INFRASTRUCTURE, ARCHITECTURE and ENVIRONMENT along streets with trams
Street
scenes can be fascinating. Tramways bring another element to the mix with the infrastructure they add and
the impressive spectacle of the tramcars themselves. Gordon
Stewarttravels
regularly throughout Europe to photograph streets with trams from city centres with
their grand
architecture to less familiar
locations to give
a real feel for these cities and their tramways. The photos show how trams can
provide an attractive and accessible element in urban transport systems.
These snapshots in time will be of interest
to researchers and to lovers of tramways and the cities
themselves. Photo
above : One of the most iconic locations in tramway photography :
Manesuv Bridge in Prague. A Skoda tram is seen in 2017 with Prague
Castle providing the backdrop.
ABOUT THE InTramCities PROJECT When
Gordon Stewart and his father Ian first started visiting tramways in
West Germany in the 1970s it seemed that it was a matter of recording
street scenes before the trams eventually disappeared, either into
tunnels in city centres or outright closure. The renaissance of
tramways, beginning in the 1980s, has meant that there is now an
ever-increasing amount of subject matter for this tramway photography
project
- Coverage
is limited to light rail systems with a predominantly urban tramway
character - The photographs give a visual record of
a tramway city with typical scenes on the day of the visit only - The recent aim has been to cover as much of the tramway system as possible in the time available - The
website does not provide a comprehensive history or technical description of the tramways - The website
is an educational resource and is non-commercial.
ABOUT THE InTramCities TRAMWAY PHOTOGRAPHSThe main collection now has over 38,000 tram photos from 142 tramway cities, dating from the 1980s onwards.
Series List :
Scroll down for the list of tramways covered in city sequence (and year
sequence within this for systems visited on multiple occasions) with link to photos.
Presentation :All
series are presented on-line in a nine-per-screen format below a
tabular list of photos with details of actual or nearest tram stop,
direction of view, direction in which the tram is travelling and tram
number where available. Photos are listed in the sequence in which
they were taken and for more recent series, the name of the street
along which the trams are running is shown in the comments column, but only where there is a change of street.
Larger
photos
(1000 pixel long-side) are presented for very recent series as well as the
9/screen format. The series will only be available for a limited period from date of the visit, typically one year.
Catalogue :
You can view or download the full photograph catalogue as an MS
Excel format spreadsheet. The approximate file size is 2 MB. Updated to : 27/06/21.
Click
here
Maps : For
route maps and diagrams, please go to the website of the transport
operator or if appropriate the local transport coordinating body. Most
have a range of excellent downloadable maps, generally in pdf
format but often also as jpg/gif format images
Digital photography was adopted in 2004, generally resulting in greater network coverage and improved image quality
Use of images
: Images may be made available by arrangement for approved uses such as
research, publications and materials promoting tramway schemes. Please
contact the webmaster. You are welcome to link to these pages. Please do not
copy photos for insertion into other websites or publications
without
permission from the webmaster.
All photos are Copyright Gordon
Stewart / InTramCities 1980-2020 except for the Nordhausen 2005 set for which the copyright is owned by Phil Barnes Contact the webmaster :Send an e-mail to Gordon
Stewart at InTramCities THE PHOTOGRAPHSClick
on the Year in the table below alongside the selected city to go to the tramway photographs
West Germany in the 1970s : The photographs of Gordon Stewart and Ian Stewart
Although
the InTramCities database starts with the 1980s, Gordon Stewart and his
father Ian visited West German tramways on several occasions prior to
this, taking
a limited number of photographs with varying results. It was an era
when the future of tramways was being vigorously debated as operators
faced the need to modernise at great cost or concede to the
strongly-vocal roads lobby supporting investment to assist the private
motorist, consigning trams to the history books or at best sending them
underground. In West Germany a number of cities formulated grand plans
for underground tramways, some of which were, at least in part, to be
realised, such as at Essen (see photo above taken in 1977 at the top of
the recently-opened ramp leading from the new underground station at
Porscheplatz). The fate of the other remaining systems remained
unclear.......
Despite
the numerous new tramway openings in recent years, some
traditional tram tracks have been closed. In most cases this has been
in favour of improved alignments or tunnels. One
such is that in Stuttgart's Friedhofstrasse, closed in 2017 and seen above on June 9th 2015.
Photos
in the InTramCities collection illustrate other examples. Click here for more (only text currently available on-line)
The 1980s saw the start of a remarkable renaissance of tramways : InTramCities photos help show many of the issues involved Analysis by Gordon Stewart To build a tramway - or not ?
