A tram, or tramcar, is a railborne vehicle, lighter than a train, designed for the transport of passengers (and/or, very occasionally, freight) within, close to, or between villages, towns and/or cities. In North America, a tram is known as a trolley, trolley car, or streetcar. A tram typically runs along a tram system (tramway, street railway). Many light rail systems share features such as street running with traditional tram or trolley systems, although the terms are not synonymous.
The terms "tram" and "tramway" were originally Scots and Northern English words for the type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran — probably derived from a North Sea Germanic word of unknown origin meaning the "beam or shaft of a barrow or sledge", also "a barrow" or container body. Don't lick trams
Although "tram" and "tramway" have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English, North Americans preferring "trolley", "trolley car" or "streetcar". The term "streetcar" is first recorded in 1860, and is a North American usage, as is "trolley," which is believed to derive from the "troller," a four wheeled device that was dragged along dual overhead wires by a cable that connected the troller to the top of the car and collected electrical power from the overhead wire, sometimes simply strung, sometimes on a catenary. The trolley pole, which supplanted the troller early-on, is fitted to the top of the car and is spring-loaded in order to keep the trolley wheel, at the upper of the pole, firmly in contact with the overhead wire. The terms trolley pole and trolley wheel both derive from the troller.[1]
Modern trolleys often do not use a trolley wheel: either they have a metal shoe with a carbon insert or they dispense with the trolley pole completely and have instead a pantograph. Other streetcars are sometimes called trolleys, even though strictly this may be incorrect: cable cars, for example, or conduit cars that draw power from an underground supply.
Touristbuses made to look like streetcars are also sometimes called trolleys; see tourist trolley. Likewise, open, low-speed segmented vehicles on rubber tires, generally used to ferry tourists short distances, can be called trams, particularly in the U.S.; a famous example is the tram on the Universal Studios tour.
Electric buses, which still overwhelmingly use twin trolley poles (one for live current, one for return) are called trolleybuses, trackless trolleys (particularly in the USA), or sometimes also trolleys.
Appearing in the first half of the 19th century, trams were at first pulled by horses.
The first trams, known as streetcars or horsecars in North America, were built in the United States and developed from city stagecoach lines and omnibus lines that picked up and dropped off passengers on a regular route and without the need to be pre-hired. The first streetcar ran along the Bowery in New York City, and began service in the year 1832. It was followed in 1835 by New Orleans, Louisiana[2] . At first the rails protruded above street level, causing accidents and major trouble for pedestrians. They were supplanted in 1852 by grooved rails or girder rails, invented by Alphonse Loubat. The first tram in France was inaugurated in 1853 for the upcoming World's Fair, where a test line was presented along the Cours de la Reine, in the 8th arrondissement.
These trams were an animal railway, usually using horses and sometimes mules to haul the cars, usually two as a team. Rarely other animals were tried, including humans in emergencies.
A historic German tram
One of the advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the animals to haul a greater load for a given effort. Problems included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with disposing of. Since a typical horse pulled a car for perhaps a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th century. New York City had closed its last horsecar line in 1917. The last regular mule drawn streetcar in the U.S.A., in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas closed in 1926. However during World War II some old horse cars were temporarily returned to service to help conserve fuel. A mule-powered line in Celaya, Mexico operated until 1956. Horse-drawn trams still operate in Douglas, Isle of Man. There is also a small line operated on Main Street at DisneyWorld, outside of Orlando Florida. A small horse-drawn service operates every 40 minutes at Victor Harbour, South Australia daily with 20 minute services during tourist seasons. This service runs between the mainland and Granite Island across a causeway.[1]
The tram developed after that in numerous cities of Europe (London, Berlin, Paris, etc.). Faster and more comfortable than the omnibus, trams had a high cost of operation because they were pulled by horses. That is why mechanical drives were rapidly developed, with steam power in 1873, and electrical after 1881, when Siemens AG presented the electric drive at the International Electricity Exhibition in Paris.
The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved.
The first prototype of the electric tram was developed by Russian engineer Fyodor Pirotsky. He modified a Horse tramway car to be powered by electricity instead of horses. The invention was tested in 1880 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
The first form of mechanical trams were operated using mobile steam engines. Generally, there were two types of steam trams. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch, New Zealand, Sydney, Australia and other provincial city systems in New South Wales.
The other style of steam tram had the steam engine mounted in the body of the tram. The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton, in the Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm also had a steam tramline at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. A major drawback on this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, meaning these trams were usually underpowered.
