Was watching from my bedroom window this morning as some more work was being done on the tramway at the bottom of my garden, due to be running in 18 months.
My mind went back to one of our bike trips to Bavaria when we spent the night on the way in Nancy.
So I put Nancy trams into You Tube as we had gone into town on the rubber tyred guided system they have there
A few links led to other cities and I was intrigued to see Bordeaux had a system which, at one stage of the film, had a tram comprising of seven units. Most of it seemed to be on dedicated tracks but one scene showed it in a normal city street.
When does a tram become a train?...it was longer than our heavy rail local trains and I wonder what problems they had threading this little lot through a narrow shopping street.
Ted
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The "Light Railways" are somewhere in between t'tram and t'train,
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I believe the Metrolink cannot run any more than four carraiges due to this reason. If the road had been designed to work with such long vehicles and providing that traffic signals compensate for this then I imagine it would work ok. In Manchester though ti would be chaos. Imagine a 7 carraige tram going down Market Street then onto High Street it would probably derail blocked the entire junction.
I would imagine its simply all do with traffic light signals though.
When does a train become a tram? That is a very difficult one, it can't simply be about power otherwise heavy rail vehicles like the class 142s would be trams. I've always understood it that it is a light rail vehicle that can run on normal streets regardless of length.
Manchester always prefered to call the Metrolink light rail rather than tram but the public just called them trams so the name stuck.
Edited by Rattle on 21/10/2009 at 00:50
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Before the recession I know that my local Council were actively considering running LR lines along old railbeds - hugely more efficient than trains and the infrastructure is a fraction of the cost. Sadly we'll not see it for a generation.
Edited by Pugugly on 21/10/2009 at 01:03
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LR is not perfect though. However I do think LR is the only way for large cities to move forward. People including me don't like using buses as they are just too slow, too complicated (no clear ticketing options) and too expensive.
However on a light rail system I would happily pay a premium because they are so damn cheap. If I am working in a part of Manchester which the tram system operates and don't need the car I will take the tram its far more relaxing and quicker. Soon my local area will have a tram system connecting more less the entire metro area and if it wasn't for the fact I have to carry computers in my car I doubt I would need it all. It should have come in 2000 but the usual government funding arguments meant it won't open till 2011.
I believe that trams do take cars off the road and less cars will make the world better for all of us :).
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What are you still doing out of bed, young man ?
I'm looking forwrd to their arrival, with a station 100 yds away and a free pass ! We miss the heavy rail, the last train ran in Oct 1987 and many years before there was plenty of steam, Jubilees, Patriots, Black Fives and loads of others...the house survived all that so should stand up to the trams.
Incidentally, mentioning less cars..( fewer cars ! ) ( sorry, pedant at work ), I went into the village this morning and I thought all the traffic had been beamed up ! I could park anywhere and just wander across the road at will.....although I don't think Will was too pleased !
Ted
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As I understand it, the definition of a tram is based partly on the structural strength requirements for the vehicle - which are less than for heavy rail - and also depend on whether the tracks it runs on are shared with the road at any point or if they are fully segregated.
I think there are also details regarding the protection given by side valences and stuff to do with other technical aspects as well.
The former railway link through the streets to Weymouth Docks - although only ever used by heavy rail trains - is nearly always described as a tramway, however, so that muddies the waters further.
It's certainly evident from the Weymouth case that a railway running along a street is defined as a tramway, so it is really just the actual vehicles that use it we need to define precisely.
I think I'll have to research this later!
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Depends which country you are in.
Also a rail vehicle able to run on street will have "magnetic" braking - you will see them between the wheels above the rail on the vehicles in Manchester/Sheffield/Croydon etc. T|o stop quickly you turn on the electromagnet and it sticks the train to the rails - not good if you are standing on the train at the time (0.2-0.25g sudden deceleration)
In Karlsruhr they have trains which run on rural lines and automatically swith from one supply voltage to another as they drive into town and move onto the streets.
If you think they are cheap Strasbourg's first batch were around £4m each to build, and Croydon could have been built for half the price.
