Vienna Tramway Museum
The Wiener Tramwaymuseum ( WTM ) collection was founded in 1966 in Vienna by Helmut Portele , was a working group for the Association of Railway Friends (VEF) from 1969 to 1972 and has been an independent association since 1973. The WTM also dealt with and deals with the development of a documentation of Vienna's public rail transport, in particular the maintenance and care of historically and structurally interesting vehicles and associated facilities. At the time the collection was founded and for a long time afterwards, the municipal transport company, then Wiener Stadtwerke - Verkehrsbetriebe, today's Wiener Linien , was not yet interested in the preservation of historic vehicles.
The association owns more than 100 historical, of which almost 30 are operational, museum vehicles. The collection includes vehicles of all eras of Viennese tram, light rail and former trolleybus credit history right up to the last decommissioned trams and an extensive archive of Vienna Public Tramwaybetriebes and vehicle spare parts. After the location of the Vienna Tram Museum, which existed until 2012 in the abandoned Erdberg depot, which also housed a large part of the WTM vehicles and the museum workshops, was returned to Wiener Linien and , following restructuring, in autumn 2014 as the Remise transport museum (Remise - Transport Museum of Wiener Linien) , Portele found one of the former Semperit-Hallem for the collection in Traiskirchen , Lower Austria , which after adaptation could be put into operation as a WTM museum depot . Furthermore, the WTM association organizes special tram trips through Vienna.
The entire “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” collection, consisting of the historic WTM, VEF and Wiener Linien museum vehicles, is a listed building.
history
The “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” (WTM) collection, founded by Helmut Portele in 1966, has kept, restored, repaired and kept the most important vehicles of historical and structural value in order to document Vienna's public urban transport, so that they can be used for exhibition purposes and during special trips by Open to the public. The “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” collection is the largest and most complete collection in the world focused on one city - the city of Vienna.
It shows the development of Viennese tram and light rail vehicle construction from horse-drawn tram cars to various conversions and adaptations to the first modern articulated multiple unit, the first low-floor articulated multiple unit test vehicle and the last surviving Viennese trolleybus motor car including trolleybus trailer and thus the history of public transport in Vienna. 118 historically valuable Viennese tram vehicles have been reconstructed, restored and preserved in working order by the Vienna Tramway Museum and an extensive archive of facilities of the Viennese tramway operation with currently 4552 archives (large and small exhibits, vehicle equipment, picture panels, plans and writings) and 28,520 vehicle spare parts secured.
The special thing about the collection is that, together with the wagons, which are also used as company vehicles for experiencing history and tourism in Vienna, the completeness of the documentation of the development of Viennese vehicle construction is shown on the basis of the most important conversions and adaptations to a wagon type. Every single vehicle in the collection was deliberately selected and is historically valuable as a unique item.
In the early 1960s, the technician Helmut Portele began to campaign for the creation of a Viennese tramway museum. He convinced the management of the Viennese transport company of the cultural-historical and technical-historical task of not scrapping historically and structurally valuable wagons, but instead storing them on unused coach tracks for a future museum. With the approval of Wiener Stadtwerke and the City of Vienna's Department of Culture, Portele built up the collection within six years, initially alone and later with a team of volunteers. In 1969 the collection could be viewed. From November 25, 1972 to February 16, 1986 it was regularly open to the public as part of guided tours in Ottakring station - for a short time also in Koppreiter and Rudolfsheim stations.
Despite the limited space in the Vienna Tramway Museum in the Ottakring depot, special exhibitions were held regularly to encourage visitors to visit the museum again and again and thus maintain interest in the collection. B. “75 years of urban trams 1903–1978”, “80 years of urban trams 1903–1983”, “60 years of Vienna's electric light rail 1925–1985”, “War and the post-war period 1939–1955”, “40 years of reconstruction and modernization 1945– 1985 ”and“ 120 Years of the Tramway in Vienna 1865–1985 ”.
