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Innsbruck is definately one of my favorite "tram cities", partly because of the wonderful mountain lines 6 and STB, and partly because of the old DÜWAG and DÜWAG-license trams. Now, these will vanish soon (new vehicles are already being shipped at the time of writing this), so it was high time for me to visit the city, and experience the "old Innsbruck (tram)way" once more.
Two ex-Bielefeld (Germany) DÜWAG trams at the 3-track tram terminal at the main station (Südtiroler Platz).
Innsbruck's urban transit development is a bit... well, overzealous: they built out this new terminal complex a few years ago, with brand new overhead wires for the trolley bus. And then they abandoned trolleybus operation. Currently only two tracks are used from the three, as the section leading here directly from the inner city isn't built yet. The strangest sight is however the stub trackage on the picture to the right: these would have been the start of a direct connection to Bergisel. But then they abandoned that project, leaving these tracks ending in nothing...
In contrast to that, the construction of high-platform stops for the future low-floor trams was clever and quick, I think.
Two short videos: on the first one you can discover some tracks beginning in nothing: this is the connection for which the currently unused track at the main station was built.
The Stubaitalbahn is one of the most beatiful lines in the world, so I was a bit angry first, when I noticed that its stop at the main station is not being used. Then it turned out that it's only cut back to Stubaitalbahnhof - because its connection to the urban tram system is being rebuilt..
It was fun to see the line start where it had been starting until 1984. The station building, and the track in front of it was mostly used by the Tirolean Tramway Museum since that.
A Stubaitalbahn-DÜWAG (built locally out of parts of Bielefeld and Hagen DÜWAGs) with "shrink-wrap" (all-over ad), and one of the viaducts of the line seen from the window of the same tram.
Two short videos taken along the line.
At the station Telfes we even saw an open goods waggon standing on a siding (to the right, behind the buffer).
Back in the city: Bergisel, the terminus of line 1.
This line was operated with 6-axle and 8-axle trams mixed without any easily identifiable logic. The better for a tram photographer!
Line 6 (Mittelgebirgsbahn - the shorter "mountain tram") is operated with unidirectional trams normally, but since the tram depot was getting reshaped, they ran it with a bidirectional vehicle of the Stubaitalbahn. Cool!
The Stubaitalbahn vehicle before starting. One of the stops underway had a display showing the 1-hour headway. I think a normal sheet of paper with the schedules would have been much more economical :)
Left: the upper terminus at Igls. Right: the tunnel at the stop Schönruh.
Quite a nice place to wait a while for the same tram coming back on its next round!
On the right-hand side: the terminus of route 3 at Amras is quickly reachable on foot from Schönruh.
Trams of line 1 entering the tram depot.
Left-hand side: trolleybus operation was abandoned in 2007, so most of its overhead wires are still in situ. Right-hand side: a short but very nice strech in Maria-Theresien-Strasse was also abandoned after our visit.
Too bad: this abandoned stretch was the friendliest section of the urban tram network, where one was able to experience how well trams can blend into a historical inner city!
A short video of this secion.
Two more trams in the inner city...
... and we're at the end of this page. Shown here are two buses running on former trolleybus lines O and R in Anichstrasse. The demise of the Innsbruck trolleybus is yet another sign of the city's overzealousness: it was already the second incarnation of this transportation mean here, built in 1988. It didn't even lasted 20 years...
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