InTramCities'
photos include a number of entirely new tramway systems built since the
1980s. Most are in places which once had tramways but had previously
closed their systems. Others are in places operating tramways for the
first time. The photo above shows the first new line in the Italian
city of Firenze (Florence) in 2016. The historic "Renaissance City"
closed the last line of its first generation system in January
1958 and opened the first of its new lines in February 2010.
Firenze has taken to tramways in an enthusiastic way with new lines
built and planned although not in the narrow streets of the historic
city centre which are unsuitable for modern tram operations. In
most cities, the reintoduction of trams is hotly debated. The arguments
for and against are numerous. The investment required is substantial
and the benefits not always evenly distributed. This is particularly
true in the early stages where there might only be one line rather than
a comprehensive network covering much of the city. Many cities have
judged
that the wider community's gains outweigh the financial or other
losses felt by those who might have to contribute but not directly
benefit. The introduction of a tramway often leads to the
reorganisation of bus services in the transit corridor served : again,
something where the greater good might outweigh specific losses. Many
new projects have been realised, but in 2020 a referendum of the
citizens of Wiesbaden in Germany voted against a tramway through the
city linking a local railway and the tramway of the neighbouring city
of Mainz. It is
for each case to be decided on its merits by those involved. Tram and Bus : Competition or Cooperation ?
Trams
had an early advantage over buses. Steel rails made it easier to haul a
carriage compared with a dirt track of a road. As well as a smoother
ride, fewer horses were required to do the job. Electric power gave
tramways a further advantage. Improved streets and the development of
the internal combustion engine then eroded those advantages. When the
time came to reinvest heavily in new track, overhead and rolling
stock, tramway owners, mostly municipally owned after the expiry of the
concessions given to the original private developers, faced a tough
decision. Could the investment be justified ? Was the tram the most
suitable mode ? Many smaller tramways were sacrificed in the 1930s as a result. For many larger operations, hasty post-war reconstruction shifted the big decisions to the 1950s. In
many places, the pendulum swung in favour of buses. Cheaper to buy and
not requiring special infrastructure, their routes could be flexible
and services planned at will. Good for passengers, taxpayers and,
increasingly crucially, motorists who would have more street space, it
seemed. In the UK and France especially, closures were almost
universal in this period and by the early 1960s virtually nothing
survived.
The
renaissance of tramways, beginning in the 1980s,
was largely due to concerns about increasing road congestion and later,
with the prevailing impracticality of environmentally clean fuels for
buses, concerns about air pollution and climate change. The UK
city of Edinburgh was one such city which completed closure of an
extensive tramway system in 1956 and had a large bus network.
After much controvery, Edinburgh reintroduced
trams with a new, albeit truncated, line in 2014. It was a case of
adding a tram line with few other changes. On the city's main street,
Princes Street, there was limited traffic calming, no reduction in
the heavy bus traffic and none of the "beautification" measures associated with
most new tramways, notably in French cities.
The photo above,
taken in 2016, shows the less than ideal result. One way to reduce bus
traffic in the city centre would have
been to rearrange services to feed passengers into the tramway along
its length. Good for crush loadings and economic operation of the
trams, but with one major disadvantage for passengers. Those not
directly
served by the line would require a change between bus and tram with the
uncertainty, inconvenience and possible discomfort of making such
connections and with no guarantee of a comfortable seat on the
connecting service. Frequent, regular and closely co-ordinated
connections are
likely to be essential for the success of any tram route.
Generally
speaking and with all other things being equal, trams are a realistic
consideration where traffic flows are too high to be handled
comfortably by buses but insufficient to justify a metro.
Environmentally
friendly fuels for buses (battery electric and green hydrogen) have become
increasingly feasible in terms of cost and practicality. With buses and
their acknowledged flexibilities now eroding the tram's advantage on
environmental issues, what now for the tramway renaissance ? Trams
retain many advantages but are they enough to justify the capital
outlay ? Cost-Benefit Analysis, as widely used by planning authorities,
is never an exact science and is often based on highly subjective data
but is the generally favoured process with which to make a
judgement. What is undisputed is that buses, even if not its main
backbone, will continue to provide much of a city's public
transport provision. Surface or Tunnel ?