In 1976, a purchase and option contract was concluded between Wiener Stadtwerke and the Wiener Tramwaymuseum Association, which had been founded in the meantime, for all of the vehicles of the Vienna public transport company that were to be preserved for collection in the near future, whereby 154 vehicles were contractually secured. However, many of these cars were lost due to various circumstances.
The main problem since the collection was founded has been the permanent lack of space in the exhibition halls. After lengthy negotiations between the Vienna Transport Company and the Vienna Tramway Museum (WTM) and the Association of Railway Friends (VEF), which at the time were merged into an operating group, a new agreement was finally reached for the cooperation, the further expansion of the collection in the Erdberg depot, which was then for sale Use of historical trams for special trips for tourism in Vienna can be completed.
In 1986, part of the collection was initially moved to a hall of the Erdberg depot and was renamed from “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” to “ Wiener Straßenbahnmuseum ” under the management of Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe and opened on May 31, 1986. Finally, after the depot was closed on January 6, 1990, in 1992 the exhibition, including the associated facilities and spare parts store, was extended to the entire area of the former Erdberg tram depot and opened on June 13, 1992.
The tram museum of Wiener Linien in Erdberg was closed after the 2012 season in order to renovate the listed building from 1901, including all installations, and to adapt them for year-round operation. Furthermore, the exhibition designer Christian Rapp was commissioned to create an exhibition of public transport in Vienna in cooperation with the museum advisory board formed in 2010. The revitalized museum was now named Verkehrsmuseum Remise (Remise - Verkehrsmuseum der Wiener Linien) and opened in September 2014.
The lower number of exhibited original vehicles due to the installation of room modules (exhibition containers) will be compensated for since the reopening by constantly changing the vehicles between the exhibition and the depot; this is how one wants to keep the museum attractive and worth seeing. The permanent exhibition is supplemented by the organization of special trips with museum vehicles of various types in order to be able to experience the operation of bygone eras.
Helmut Portele , the founder of the collection and head of the WTM to the end, was born on April 20, 1940, and died on December 12, 2018 at the age of 79.
Collection holdings
Vienna Tramway Museum - WTM
The WTM association is (as of December 2019) the owner of 109 historic listed museum vehicles (50 railcars , 55 sidecars , a so-called ULF test vehicle (see illustration on the right), a snow plow, and a Vienna O-bus motor car and an O-bus trailer , two Z- bogies , a two-way - Unimog U 1100/416141 and a) covered gauge railway wagons Gkklms "Opole". The WTM collection also includes an extensive archive of equipment of the Viennese tram company with currently around 4550 large and small exhibits (vehicle fittings, panels, plans and writings) and over 28,500 vehicle spare parts. All museum vehicles, large and small exhibits and vehicle spare parts are stationed, exhibited or stored in the transport museum Remise of Wiener Linien in Erdberg in the 3rd district of Vienna and in the WTM Museum Depot Traiskirchen .
Of the rail vehicles, 12 railcars and 14 sidecars are in use as historical service vehicles or as rentable museum tramcars in the Vienna tram network.
Complete collection "Vienna Tramway Museum"
The “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” collection provides an almost complete documentation of exhibits and historical museum vehicles, consisting of horse-drawn trams and a steam tramway locomotive , Viennese light rail vehicles, generations of the “electric tramway” and the ULF test vehicle, as well as subway trains Cars and buses, right down to the most recently retired generations of vehicles. This collection, owned by the three sponsors Wiener Tramwaymuseum (WTM), Verband der Eisenbahnfreunde (VEF) and Wiener Linien, "whose preservation as a unit is in the public interest", was placed under monument protection by the Austrian Federal Monuments Office (BDA).
Other areas of activity
In addition to the collection and museum operations, the WTM association organizes events and advises departments and companies of the Vienna city administration , in particular Wiener Linien, on their events on the subject. He organizes special trips with historical tramcars throughout the Vienna tram network for Viennese tourism and as historical documentation.
Private special trips
In addition to the big trips on special occasions such as the annual Tramway Days, the WTM offers special trips with historic trams that can be rented on desired routes in the Vienna tram network for private individuals, companies or tourism groups (from 12 to 600 people). In addition to the voluntary hours worked by WTM employees and private financial support from Helmut Portele until 2018, the association is financed exclusively through these special trips.
