Vienna questions/observations

I’ve been in Vienna for the last couple of days and come across a few things that were unexpected.

The most unexpected one for me was finding a Railjet liveried 1116 on a Wiesel set on the Franz Josefs Bahn. How common is it to find one of the Railjet locos on regional work?

Second question relates to the 4020s. On my previous visit to Vienna in 2022 they weren’t to be found anywhere other than the two routes that pass through Heiligenstadt. This time they’re popping up all over the place. Are the 4020s seeing increased use now or was it simply chance that I didn’t see more of them last time?

Third question, how long have the step entrance trams on the Badner Bahn got left? I thought they were supposed to have been withdrawn by now but there’s still quite a few around.

Final question, which line am I most likely to find one of the newest generation of U Bahn units on? I’ve tried all of them (apart from the U6) and had no luck so far.

Thanks in advance

DanNCL said:

I’ve been in Vienna for the last couple of days and come across a few things that were unexpected.

The most unexpected one for me was finding a Railjet liveried 1116 on a Wiesel set on the Franz Josefs Bahn. How common is it to find one of the Railjet locos on regional work?

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Not very, but not unheard of.

DanNCL said:

Second question relates to the 4020s. On my previous visit to Vienna in 2022 they weren’t to be found anywhere other than the two routes that pass through Heiligenstadt. This time they’re popping up all over the place. Are the 4020s seeing increased use now or was it simply chance that I didn’t see more of them last time?

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They are very intensively used at the moment since ÖBB suffers a severe lack of rolling stock. They were in use on „Floridsdorf“ lines before, but their usage has certainly increased.

DanNCL said:

Third question, how long have the step entrance trams on the Badner Bahn got left? I thought they were supposed to have been withdrawn by now but there’s still quite a few around.

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As far as I know, an additional order for the new class 500 has now been placed. You should certainly expect not to find the 100s around anymore when you visit next. The requirement for sets has increased since the "Wiener Neudorf"-short runs now also run with double sets.

DanNCL said:

Final question, which line am I most likely to find one of the newest generation of U Bahn units on? I’ve tried all of them (apart from the U6) and had no luck so far.

Thanks in advance

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There is only one set of the X-class in test service at the moment. If it runs, it is on line U3.

How convenient that this has popped up - as I was also in Vienna yesterday when I observed something rather unfortunate.

The conductor on my train (which was a double deck set pushed by a 1116) seemed to key out, wandered down to the next carriage and by the time she'd done that, the driver had locked up and left without her - her attempts to signal to him were rather in vain.

Many phone calls later, it seems that it waited further down the line and she jumped on the same train I did to catch up.

I assume on ÖBB services around Vienna and other cities in Austria with S/R/REX category trains - the conductor isn't entirely essential? I was surprised that the driver didn't seem to be watching the platform at all when he locked the doors.

DanNCL said:

The most unexpected one for me was finding a Railjet liveried 1116 on a Wiesel set on the Franz Josefs Bahn. How common is it to find one of the Railjet locos on regional work?

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Not a rarity, happens from time to time.

DanNCL said:

Second question relates to the 4020s. On my previous visit to Vienna in 2022 they weren’t to be found anywhere other than the two routes that pass through Heiligenstadt. This time they’re popping up all over the place. Are the 4020s seeing increased use now or was it simply chance that I didn’t see more of them last time?

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Can't comment on this one.

DanNCL said:

Third question, how long have the step entrance trams on the Badner Bahn got left? I thought they were supposed to have been withdrawn by now but there’s still quite a few around.

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Until more Class 500s enter service, the oldest trams on the Badner Bahn only tend to operate between Vienna and Wiener Neudorf due to increased demand.

DanNCL said:

Final question, which line am I most likely to find one of the newest generation of U Bahn units on? I’ve tried all of them (apart from the U6) and had no luck so far.

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Newest on U3 and oldest on U4. U6 uses different units altogether due to it being more of a Stadtbahn service.

rg177 said:

I assume on ÖBB services around Vienna and other cities in Austria with S/R/REX category trains - the conductor isn't entirely essential? I was surprised that the driver didn't seem to be watching the platform at all when he locked the doors.

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On S/R/REX trains in Vienna, the only purpose of Conductors is revenue protections as doors are controlled by the driver, so it's not uncommon for passengers to not see a conductor on these services in and around Vienna.

YorkRailFan said:

On S/R/REX trains in Vienna, the only purpose of Conductors is revenue protections as doors are controlled by the driver, so it's not uncommon for passengers to not see a conductor on these services in and around Vienna.

