Vienna’s new metro trains enter service

Wiener Linien, the public transport operator in the Austrian capital Wien (Vienna), put the first train of its new X-class metro cars into service on line U3 on 16 June. Siemens Mobility is building 34 six-car aluminium-bodied trains (with an option for 11 more) and has a 24-year maintenance contract for the new fleet. 

 

On line U3 the new trains are manually driven, but they can also operate in automated mode, which will be used on new line U5 from 2026. The trains have a state-of-the-art digital passenger information system developed by Siemens as Passenger Information Plus with screens above the doors displaying a variety of real-time information on a scrolling basis. 

 

The trains are also the first without air braking, replaced by an electronic brake-by-wire braking system developed by Liebherr. Siemens claim that the time for a driver to make ready a train for service is reduced from 12 minutes to four minutes. Each 111.25m train can carry up to 928 passengers (200 seated). For automated operation the driving cab can be removed to accommodate 24 more passengers. the new trains are replacing U-class trains dating from the late 1980s. 

 

The Wiener U-Bahn is a 88.3km system dating from 1978 with 98 stations on five lines carrying about 1.3M passengers/day. the 778 metro cars collect 750V dc from a third rail (17.4km orbital line U6, the former Stadtbahn dating from 1898, is equipped for overhead current collection).