“Around Vienna” tramway city tours
Because of the increasing popularity of the tram and in order to be able to show the visitors the sights of Vienna, city tours with specially built “excursion and excursion cars”, also called “saloon cars”, were carried out between 1907 and 1914. The interest in these special trips was so great that no fewer than seven railcars and five identical-looking sidecars of this special type were procured and two more cars were adapted for these trips. The First World War put an abrupt end to these tramway city tours “Around Vienna”.
Only in 1973 this unique tourist attraction was taken up again by the Vienna Tramway Museum. As a pleasant renaissance of the “saloon car” city tours organized in the “good old days” of the Danube Monarchy, a historic tram from the Vienna Tramway Museum drove over every Sunday from the beginning of May to the end of October from Karlsplatz to Belvedere Palace (guided tour through the park) Vienna's Ringstrasse, into the Prater (guided tour with the Ferris wheel, Liliput train and amusement park), to Schönbrunn Palace (with a short tour) and back via Mariahilfer Strasse and Stiftgasse to Karlsplatz. A certified tour guide provided information about all the interesting buildings along the route and also told other interesting facts about “All around Vienna”.
Initially, these trips were carried out with the former excursion car No. 2101 with the interior reconstructed almost to its original condition with original wicker chairs and two type d 2 sidecars No. 5032 and 5064, as "normal" old cars would have been too unattractive. Later the type G aw No. 2003, Type H No. 2215 with sidecar Type u 2 No. 3832 and the K 2380 reconstructed by the WTM (all still without rail brake) were used to protect the interior of the saloon car , and finally until they were taken over Scheduled city tours by Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe the type K No. 2319 (built in 1912) with the k 5 No. 3965 (both with rail brake).
These city tours “Around Vienna” were carried out by the “WTM - Vienna Tramway Museum” collection until 1985 and were very successful. The press coverage all over the world was great and many guests from Australia, Japan, Canada and the USA were also welcomed on these tramway city tours.
In 1985 these regular special trips had to be handed over to the Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe (today Wiener Linien), which carried them out as "oldtimer trips" with specially adapted two-car trains of the types M + m 3 (with refrigerator, stereo, etc.). These trips were reduced over the years and stopped by Wiener Linien in 2007 due to a lack of profitability.
The Vienna Ring Tram has been running along Vienna's Ringstrasse as a tourist tram since April 1, 2009 and is therefore the successor to the “Around Vienna” tours. Instead of old-timer trams, E 1 multiple units are used, which are equipped with LCD screens and headphone connections on the seats and offer tourist information in eight languages, in the Viennese dialect and in a children's version.
literature
- Helmut Portele: Collection “Wiener Tramwaymuseum”. Vehicle preservation, documentation and operating museum. (= The first complete documentation on the “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” collection and its exhibits), 3rd edition, WTM-Eigenverlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-200-01562-3 .
- Helmut Portele and his successor: Collection “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” (WTM). ... with "Additions and corrections to the documentation", pp. 971–973, as well as continuously updated "Additions to the documentation", pp. 974 ff., Most recently in the version 10/2018 ( full text online (PDF) on the WTM website, accessed on December 11, 2019).
Web links
- tram.at - website of the WTM
- Helmut Portele (April 20, 1940 - December 12, 2018): an all-rounder, a lateral thinker, a man with visions. Obituary for the founder of the collection and until the end of the WTM head, undated.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Imprint of the WTM website, undated, accessed on December 11, 2019. Darin u. a .: “Founded as a collection on June 15, 1966 by Helmut Portele. / Proposed as an association on January 8, 1973 / Non-prohibition of March 14, 1973. / Founding meeting of the association on March 12, 1974. / ZVR number: 599142517. “.
- ↑ a b Collection “Wiener Tramwaymuseum” under monument protection. In: Supplement to the documentation. In the version 10/2018, p. 1008.
- ↑ Party slip Helmut Portele, December 2018.