Exhibition

1 August 1976, 04:53 a.m.: Coach 8084 is crossing the Reichsbrücke at the very moment it collapses and plunges into the river Danube. Fortunately, there are no passengers on board; the driver luckily remains unharmed and is rescued a few hours later. On 9 August, the bus is also salvaged using a floating crane – and the legend of the ‘Reichsbrücke bus’ or ‘bus from the river’ is born. It still makes special appearances today.

During the Second World War, large parts of Vienna’s public transport fleet were destroyed or damaged. To alleviate the shortage, 45 trams from the New York tram network arrived in Vienna in 1949 as part of the ‘Marshall Plan’ reconstruction programme. The Viennese christened the tram the ’American’ and were absolutely delighted with it because it was fast and very comfortable: the seats were wide and padded, and the backrests could be swivelled to face the direction of travel. Revolutionary for the time: automatic folding doors with drop-down running boards!

The 1960s were the era of the ‘car-friendly city’: the car was the be-all and end-all, whilst trams were ‘out’. In many countries, tram lines were dismantled and services switched to buses. This required new, large buses – and so the double-decker was born. The view from the upper deck was legendary, but for the people of Vienna, the journey up was too much of a faff: the distances travelled by public transport passengers in Vienna were too short to allow them to make it back to the exit in time.