of the autonomous Curia and the state, this railway construction will, I hope, bring many advantages to the population and effectively promote the prosperous development of Vienna which is close to my heart."
Just a few months after opening, a serious accident occurred on the suburban line, when on 6 January 1899 at 4:00 am the locomotive 30.17 was accidentally led onto a stump track shortly after leaving Heiligenstadt station.
When the lines opened, in four stages between 1898 and 1901, they failed to attract mass riders due to high costs; affluent passengers were discouraged by dirt from engine smokestacks and slow speed.
As a result of the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, which took place in the autumn of 1918 and 1919/1920 was confirmed in peace treaties, the state railway lost much interest in the Vienna Stadtbahn; even the earlier military considerations no longer mattered.
In addition, as a result of the war for the first time ever in history, the population of the capital fell, and the prospect that Vienna would grow to four million inhabitants, was now no longer realistic.
Furthermore, the fumes of the steam operation had - as already feared at the opening - especially the reinforced concrete ceilings and metal girders in the tunnel structures heavily added, so that the infrastructure of the Stadtbahn was in poor condition after the war.
It was not until 1 June 1922 reversed on the upper Wientallinie and the belt line again Stadtbahn trains, as the state railway to relieve the Westbahnhof and the Franz-Josefs-Bahnhofs a so-called reconciliation established in the relation Neulengbach - St. Andrä-Wördern and thus two Provisionally reinstated routes.
Furthermore, lost as a result of the proclamation of the Republic of German Austria on 12 November 1918, the court pavilion in Hietzing his function and then served for a long time the sculptor Sepp Haberl-Carlo as a studio.
The engine was optimized for quick acceleration, to suit the tight curves and steep inclines of the lines, and to emit a minimum of smoke, which was essential for the tunnel sections.
As a result, the municipality of Vienna also took over the infrastructure of the electrified network, which was henceforth licensed only as a small train without freight traffic, while the suburban line then completely fell to the state railway.
In addition, the locomotives also damaged the infrastructure of the railway itself, because the smoke caused the rapid corrosion of the exposed iron structural parts of the superstructure and generated dust that infiltrated the carriages.
Due to the dense train sequence in both directions of travel, the resulting strong smoke and steam masses were able to escape the tunnels only very slowly, especially in cloudy and foggy weather.