Whilst
trams are essentially an alternative to buses on surface transport
corridors, they are also more suited to "upgrading". This is normally
to offer a higher quality of service. but especially from the 1960s, it
was seen as a possible way of achieving, at least in part, the benefits
of an urban metro or underground system. Fully-fledged metros as found
in major cities such as London, Paris and New York are extremely
expensive to build and take many years of construction. Many smaller
cities anticipated growth both in terms of population and traffic and
had ideas of clearing streets for the use of private cars and, in city
centres, for pedestrian precincts. Ambitious cities might also regard
having a metro as having arrived in the "big league" of cities. This
concept took particular hold in West Germany. The major urban
conglomeration around the Ruhr river in Nordrhein-Westfalen was one
such area where an integrated "Stadtbahn" concept was developed for the
major cities including Dortmund, Bochum, Essen and Dusseldorf. Whilst a
fully-fledged metro was the ambition, it became seen as unrealistic to
achieve except in numerous small steps. One element was in the
construction of tunnels under the city centres for the use of trams
pending the practicality of converting the whole retained network to
"metro" standards. The city of Dortmund made rapid steps in this
regard. Two routes running from the north to the south of the city were
moved into tunnels under the central area. The third main axis, running
west to east followed. In the photo above at Heinrichstrasse, taken in
2002, the third tunnel is almost complete and the surface tracks had
little time left.
Dortmund's
third tunnel represents a bit of
a change in the fortunes of the Stadtbahn concept as originally
conceived. Not only had thoughts of a fully-segregated metro been
abandoned, but the east west line was retained as tramway albeit with
the central tunnel. The advent of low-floor trams meant that expensive
and potentially obtrusive high-platforms were no longer required for
level-boarding accessibility. Dortmund's third line has emerged as
remarkably different from its first two, with low-floor trams providing
the service. This concept has also been used for Dusseldorf's Wehrhahn
Line, contrary to original plans. Even the tunnels themselves have not
always been the benefit they were expected to be. The enormous cost of
construction notwithstanding, they have been found to be expensive to
maintain, clean and illuminate. The German town of Ludwigshafen
has already taken some of its tunnels out of service and there have
also been discussions about the same in Mulheim. Traffic flows have not
always
justified the expenditure and surface trams in city centres have also
experienced something of a renaissance.
High Platforms or Low Floors ?
The
ideal has always been for the passenger to be able to step into a tram
and to their seat with the minimum of effort and inconvenience.
Level-boarding from street level was always impractical and such access
to the passenger compartment impossible. The floor of the tram had to
be above wheel or at least axle level and leave sufficient space for
the electric motors and associated equipment to be stowed beneath. The
development of longer trams and trams with longer wheelbases enabled
loading platforms to be lowered at front and back and in many designs
in the 1920s and 1930s, also in the middle of the tram between the
axles. With passengers loading from street level this still required a
step up and then further steps into the passenger compartments. The
benefits of these arrangements were marginal and new trams generally
featured steep steps, often three, for every passenger - an arrangement
totally unsatisfactory for the infirm, those carrying heavy packages
and especially those with baby carriages. The problem seemed impossible
to solve and legislation demanding a solution still lay far in the
future.
Those
major cities contemplating upgrading their
tramways with the ambition of eventually having a metro-like system
found a solution. High platforms built to a level to match as close as
possible the height of their trams' floors. Such platforms are
expensive to build and require extra space for steps and ramps up to
the platform. They are also highly noticeable features - suitable for
stations away from streets on reserved alignments but not necessarily
so in a cramped urban setting. Cities which embarked on upgrades in the
1970s such as Stuttgart and Hannover in West Germany chose to follow
this method and had to find solutions for fitting tram stops into
sensitive environments. The major problems were mostly avoided by
having city centre stops in tunnels, again at great capital cost.
One city which has failed to solve this problem is the British city of
Manchester. Having earlier removed its street tramway, Manchester
decided to reintroduce trams by taking over a number of local railway
lines and linking them into a network via street-level tracks through
the city centre. With the railway stations used for the new "Metrolink"
having standard British high platforms, Manchester was constrained into
ordering high-floor trams, despite the recent emergence of new
low-floor vehicles, and building stations with appropriately high
platforms in
the city centre streets (see photo above at Exchange Square).
Had Manchester had a low-floor system, level access would have been
possible from pavement level. One stop was equipped with a
"profiled
platform" which sloped up to allow step-free access to the centre doors
only - a compromise solution in an area of restricted space. This
platform was later removed and the stopping place eliminated.
The
1980s was to herald a technological
change which was to be the major impetus to the renaissance of tramways
which began in earnest in that decade. A way was found to incorporate a
low loading platform of sufficient and increasing size to allow a
limited amount of priority seating and baby carriage space. Existing
trams were increasingly retro-fitted with additional low-floor sections
and technology eventually allowed tram floors to be reduced throughout
the length of the vehicle. Direct street loading became one modest step
only and where trams could run into platforms, these could be built at
kerb level and be unobtrusive in the urban envirnoment, thus allowing
totally-level access. Tramway systems could be modernised and new
systems built without the enormous cost of high-level platforms and
without courting the controversy that such platforms cause. This posed
a dilemma for the "early adopters" of level-boarding access tramways.
