Tram

An older tram in Vienna, Austria and
a more recent ultra low floor tram in the background

Tram systems are common throughout Europe and were common throughout the Western world in the early 20th century. In Canada most cities once had a streetcar system, but today Toronto's TTC is the only operator of streetcars. In Australia trams are only extensively used in Melbourne, all other major cities having dismantled their networks in the mid 20th century. Sydney does have a new light rail line.

History

The name "tram" is from Low German traam, meaning the "beam (of a wheelbarrow)".

The trams were first used in the first half of the 19th century, early trams being pulled along by horses. The first lines were built in the United States, in 1832 being built a line from New York to Harlem and in 1834 in New Orleans.

Later trams, known as cable cars, attached to a moving cable underneath the road. The cable would be pulled by a steam engine at a powerhouse. Railed vehicles pulled by cable up the hills at steep incline, such as Hong Kong's Victoria Peak Tram, and Monongahela and Duquesne Inclines in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, are also called trams, but are more accurately funiculars. Modern trams generally use overhead electric cables, from which they draw current through a pantograph or a trolley pole.

There are also double-decker trams, see Hong Kong Tramways.

Double track tram lines are sometimes at narrow passages single track, or, to avoid switches, have the tracks intertwined, e.g. in the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam on three short stretches (see map detail).

The electric tram was invented by Werner von Siemens.

Interior of a tram

Trams in the USA

The term tram does not have the same usage in the United States of America as in most of the world. In the U.S. a "tram" is more likely to describe a small tourist bus in the form of a mock-streetcar or an aerial tramway, such as those used in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Roosevelt Island, New York City.

In the US, an animal-powered tram would be characterized as a horsecar, an electrically powered one as a trolley, either as a streetcar and a modern version as a light rail vehicle (LRV). A US system is called a light rail transit (LRT) line if it is at least partially on a reserved right-of-way. The term light rail is soemtimes used generically to describe any trolley line except heritage railways.

Most US trams were removed by the 1950s. Among the reasons, the US firm of General Motors formed a separate subsidiary named "National City Lines", whose business mission was to buy out tram/streetcar operations all around the US and replace the trams with fleets of buses. Not all trams were removed; the San Francisco cable cars are the most famous example of trams in the United States. More conventional tram/streetcar operations survived complete abandonment in Boston, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New Orleans, and San Francisco. All of these systems have received new equipment. Some of these cities have also rehabilitated lines, and Newark, New Orleans and San Francisco have added trackage in recent years.

More recently a number of American cities have built new light rail systems which operate partially in the right-of-way of city streets. These systems could be called trams by Europeans and Australians but are generally not known by that name within the US.

See also

• List of light-rail transit systems
• Light rail
• List of transport museums
• Tram stop

External Links

• Light Rail Transit Association (GB)
• Light Rail Central (US/CA)
• Light Rail Now advocacy (US)
• Light Rail Netherlands (NL)
• Light Rail Atlas "Holland's Light Rail-pages for a world audience" (NL) varying content in multiple languages
• The Cable Building (New York City) Broadway Cable car line.

Referenced By