Stepping out just after dawn, it was dry(ish), a lot better than the biblical rain forecast for Wien only a day or so before; clearly the Austrian and UK weather forecasts have something in common.

The streets were very quiet on a Sunday morning but the trams were already whirring along and had a smattering of passengers on them. Some (almost certainly) were going home after a night out, others were heading off looking much 'fresher' after a night in. Before embarking on the tour description, or possibly odyssey description might be more apposite, it's worth having a perspective on the system we travelled over. It's generally rated as roughly the fifth longest extant system in the world, around 170km of route (with 400+ km of track!), some 30 lines and 450 trams; so, it's BIG! It is also a classic system which has grown and evolved, morphed and changed over 130 years. So, the network is not all straight up and down but a spider's web of early return loops, cut offs, connecting lines, depot connections often facing four different ways and multiple loop / platform terminals. From a BLS standpoint it has … scope!

Consequently, when trying to trace out the precise route before even booking, your correspondent (despite having done two thirds of the 'normal-ish' routes) sort of gave up on the basis if it was that difficult to follow it must be good and given that the organiser (Peter Lenhart) was inevitably going to do the tram equivalent of an aerobatic display. There was no risk of a dud day out! It was going to be a nine hour all out tram bash with only brief stops, including in one instance to utilise an extensive Wien Parkland, in a target rich environment. We travelled in a Type 'M' tram built at the local Simmeringer Waggonfabrik in 1929, which ran on Wien (Vienna) tramways until 1977, undergoing several modifications. Until 1981, the tram was relegated to hauling materials in a trailer. Then it languished in the open, including a stint in a safari park (really!) before being rescued in 1990. It took until 1995 to be restored to a sufficiently modern standard to make it near universally operable over the whole network, about 95% due to curvatures, clearances etc (we did encounter the odd curve over which it was barred).

Our tour was planned to start right outside the gates of the tram's home at the Kaiserebersdorfer Hauptwerkstätte, the main transport maintenance facility just off the Kaiserebersdorf Zinnergasse Line in the far southeast of the system. This line has no less than four separate stops serving various sections of the Zentralfriedhof or Central Cemetery, which encompasses 2.4km2 (around 590 acres) with 330,000 individual graves. Since opening on All Saints Day (day of the dead) in 1874, it has seen over three million interments - one of the biggest cemeteries in the world by numbers. Some of these came on the No71 bus (single ticket only required) but others, from 1918 onwards, came by tram, at night. By 1942, traffic had built up to require three specialist vehicles, which also uniquely for the route had wreath attachment points. They thought of everything! Apparently in Wien, you don't 'kick the bucket' but 'took the 71er'!

There is even a funeral museum, with over a thousand corpse disposal related exhibits where you can buy a Lego kit of said funeral tram including two coffins, with detachable lids, in the souvenir shop. See https://tinyurl.com/yc55y4h5 if you don't believe me. Yours for €129.90 (£112); Christmas sorted!

One of the funniest jokes in the Viennese lexicon goes something like … A man from Switzerland scoffs at a man from Wien … your Zentralfriedhof is only half the size of Zurich! To which (with rapier wit) the Wien Mensch responds … yes but it's twice the fun!! [The Zurich one is in fact 2.9km2 or 716 acres.]

Moving on from this trip down trivia lane, we approach the tour itself on our totally normal Tram 71. The EGTRE (Enthusiast's Guide to Travelling the Railways of Europe) Tram Services over Unusual Lines (TSUL) meister himself, Ian Hutton, joined us en route - literally a few steps from his hotel. He related several TSUL tales and your reporter related a trip about a decade ago when, spotting the little square around some tram times on a tram stop timetable on which the legend read 'Hauptwerkstätte', a trip was made where sitting very nonchalantly in the trailer vehicle a full trip around the works was obtained. Admittedly as the last remaining passenger on the tram, I did think the game was up (prepare the dozy tourist routine!) but was released back through the gates without query and back into normal service!

We bailed, as our totally wreath and corpse free '71er' headed to the end of line and walked over to the gates of the works from which our venerable pairing of Tram 4149 + Trailer 5419 had just emerged, bagging a seat in the power car with our very continental participants who had filled the tour to capacity! Most arrived by S-Bahn train at Kaiserebersdorf, a 15 min walk to Kaiserebersdorfer Hauptwerkstätte.

Suddenly, at 08.50, we shunted from the extreme right track (viewed towards the gates) to clear the way for a service tram to enter. We left near 09.00, almost immediately lurching right onto a non-passenger curve towards the end of the line at Kaiserebersdorf Zinnegasse, where we took the inner of the two loops bypassing a service tram in the outer. This followed a photo stop, after all we had been aboard for what, five minutes‽ This loop was rebuilt in 2019, so any of the track might be new; it was difficult to tell.

Our tour then headed towards Simmering (along the general route, if not the actual course, of the Simmering Horse Tramway) and, at Enkplatz U / Grillgasse (platz = square) tram stop, went (not unusual), left, then left again. It was a non-passenger curve, around the anticlockwise Route 11 Turnback Loop which sees some early passenger trams, then back northwards on our original route. At St Marx, we used the non-passenger route throughout onto the clockwise St Marx Loop, connecting briefly to Route 18.

Back southeast on Route 71 at Enkplat, we took the non-passenger curve west towards Absberggasse. After a bit of point crowbarring, our tour rounded the balloon loop (non-passenger) to return the way we had come - but only by one stop to Geiereckstraße (straße or strasse = street) We did standard Route 6 clockwise loop with a brief photo stop, when the driver pulled forward !!! leaving a gap for some [and an extremely annoyed Simon Mortimer - PG]. Thankfully, this error was on a regular section but a bit irritating to have to go back to an area of pretty comprehensive coverage for a few metres but better than on a non-passenger section. Thanks to Peter Lehnhart it didn't happen again. [To be continued…