The German cities of Cologne and Frankfurt-am-Main have ended up with
separate high-floor and low-floor networks : not an ideal situation,
but a pragmatic one. Trams and Pedestrians
Tunnel-digging
for a metro or underground tramway was one way that busy city
centre streets could be turned over to pedestrians whilst public
transport brought people to stations directly below. With low-floor
trams and simple platforms it was possible to bring people to these
pedestrianised areas directly without public transport being relegated
to side streets and fit in neatly and relatively unobtrusively. It
meant that public transport could be highly visible and accessible and
available exactly where people wished to be. In this respect, trams
have a major advantage over buses. Whilst buses might be able to weave
through traffic, a tram's advantage is that its path is entirely
predictable. In a busy pedestrian area buses might be able to hold a
predictable path, but this is not guaranteed and leaves a seed of doubt
in the minds of those around. The tram follows the rails and its course
is clear. An element of overhang must be reckoned with,
but differentiated colours in the paving around the tracks
are often used to identify a tram's "swept path", the maximum extent to
which a tram will encroach as it passes. For this reason, trams appear
better suited to mingling with pedestrians as shown above in
Berlin's Alexanderplatz in 2016 where trams have been reintroduced
to pedestrianised areas of the city centre despite underground lines
below and local and regional railways above (and behind the camera).
Reserved Track
Those
whose hopes of having a metro metro system were not to be realised
might have to compromise with their tramways as much as possible
on reserved track. Space permitting, the central reservation of wide
highways, either in place already or created through the converssion of
existing road space, can give trams a free run past congested areas of
roadway. The number of junctions with existing roads can also be
restricted to allow faster journey times. Extensive areas of
segregation have also allowed tramways, including new systems, to be
"heavier" than might otherwise being the case, with wider
trams resembling light railways running on railway-style track
mounted on sleepers. Systems such as that in Utrecht (see photo
above) which opened in December 1983 was dubbed Sneltram (ie Fast Tram)
and resembled a metro as much as a traditional street tramway.
Irrespective of the
"heaviness" of the tramway system, reserved track is generally seen as
a desirable part of any tramway system so long as the tram stops are
relatively easy to access. Utrecht's Sneltram was built shortly before
low-floor trams became widely available, so featured high-level
platforms at its stations. With such infrastructure being costly, a
major extension to Utrecht's tram system which opened in 2020, was
built with low platforms and operated by low-floor trams. As the plan
was to link the old and the new lines, the existing Sneltram line
was re-equipped with new low-floor trams and the station platforms
rebuilt accordingly, but the
large amount of reserved track will continue to allow the trams to
offer rapid journey times to tempt car users to leave their vehicles at
home and use public transport.
Wireless Power
One
objection to tramways, especially in urban
environments of great beauty and historical importance, is the presence
of overhead wiring. Good design can minimise the intrusiveness of the
wiring and the necessary support infrastructure. For example, live
wires can be supported by wires attached to brackets on line-side
buildings or to existing lighting stanchions and complicated
railway-style catenary is rarely necessary, at least where there are
low line speeds. On several new tramways, the issue has been
eliminated altogether by using alternative ways of powering its trams,
at least in the more visually sensitive parts of the cities they
serve. This is nothing new. Most the methods
currently being considered were experimented
with in the early days of electric traction but with little
long-lasting success. Overhead wiring remains the standard for current
collection and other methods still have their drawbacks despite ever-improving technologies.
A
number of systems, particularly in France, are using the
ground-based Alimentation Par
Sol (APS)
current collection system. Unlike earlier systems which collected
current from an underground conduit accessed through an open slot
between the rails, the APS system uses surface collection with each
short section of power rail only activated when the tram is directly
above. Relatively long
stretches of track in Bordeaux use the APS system, but capital cost is
the main
reason why it is not used more widely. In the photo taken in Bordeaux
in 2008, the vista of the
grand buildings along the city's river front is not interrupted by
wires. Even the tram stop in this sensitive area has been designed as
minimalist for the same aesthetic reason. InTramCities photos show the
APS system in Bordeaux, Reims and Angers
Currently
a number of
tramways are
using on-board battery technology to bridge relatively short gaps in
the wiring and hydrogen fuel-cell power is being researched as a
potential power source. The Spanish city of Seville inaugurated
its first five-stop second-generation tram line with wires
throughout with the intention of removing them along Avenida de la
Constitucion once suitably equipped trams arrived to replace the
light-metro stock used to open the service. This took place in two
stages, initially between Puerto Nova and Archivo de Indias, but later
extended to Puerta de Jerez, with overhead charging rails located at
the intermediate stop at Archivo de Indias for power collection
whilst the tram is stationary. An on-board power source adds to the
weight of a tram, so as well as the added capital costs, there are also
the extra running costs and implications for the design of any overhead used elsewhere on the network. InTramCities photos show battery operation in Nice and Sevilla.