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Double-deck (and single-deck) Cityshuttle trains need a guard for operations. I think that 4020 need one too, even though the driver closes the doors (there is an exemption allowing DOO for the S45 line). Everything else (I.e. Talent and Desiro EMU) is DOO operated and generally runs without conductor. Revenue-protection staff does random checks.

Austriantrain said:

Double-deck (and single-deck) Cityshuttle trains need a guard for operations. I think that 4020 need one too, even though the driver closes the doors (there is an exemption allowing DOO for the S45 line). Everything else is DOO operated now and generally runs without conductor. Revenue-protection staff does random checks.

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Double Deck do, single deckers don't need to.

YorkRailFan said:

Double Deck do, single deckers don't need to.

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The classic loco-powered single-deck city-shuttle sets do.

EMUs don’t, except (mostly) class 4020.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I’m back in the UK now but this’ll certainly be useful for next time I’m out there. This trip was last minute (this time last week it hadn’t even been booked) as I found some very cheap flights from Jet2, no doubt my next trip will be similar, whenever that may be!

The 4020s were also working out of the main part of Wien Hbf as well as the Floridsdorf lines and the Heiligenstadt lines. Unsure about Westbahnhof as I didn’t go there this time.

I hadn’t expected to find any 100s left on the Badner Bahn so to find still a sizeable number of them was a surprise. Not just on the enhanced Wiener Neudorf weekday services either - at least two of them were out on Sunday doing full length trips to/from Baden.

I didn’t manage to catch the X set in the end. Didn’t realise it was only one set in limited test service, thought there’d be more of them by now.
The U sets seemed to be concentrated on the U2 and U4, whilst the V sets were operating in numerous quantities on all four of the standard U Bahn lines.
Is the plan for the X sets to eventually replace all of the remaining U sets?
One more observation I made was that on the way back to the airport, the double Railjet formation that was to split at Wien Hbf with half going to the airport arrived in the opposite order from that advertised on the station displays, the Airport portion according to the station displays should have been in C-E and the terminating portion in A-B but when the set arrived it was the other way round. I worked out the portions were in the opposite order when I noticed a 1216 on the portion that had supposedly come from Zürich but for those who don’t notice/are unaware of such things it was chaos, lots of people getting on the terminating portion for the airport and then being moved by onboard staff to the correct portion which delayed departure by a few minutes. The screens were never corrected nor were there any announcements, it all seemed rather chaotic which was a bit of a shock to me having up til that point only seen ÖBB running like clockwork.
A quick look on Vagonweb suggests that the train was in the correct formation (Bolzano-Wien Hbf at the front, Zürich-Flughafen Wien at the rear) so it seems odd that it would be advertised the other way round at the station?

DanNCL said:

A quick look on Vagonweb suggests that the train was in the correct formation (Bolzano-Wien Hbf at the front, Zürich-Flughafen Wien at the rear) so it seems odd that it would be advertised the other way round at the station?

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Without doing any research at all, surely the portion continuing to the airport needs to be at the front? Because the train will arrive from Meidling, split at Hbf, the rear portion remains in the platform, and the front portion carries on in the same direction? Which, from what you've said, suggests that the station information was the correct way round

ABB125 said:

Without doing any research at all, surely the portion continuing to the airport needs to be at the front? Because the train will arrive from Meidling, split at Hbf, the rear portion remains in the platform, and the front portion carries on in the same direction? Which, from what you've said, suggests that the station information was the correct way round

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It’s often not the case, sometimes even scheduled that way. The first set will draw out and get stabled stabled motorail terminal, then the second set goes to the airport. The Zurich/Bozen case is one of those, as the set from Bozen arrives in Innsbruck first.

Re 4020: yes, I forgot that 4020 sets get regularly used on the S80 S-Bahn Hütteldorf - Hauptbahnhof- Aspern.

Austriantrain said:

It’s often not the case, sometimes even scheduled that way. The first set will draw out and get stabled stabled motorail terminal, then the second set goes to the airport. The Zurich/Bozen case is one of those, as the set from Bozen arrives in Innsbruck first.

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That’s exactly what happened, the Bozen set went to the motorail terminal.
I think in future I’ll do my own research on which end the airport portion will be rather than relying on the displays at Wien Hbf!

DanNCL said:

That’s exactly what happened, the Bozen set went to the motorail terminal.
I think in future I’ll do my own research on which end the airport portion will be rather than relying on the displays at Wien Hbf!

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Normally they are correct, but there have been a number of reported incidents lately where they mixed the sets up.