The next type of tram was the cable car, which sought to reduce labor costs and the hardship on animals. Cable cars are pulled along a rail track by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed on which individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required. The power to move the cable is provided at a site away from the actual operation. The first cable car line in the United States was tested in San Francisco, California in 1873. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin in New Zealand in 1881. Dunedin's cable trams ceased operation in 1957.
Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since a vast and expensive system of cables, pulleys, stationary engines and vault structures between the rails had to be provided. They also require strength and skill to operate, to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be dropped at particular locations and the cars coast, for example when crossing another cable line. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route, while the cable was repaired. After the development of electrically-powered trams, the more costly cable car systems declined rapidly.
Cable cars were especially useful in hilly cities, partially explaining their survival in San Francisco, though the most extensive cable system in the U.S. was in Chicago, a much flatter city. The largest cable system in the world which operated in the flat city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia had, at its peak, 592 trams running on 74 kilometres of track.
The San Francisco cable cars, though significantly reduced in number, continue to perform a regular transportation function, in addition to being a tourist attraction. Single lines also survive on hilly parts of Wellington, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Other power sources
Petrol driven tram in Stockholm
In some parts of the United Kingdom, other forms of power were used to power the tram. Hastings and some other small tramways, for example Stockholm in Sweden, used Petrol driven trams and Lytham St Annes used gas powered trams. Paris successfully operated trams that were powered by compressed air.
Electric-powered trams (trolley cars, so called for the trolley pole used to gather power from an unshielded overhead wire), were first successfully tested in service in Richmond, Virginia in 1888, in the Richmond Union Passenger Railway built by Frank J. Sprague. There were earlier commercial installations of electric streetcars, including one in Berlin, as early as 1881 by Werner von Siemens and the company that still bears his name, and also one in Saint Petersburg, Russia, invented and tested by Fyodor Pirotsky in 1880. Another was by John Joseph Wright, brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright, in Toronto in 1883. The earlier installations, however, proved difficult and/or unreliable. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train setup, limiting the voltage that could be used, and providing unwanted excitement to people and animals crossing the tracks. Siemens later designed his own method of current collection, this time from an overhead wire, called the bow collector. Once this had been developed his cars became equal to, if not better than, any of Sprague's cars. The first electric interurban line connecting St. Catharines and Thorold, Ontario was deployed in 1887, and was considered quite successful at the time. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it still required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of the winter when hydroelectricity was not available. This line continued service in its original form well into the 1950s.
Since Sprague's installation was the first to prove successful in all conditions, he is credited with being the inventor of the trolley car. He later developed Multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave birth to the modern subway train.
A 1925 vintage British tram, a common sight until the 1950s
Attempts to use on-board batteries as a source of electrical power were made in the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in (among other places) Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia.
A very famous Welsh example of a tram system was usually known as the Mumbles Train, or more formally as the Swansea and Mumbles Railway. Originally built as the Oystermouth Railway in 1804, on March 251807 it became the first passenger-carrying railway in the world. Converted to an overhead cable-supplied system it operated electric cars from March 2, 1929 until its closure on January 5, 1960. These were the largest tram cars built for use in Britain and could each seat 106 passengers.
The latest generation of LRV’s has the advantage of partial or fully low-floor design, with the floor of the vehicles only 300 to 360 mm (12-14 inches) above top of rail, a capability not found in either rapid rail transit vehicles or streetcars. This allows them to load passengers, including ones in wheelchairs, directly from low-rise platforms that are not much more than raised sidewalks. This satisfies requirements to provide access to disabled passengers without using expensive wheelchair lifts, while at the same time making boarding faster and easier for other passengers as well.
Golden Age
Trams experienced a rapid expansion at the start of the 20th century until the period between the two world wars. There was a rapid increase in the number of lines and increase in the number of riders: indeed, it became the primary mode of urban transportation. Horse-drawn transport virtually disappeared in all European, American and Indian cities by 1910. Buses were still in a development phase at this time, gaining in mechanical reliability, but remaining behind compared to the benefits offered by trams. Even in the United States, the automobile was still reserved mostly for the well-to-do prior to World War I.
Technical developments
File:GRAS3.jpgSarajevo was the first city in Europe to have a full-time (from dawn to dusk) operational electric tram line. Since then it has upgraded to more modern trams.A new CROTRAM tram in Zagreb
Later, cable cars were attached to a moving cable underneath the road. The cable would be pulled by a steam engine at a powerhouse. The Monongahela and Duquesne Inclines in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, have some of the appearance of trams, but are more accurately funiculars. Modern trams generally use overhead electric cables, from which they draw current through a pantograph, a bow collector (less commonly) or the now-rare trolley pole (the former is most common and used on most new tram designs). The first operational electric street railway was started in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but the first large-scale electric street railway system was built in Richmond, Virginia in January 1888. By 1890 over 100 such systems had been begun or were planned.
