Theodora Acham

The first woman tram driver in Graz

„You can always change in life and must always strive for something new. “

Women tram drivers are no longer unusual these days, but things were still very different in the late 1980s. Until the early 1970s, Austria even had a law prohibiting women from ‘working at the crank handle’ (i.e. tram driving) due to alleged health risks. When Theodora Acham began her career at the Graz Public Transport Authority in April 1988, she and her colleague Ingeborg Steiner were the first women tram drivers in Graz.

After working as a retail saleswoman for several years, she wanted a career change – the job advertisement offering training as a tram driver came at just the right time. Shortly afterwards, the then works council of the Graz Public Transport Authority expressed its concern in a letter to the workforce that women as “second-class employees” would jeopardise the “hard-won rights” of men. However, despite opposition from the works council, Theodora Acham and her colleague were hired after beating out a large number of applicants, and soon afterwards they took their places in the driver’s cab of a 600 series tram for the first time.

This was preceded by a demanding training programme, in which Ms. Acham had to grapple with completely new content: In addition to knowledge of vehicle types and technical issues, the conductor examination also covered legal guidelines. After passing the examination, she immediately received the same salary as her male colleagues – something unusual at a time when women were rarely paid the same as men for doing the same work. She also remembers the working atmosphere as being very warm and characterised by helpfulness.

The “Bim-Oma” (tram granny), as Theodora Acham was called by her grandchildren and colleagues, retired in 2013 with a touch of sadness. But she also used this change to discover something new for herself: hunting and observing wild animals, as well as life in the countryside. E.g., she spent the summer of 2016 on an alpine pasture for the first time, herding 120 cows.