Single or Double-ended Trams ?
One
major consideration in the design of tramways is whether the trams will
be single or double-ended. In the earliest of designs, trams were
double ended. At the end of the line, drivers just had to move to the
back of the car, readjust the power collection trolley and continue on
their way. Gradually, single-ended trams became the norm. This required
the trams to be turned at every terminus and this generally meant the
line continuing in a loop. Although this meant that space was required
to construct the loop, it also eliminated the need for the various
actions at the terminus. Single-ended trams found favour because of
their cheaper costs and higher passenger capacities. There was no need
to duplicate the expensive controller mechanisms and doors were only
required at one side of the tram. Eliminating both allowed for more
space for passengers and reduced costs of maintenance. In the
photo above a modern single-ended Munich articulated tram calls at
Sendlinger Tor in 2012
The trend in modern tramways has now
increasingly favoured double-ended trams which allow services to
terminate without the need to construct loops and requiring only a
simple track cross-over and with the use of pantographs for power
collection, no adjustment is needed. This also allows trams to reverse
to the nearest cross-over in the case of a blockage of the route ahead.
Tram-Train Tram-Train
has become a much talked-about concept. The selling point is that
trains on existing rail networks can be diverted on to street tracks to
serve city centres and numerous central tram stops rather than
depositing passengers at a limited number of stations, often reasonably
remote from where they need to be. The problem is the compatibility of
railway and tramway systems, both technically and operationally, often with differing legal codes. Unlike
Manchester, for example, where under-used railway lines were closed and
converted for Metrolink operation, other cities have sought a solution
where tramways run along railway tracks alongside railway vehicles.
Karlsruhe in Germany was the leading developer of a regional tram-train
system and its extensive network soon became known as the
Karlsruhe-Model. Each country is different in the rules applying
to trams and trains and the technical aspects of their construction.
This has been clearly exemplified in the United Kingdom where many
years of investigation and trials extending one of Sheffield's tram
lines over rail tracks to Rotherham highlighted numerous
problems. Tram-Train is not the relatively simple solution to city region
mobility that it seemed it might be. In Paris, tram line T4 was effectively created through
the "lightening" of an under-used suburban rail line between Aulnay and
Bondy with vehicles pitched somewhere between a tram and a train (see
photo above taken in 2007). Opened in 2006, it was not until late in
2019 that the line was extended along new street tracks to the suburb
of Montfermeil to make the line a genuine mixture of tramway and railway. Tramway on Tyres
Is
it a tram or is it not ? Ever since city streets became smooth enough
to run on once the petrol engine had been developed, buses became
increasingly popular for public transport as the expenditure on track
and overhead was not required and the buses could weave in and out of
traffic. Electric buses had their supporters and trolleybuses with
overhead wires were a suitable compromise solution, especially for
places contemplating the need to renew tramway tracks and their
relatively expensive tram cars. In western Europe the drawbacks of
trolleybuses meant that most systems eventually gave way to motor buses
but with the renewed interest in trams, segregated rights of way and
emission-free vehicles, thoughts were turned to possible ways of having
a "tramway" but at cheaper capital cost. Two maufacturers in France, home of the pneumatic tyre maker Michelin, promoted
guided buses powered by overhead wires. The French capital city region
has adopted the Translohr technology for a number of its developments
in the suburbs outside Paris. Line T5 in the city of St Denis (see
photo above) is one such line. It has been reasonably successful, but the
cities of Caen and Nancy which adopted the so-called "Tramway on Tyres"
eventually decided that their experiment was a failure, closed their
lines and replaced them with a traditional tramway. Their
advantages over a traditional tramway seemed to be limited to initial
capital cost alone. Irrespective of reliability issues regarding the
guidance system, trams on tyres have their disadvantages : their
roadbeds are subject to degradation and regular repair, their tyres
wear emitting noxious particulate matter into the atmosphere and in
terms of energy usage, the "rolling resistance" of rubber tyres on
concrete track far exceeds that of steel wheel on steel rail. It
appears
that any future for such systems will be limited.InTramCities League Table of Tramway City Photos
Gordon
Stewart / InTramCities 1980-2020 except for the Nordhausen 2005 set for which the copyright is owned by Phil Barnes