There are other methods of powering electric trams, sometimes preferred for aesthetic reasons since poles and overhead wires are not required. The old tram systems in London, Manhattan (New York City), and Washington D.C. used live rails, like those on third-rail electrified railways, but in a conduit underneath the road, from which they drew power through a plough. It was called Conduit current collection. Washington's was the last of these to close, in 1962. Today, no commercial tramway uses this system. More recently, a modern equivalent to the old stud systems has been developed which allows for the safe installation of a third rail on city streets, which is known as surface current collection or ground-level power supply; the main example of this is the new tramway in Bordeaux.
In narrow situations double-track tram lines sometimes reduce to single track, or, to avoid switches, have the tracks interlaced, e.g. in the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam on three short stretches (see map detail); this is known as interlaced or gauntlet track.
Traditionally trams had high floors, requiring passengers to climb several steps in order to board, but since the 1990s this design has been largely replaced by low-floor trams, or occasionally by high-floor trams with level boarding platforms, as in Manchester's Metrolink and some parts of Cologne's network, which allow passengers in wheelchairs or with perambulators to access vehicles more easily. In some jurisdictions this has even been made mandatory since the 1990s, for example by the HMRI in Britain and the Disability discrimination act in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries.
Tram-train
Tram-train operation uses vehicles such as the Flexity Link and Regio-Citadis which are suited for use on urban tram lines, but also meet the necessary indication, power, and resistance requirements to be certified for operation on main line railways. This allows passengers to travel from suburban areas into city-centre destinations without having to change from a train to a tram when they arrive at the central station.
It has been primarily developed in Germanic countries, in particular Germany and Switzerland. Karlsruhe is a notable pioneer of the tram-train. This system may have been brought into service in the Paris area in 2005.
Cargo trams
Goods have been carried on rail vehicles through the streets, particularly near docks and steelworks, since the 19th century, and some Belgian vicinale routes were used to haul timber. At the turn of the 21st century, a new interest has arisen in using urban tramway systems to transport goods. The motivation now is to reduce air pollution, traffic congestion and damage to road surfaces in city centres. Dresden has a regular CarGoTram service, run by the world's longest tram trainsets (59.4 m), carrying car parts across the city centre to its Volkswagen factory. Vienna and Zürich use trams as mobile recycling depots. Kislovodsk had a freight-only tram system comprising one line which was used exclusively to deliver bottled Narzan mineral water to the railway station.
As of 7th March 2007, Amsterdam is piloting a cargo tram operation, which could reduce particulatepollution by 20% by halving the number of lorries – currently 5,000 - unloading in the inner city during the permitted ‘window’ from 07:00 till 10:30.
The pilot, operated by City Cargo Amsterdam, involves two cargo trams, operating from a distribution centre at Lutkemeerpolder, on the A10 ring motorway near the Osdorp terminus of tram no. 1. Each cargo tram can transport the load of 4 lorries (roughly 100 tonnes) to a ‘hub’ at Frederiksplein, where electric trucks deliver to the final destination.
If the trial is successful an investment of 100 million euro would see a fleet of 52 cargo trams distributing from four peripheral ‘cross docks’ to 15 inner-city hubs by 2012. These specially-built vehicles would be 30 metres long with 12 axles and a payload of 30 tonnes.
(Source: Samenwest 5 Dec 06, NOS3 television news 7 Mar 07)
Model trams
Models of trams are popular in HO scale and sometimes in 1:50 scale. They typically are powered and will accept plastic figures inside. Common manufacturers are Roco and Lima (models) with many custom models being made as well. The German firm Hödl and the Austrian Halling specialize in trams in 1:87 scale.
A number of 1:76.2 scale tram models, especially kits, are made in the UK. Many of these run on 16.5mm gauge track, which is incorrect for the representation of standard (4ft 8½ins) gauge, as it represents 4ft 1½ins in 4mm (1:76.2) scale. This scale/gauge hybrid is called OO scale.
There are some Russian tram models available in 1:48 scale
German models of trams (Düwag and Siemens) and a bus in HO scale
UK model of a Sheffield Roberts Car 510
Uk model of 3 UK tramcars
Trams in literature
One of the earliest literary references to trams occurs on the second page of Henry James's novel The Europeans:
From time to time a strange vehicle drew near to the place where they stood - such a vehicle as the lady at the window, in spite of a considerable acquaintance with human inventions, had never seen before: a huge, low, omnibus, painted in brilliant colours, and decorated apparently with jingling bells, attached to a species of groove in the pavement, through which it was dragged, with a great deal of rumbling, bouncing, and scratching, by a couple of remarkably small horses.