Until the government sees the value of good public transport systems then we will not have many here.
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The new Manchester trams are costing £2 million each but they have ordered 40 so they do need to keep their costs down. They are very similar to the ones they have in Croydon but they are not low floor due to the legacy of them running on old BR lines.
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Bordeaux trams definitely run on rails.
There was years-long chaos while the network was put in but it appears highly successful - certainly runs near-full all the time.
Limoges still has a trolley-bus network, using the remains of a tramway system that first ran in about 1909. They now build their own trolleybuses, that have stand-by diesel engines so they can run away from the overhead wires and they are disguised to look like trams...
Edited by mike hannon on 21/10/2009 at 13:43
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People ... don't like using buses as they are just ... too complicated ...
Eh?
Admittedly I haven't been on a bus since I passed my driving test years ago, but surely you wait at a bus stop, get on a bus, buy a ticket and go wherever you're going?
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No, if you do that you could easily spent £30 in just three hours!
Single fares are very expensive. You have to buy a pass but then each operator has their own pass which is not valid on other companies buses. The bus timetables don't tell you who the operator is so if you have no real knowledge of buses you can buy a Stagecoach daily pass at £3.50 then try to get the next bus only to find it is an Arriva or First and the original pass is not valid.
The added complication is that some routes change companies for the evening.
Thanks to deregulation buses in Manchester are a complete joke some services may be good but for a city with a metro population of 2.5 million it is not up to the job.
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If you think the buses are bad in Manchester now you should have seen them in the 90s
There were stories of queues of buses at stops waiting for passengers . . . . . . .
These things happen when you have 19 licensed bus operators in one city.
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I remember the days of UK North. It would be 2:00am in the morning and I would be waiting for a bus going home 'early' as I had a lecture in Salford at 9:00am. I would be standing waiting for a bus where there would be around 100 Fallowfield bound buses all jammed from Picciddily onto Oxford Road. It took for ever for my bus (86) to arrive. I find it much more reliable since UK North were banned because the night buses are a lot less regular now. Ironic really but sums up the problem with deregulation.
If I am going to town 9/10 of times I will park at the Metrolink and just get the tram into town. It is no quicker than the bus doing this but it is far more relaxing as I am sat on a tram for 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes on a bus with screaming kids. Also on a tram if you're sat next to a smelly tramp you can move to a different part of the tram.
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>> People ... don't like using buses as they are just ... too complicated ...
Too true, I use my car most of the time, use one bus route occaisionally. There are 25 express bus destinations, 102 listed local destinations, and 72 local timetables, in a small town (sorry city) of 40,000, I would call that complicated!
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£3.30 for a 24 hour pass on all the trams ,underground and buses you care to travel on in the inner part of prague,it costs £2.00 for me to go 2 miles on an arriva bus where i live now into the big metropolis
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A one day bus and tram pass for the whole of London is only £3.80 or £3.30 with one of the Oyster pre-pay cards.
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You mean you wait at what you hope is the right stop, there being no route information or timetable. It is a dark evening and there are a couple of lads drinking lager in the bus shelter over the road and you try to convince yourself they are harmless.
You wait for an indeterminate period in the vague hope that a bus might turn up. Eventually a bus arrives. You ask the driver if its the right bus for your destination. He advises you that it is another 40 minutes before the bus you really want is due. His bus however goes three-quarters of the way.
You get on the bus and proffer a five pound note for a two pounds forty fare. He looks at you as if you are mad and asks if you have anything smaller. You say no and he give you your change in 20 pence pieces.
You take a seat a far away as possible from the strange chap in pebble spectacles and coat tied up with string. He moves next to you and engages you in a conversation telling you that swine flu is the wrath of god.
You spend the next 20 minutes peering our of the window desperately looking for a clue that you have reached your destination. Too late you realise you have gone too far and leap up clambering over the madman next to you to ring the bell. You get off and walk the remaining distance to your destination.
Only an hour and a half to cover two miles. Brilliant things Norwich buses
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Would be great if they brought trams back to Bristol...
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