End is good, all is good: Linz
When we were here last year, the construction of the underground tram was still in a very immature state (see here on the left-hand side), but now it was almost complete. Almost.
The tracks were there, so was the overhead, but the trams still went around on the surface. Note the interesting "grid roof" over the ramp of the underground section!
Linz has a number of "extended" trams, read: long cars based on models from DÜWAG. This, for example is a 10-axle "localised" version of the Stadtbahn M.
And this of course is a 10-axle "round" DÜWAG "clone".
One of the "you must see this!" features of Linz is the Pöstlingbergbahn, which climbs up on ascents of more than 10% without rack rails - with pure adhesion! Of course it has a strange kind of safety brake clinging onto the sides of the running rails. That's why you see that odd-looking switch in front of the cute trolley-pole car.
I heard the city wants to rebuild the line with the gauge of the tramway network - 900 mm - and they also want to buy new vehicles, that would be able to go to the city center using the tracks of the tram.
Until that happens, let's enjoy the sight of these nice old cars at the upper terminus!
The driver's working place on the platform. In the foreground to the right you can see the wheel of the safety brake.
Back to the lower terminus, where tram route 3 ends next to a railway station.
And now at last we had some "photo weather"! We just sat down at Hauptplatz, and photographed everything that came :-)
The Cityrunner, the newest, low-floor tram in the fleet.
A 10-axle tram with a colorful all-over ad. These kind of advertisments seem to be very common around here! Some of them looks less good...
... while others look great.
"Round" trams going "banana" - shapewise ;-)
A colorful Cityrunner.
Although we only had a few minutes to get to our train, we visited the southern leg of the network...
... which will be supplemented by the lines in the tunnel. Here you can see the southern ramp of the underground tram.
IIRC, the tracks on the surface will remain for a few years, but they'll dissapear sometime in the future. Anyway, we even managed to take photos of a small "tram jam" for now! Don't worry, we were able to catch our train to Vienna, and from there back to Budapest ;-)
I hope you enjoyed this virtual tour (and also that we will be able to do a similar one in 2005, too)! Until then, bye!