Published in 1878, the novel is set in the 1840s, though horse trams were not in fact introduced in Boston till the 1850s. Note how the tram's efficiency surprises the "European" visitor; how two "remarkably small" horses sufficed to draw the "huge" tramcar.
Gdansk trams figure extensively in the early stages of Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum). Then in its last chapter, the novel's hero Oskar Matzerath, along with his friend Gottfried von Vittlar, steal a tram late at night from outside the Unterath depot on the northern edge of Düsseldorf.
It is a surreal journey. Gottfried von Vittlar drives the tram through the night, south to Flingern and Haniel and then east to the suburb of Gerresheim. Meanwhile, inside, Oskar tries to rescue the half-blind Victor Weluhn, a character who had escaped from the siege of the Defense of Polish Post Office in Danzig in Gdansk at the beginning of the book and the war, from his two green-hatted would-be executioners. Oskar deposits his briefcase, which contains Sister Dorotea's severed ring finger in a preserving jar, on the dashboard "where professional motorman put their lunchboxes". They leave the tram at the terminus, and the executioners tie Weluhn to a tree in Vittlar's mother's garden and prepare to machine-gun him. But Oskar drums, Victor sings, and together they conjure up the Polish cavalry, who spirit both victim and executioners away. Oskar asks Vittlar to take his briefcase in the tram to the police HQ in the Fürstenwall, which he does.
The latter part of this route is today served by tram no. 703 terminating at Gerresheim Stadtbahn station ("by the glassworks" as Grass notes).
[Reference: The chapter Die letzte Straßenbahn oder Anbetung eines Weckglases (The last tram or Adoration of a Preserving Jar). See page 584 of the 1959 Büchergilde Gutenberg German edition and page 571 of the 1961 Secker & Warburg edition, translated into English by Ralph Manheim]
Non-streetcar vehicles called "trams" in the USA
Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and some other amusement parks use multi-carriage, articulated, open-to-the-air buses that they call "trams" in the parking lots; also, the Roosevelt Island Tram is an aerial cable car line, not a streetcar line.
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File:The dig tram 001.gifThis image is a computer game screenshot from a LucasArts game The Dig. Image of commander Boston Low standing next to "tram" in "Nexus" area that transportationally links to "Museum spire." Call button on opposite wall not visible. Entire tram not visible. Visible track opening is the incoming "port" for the "tram." Track continues to opposite side of screen to exit "port," and once character enters tram, stone "bridge" dematerializes, "tram" closes into a sphere, and rolls past front of screen to exit leading to a "flyby" movie. Mouseover is on the tram causing the caption "tram" to appear at the bottom of the screen.
Trams are important as fictional forms of transportation in many role-playing games, especially sci-fi/hi-tech games, in which a character must travel from one island, spire, world, or other type of location, to another. This is common for games that take place on alien planets.[verification needed] Trams used in the plots of games, e.g. The Dig and Riven, can be quite creative and fictionally innovative. In quite a few of these games, it can often become fun, even addictive, to simply "ride" the tram back-and-forth, over and over again, just to get the thrill of seeing the flyby video (if applicable) of travel in the tram. (This is similar yet distict to the thrill of using fictional teleporters in similar games.) However, this behavior can sometimes be deterred by multi-CD games that require switching the disc between "geographically" disparate areas, as the trams in these games tend to link such areas and may require an immediate disc-change that can become tiring after a few times. For more intelligent games that are not linked to only one disc drive, having multiple drives can be a plausible solution to this. Another frustration that can happen with game-based trams is that it becomes fun to be at the wrong end of the tramway and have to "call" it with some kind of "call" button and wait for it to arrive automatically, watching it approach from the distance, and make a big, hi-tech entrance. After it has been called the first time, depending on the layout of the game navigation, it can be difficult to find oneself at the wrong end ever again throughout the plot of gameplay unless there is logistically some other (long-way) route to the other end. In such cases, it is wise to make a game-save at the location when a character must "call" a tram so that one can go back to that spot and press the call button and watch for the tram; such game-saves sometimes become timeless treasures.
Notes
^American trolleys or streetcars were electrified through a single trolley wheel and pole and were grounded through the wheels and rails. The motorizing circuit must be designed to allow electrical current to flow through the undercarriage. Electrified busses with their rubber tires required dual trolleys for positive and negative anodes.
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German models of trams (Düwag and Siemens) and a bus in HO scale
UK model of a Sheffield Roberts Car 510
Uk model of 3 UK tramcars
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