Trams in Norrköping

An M97 tram at Söder Tull, as it leaves the city centre on a line 3 service

The Norrköping tramway network is a system of trams forming a principal part of the public transport services in Norrköping, Sweden. It has been in service since 1904, and is, along with the larger Göteborg Tramway, one of only two city-centre tramways in Sweden that survived the switch to right-hand traffic in 1967, which led to the replacement of most Swedish tramways with buses to reduce the cost of replacing their now-unusable fleets.

Routes

Schematic map

Since 1966, there are two routes in the system. Line 2 runs from Fridvalla in the north to Ringdansen in the south along Östra Promenaden in the city centre. Line 3 runs between Vidablick in the north and Klockaretorpet in the south-west via Drottninggatan in the city centre. Both lines stop at the Norrköping Central Station (Resecentrum) where they provide interchange with the national railway network. Interchange with intracity, intercity and suburban bus routes are provided at mainly Resecentrum and Söder tull.

Until 1958, line 1 trafficked the city centre as a loop using the since 1961 abolished stretch in Kungsgatan. There is a concurrent Line 1 trafficked with trams from the tram museum in Norrköping as a somewhat historically preserved old tram environment.

Recently, line 2 has been extended to Ringdansen. Until 2006, the line used to end in Klingsberg. In early 21st century works started to extend the system to Ringdansen some 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Klingsberg. A first part, to Ljura, opened in 2006. This track leaves the Klingsberg track at the Albrektsvägen stop, which means that Klingsberg lost its trams. This stage was only some 350 meters long. Work with the second stage started in 2009, and October 21st 2010 some 2 km of new tramway opened, from Ljura to Trumpetaregatan in Hageby. The third section, from Trumpetaregatan to Ringdansen, was inaugurated extactly one year later, October 21st 2011.

Operations

Flexity Classic at Vidablick, the northern terminus of line 3

The Norrköping tramway is a standard-gauge electrically powered system, operated by Veolia Transport on behalf of the regional transport authority ÖstgötaTrafiken. The infrastructure and the tramcars are, however, property of Norrköping Municipality. It has track loops at the end of the lines and at various other points to allow turnbacks, as most of the trams are unidirectional. The tram depot is located off Östra Promenaden, between the Djäkneparksskolan and Centralbadet stops.

Norrköping’s fleet includes ten Düwag M97 trams, and four ADtranz low-floor trams (designated M98), built originally for Bremen and Munich. The most recent addition, introduced in 2007, is the Bombardier Flexity Classic (designated M06), a modern low-floor, bidirectional tram used in a number of cities around the world. Ten M67K trams (originally built in 1967 and since modernised) were taken out of regular use in 2008, but remain available as a reserve fleet.

The M67K are now constantly in traffic because of that Östgötatrafiken lent all except two of the M06 to Stockholm.

See also

• List of town tramway systems in Europe

External links

• Norrköping commune's official tramway web site (Swedish)
• ÖstgötaTrafiken
• Tram Travels/Sporvognsrejser: ÖstgötaTrafiken