Donauparkbahn
| Donauparkbahn | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Usual train set of the Donauparkbahn
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| Route length: | 3.34 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 381 mm ( Liliputbahn ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Donauparkbahn is a 3.34 km long, narrow-gauge park railway on a circuit in the Donaupark in Vienna . The track was built on the occasion of the Vienna International Garden Show in 1964 with a track width of 381 millimeters .
route
The counter-clockwise circuit has the shape of a non-closed "8" and has a special feature of a maximum gradient of 28 ‰. The journey takes about 20 minutes.
There are three stations:
- Danube Tower
- Rose show
- Donaucity (at the time of the horticultural show "main entrance", later " Uno-City ")
The coach house and workshop building is located on Arbeitererstrandbadstrasse to the northeast of the park and is connected to the circular route by an access track. Until the end of the 1970s, the company building was on the other side of the park - it had to give way to the construction of the UN City . The original building was connected to the line with a track triangle in railway km 0.9 (at the height of today's bee and beekeeping house).
vehicles
Between 1963 and 1967, a total of five diesel locomotives were built in several batches and delivered to the Donaupark. First in 1963 today's D2 and in early 1964 the D1 and D3. The D4 followed towards the end of 1964 and the D5 in 1967. The locomotives (D1-D4) were built by the manufacturer Rudolf Bauer, a company with no experience in locomotive construction, but differ greatly from one another. These are faulty, high-maintenance designs.
The first series consisted of three locomotives with the wheel arrangement (2B) and was delivered in 1963/1964. However, it turned out that the locomotives were too small and light and had difficulties with the incline, especially in damp weather. As a consequence, in 1964 a fourth, significantly larger and heavier machine with the 2B2 wheel arrangement was built and delivered as the D4. Since this locomotive had to struggle a lot more with the gradient, it was transferred as the D3 to the Liliputbahn Prater , where it is still in service today as a " Manner " advertising medium.
The D5 delivered in 1967 represented a new locomotive concept, but was incorporated into the Prater fleet in 1974 with the designation D4. In the middle of the seventies, the “rod diesel” D2 was transferred from the Prater to the Donaupark and used there until the end of the eighties, as it coped much better with the uphill stretch. Today only the vehicles of the first series from 1963 (D1 – D3) run in the Danube Park.
Three six-car trains and two double sets, which could be attached to a train as amplifiers, were available as rolling stock. The cars are modeled on those of the Liliputbahn in the Prater. Since the wooden superstructures were already very weathered at the beginning of the 2000s, two sets were completely rebuilt and provided with wheelchair compartments. They are open on the sides, covered and in a design typical of the 1960s.
One of the two trains was designed with the D1 locomotive by the Austrian artists Nina Biberle, Natascha Auenhammer, Karin Hannak , Yoly Maurer and the “Peace In Action, PIA!” Association on the theme of “Peace”. A car also serves as an interactive guest book on which the passengers can write down their own messages of peace with a touch-up pen. The D1 and D3 locomotives are technically very similar. In order to drive through curved tracks, the front drive axle can be moved transversely. The power is transmitted via chains. The running axles at the front sit in a wagon bogie. The significantly smaller D2, it was the first locomotive in this series, is very different from its sisters. The driving axles are located at the stern and are completely rigid. In order to drive through curved tracks without accidents, the rear drive wheel set was retrofitted with flanged rollers.
The power transmission takes place with a relatively long chain, which strikes against the body when coupling is insufficient and causes a lot of noise. The noise level in the driver's cab is generally very high. The front drive wheel set suffers from very high wheel flange wear, as the rollers cannot absorb any cornering forces, the rollers also damage the level crossings, and driving through switches can result in derailments. Due to the fact that the transmission of the drive train is much too fast for the Danube Park stretch, it is only possible to drive with idle, consequently the uphill stretch poses major problems in terms of engine power. The D2 was therefore used earlier with the two double wagons, as the wooden superstructures are now in very poor condition. this set is unsuitable. The machine would still be fully operational, but is no longer used in regular operation.
All locomotives have a 2'B wheel arrangement, a drive with 22 kW Steyr diesel engines type WD213 and agricultural machinery gearbox.
Use of a steam locomotive
Steam locomotives have never been on the Donauparkbahn. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary, the Liliputbahn steam locomotive Da 2 was used as a special attraction on three weekends from August 30th to September 14th 2014 in normal passenger traffic. The transport was carried out by means of a semi-trailer. For the extensive infrastructure that is necessary to operate a steam locomotive, numerous temporary arrangements were set up, with the help of which the operation could be carried out without complaint. Even at 86 years of age, the machine was able to loudly prove what it can do on the uphill stretch to the Danube Tower. After the mission, the locomotive was brought back to the Prater.
operator
The operator of the Donauparkbahn is the "Liliputbahn im Prater GesmbH", which is 100% privately owned; The railway is licensed under the Events Act.
In addition to the Donauparkbahn and Liliputbahn in the Prater, the company also operates other rides there, such as the “Super-Achter-Bahn”, “Dizzy-Mouse”, “Aquagaudi”, “Sturmboot”, “Laser-Spy” and the “Wegbahn” trams. Praterzug "and" Vienna Heurigen Express ".
literature
- Railway Atlas Austria . Schweers + Wall publishing house. Cologne, 2005. ISBN 3-89494-128-6 .
Web links
- Website of the Liliputbahn company
- Information about the Liliputbahn by Herbert Strahlhofer ( Memento from December 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Website Liliputbahn, "Donauparkbahn": Technology & Operations. Retrieved September 5, 2010.
- ^ Website Liliputbahn, "Donauparkbahn": History: The Donaupark and the WIG 64. Accessed on September 5, 2010. Austrian Railway Atlas, 2005, p. 109.
- ↑ Liliputbahn website: home page . Retrieved November 23, 2017.
Coordinates: 48 ° 14 ′ 21.7 " N , 16 ° 24 ′ 43.7" E