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The Florianerbahn is a museum tramway in 
After the fall in passenger numbers and the cessation of services on 31 December 1973 the line was taken over by the
The line was worked by the following vehicles until it closed in 1973:
The abbreviations had the following meaning:
* EM – Ebelsberg Motorwagen (power car)
* EP – Ebelsberg Personenwagen (coach)
These designations were not written on the vehicles themselves.
Florianerbahn Society
{{coord, 48, 14, 0, N, 14, 22, 28, E, type:landmark_region:AT, display=title 900 mm gauge railways in Austria Heritage railways in Austria Railway lines opened in 1913 1913 establishments in Austria-Hungary
Upper Austria
Upper Austria ( ; ; ) is one of the nine States of Austria, states of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg (state), Salzbur ...
that is not operational due to construction work. It was built as a railway - a licensed narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...
''Lokalbahn'' or branch line
A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...
- between the independent commununity of Ebelsberg (today a district within Linz
Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...
) and Sankt Florian
Sankt Florian (also ''Florian'' or ''St. Florian'') is a town in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Linz.
Sankt Florian is the home of St. Florian Monastery, a community of Canons Regular named after Saint F ...
. It was owned by the ''Lokalbahn Ebelsberg–St. Florian AG'', but operated by the firm of Stern & Hafferl
Stern & Hafferl Verkehrsgesellschaft m.b.H. is a transport company operating train, bus and boat services in Upper Austria, Austria. The company owns and operates of railways which carry 4.7 million passengers per year. Since 2005 the company ha ...
from Gmunden
Gmunden () is a town in Upper Austria, in the district of Gmunden (district), Gmunden. It has 13,204 inhabitants (estimates 2016 ).
Geography
Gmunden covers an area of and has a median elevation of . It is situated next to the lake Traunsee on t ...
. Because the line had the character of a tramway (''Überlandstraßenbahn'') it switched over to providing tramway services in the wake of the annexation of Austria
The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany") arose after the 1871 unifica ...
in 1938 – along with Stern & Hafferl's sister companies ''Elektrische Lokalbahn Unterach–See'' and ''Elektrische Lokalbahn Gmunden''.
The rail gauge is the same as that of the Linz tramway
Trams in Linz () is a network of tramways forming the backbone of the urban public transport system in Linz, which is the capital city of the federal state of Upper Austria in Austria.
The network is operated by the Linz Linien division of Linz A ...
, , the line is electrified, operating at 600 V C. It ran regular services from 2 September 1913 to the end of 1973. From 1929 it was connected directly to the Linz tramway network at Ebelsberg, so that trailer coaches could run through from Linz to St. Florian.
The line was officially opened on 1 September 1913. The specially decorated first train, consisting of a railcar and two carriages, left Sankt Florian at 6:22 and arrived at Ebelsberg at 6:50. 42 of the 96 places available were taken.
After the fall in passenger numbers and the cessation of services on 31 December 1973 the line was taken over by the Austrian Society for Railway History
The Austrian Society for Railway History ( or ÖGEG) is an Austrian society that was formed from a group of railway fans, who got together around 1971 in order to look after working steam locomotives at the ÖBB depot of Linz.
History
The socie ...
(ÖGEG), and later by the ''Club Florianerbahn'' society and a section of the line reactivated as a museum railway
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) ...
. there were no museum services because much of the route is not usable: between Pichling and Bruck the line runs under the Western motorway and had to be lifted whilst construction work is going on. The track has since been replaced, but the catenary is still missing. Between Pichling and Ebelsberg a large section of the overgrown tracks has been removed to build a ring road and has not been fully replaced. The museum's vehicle collection in St. Florian can be visited if notice is given.
Vehicles
The line was worked by the following vehicles until it closed in 1973:
The abbreviations had the following meaning:
* EM – Ebelsberg Motorwagen (power car)
* EP – Ebelsberg Personenwagen (coach)
These designations were not written on the vehicles themselves.
Sources
* Helmut Weis: ''Die Unternehmung Stern & Hafferl III''. Bahn im Bild, Band 80, 1991 * Wolfgang Kaiser: ''Straßenbahnen in Österreich''. GeraMond Verlag, 2004External links
*Florianerbahn Society
{{coord, 48, 14, 0, N, 14, 22, 28, E, type:landmark_region:AT, display=title 900 mm gauge railways in Austria Heritage railways in Austria Railway lines opened in 1913 1913 establishments in Austria-Hungary