Trams

Story and Photos by Keith Kellett

When we were shown around Athens, the guide was proud of the new trams, set up for the Olympics in 2004.

"There were a lot of accidents at first," she told us. "Most of the drivers were railwaymen, and they were used to having right of way."

She didn’t know it, but she’d just answered the question that’s been bugging me mildly for years. What’s the difference between a train and a tram?

The tram is a thing of the street, and must obey the rules of the road just as cyclists and motorists must. The train, on the other hand, runs on its own separate, dedicated track and need only obey rules set by the railway.

Some trams, however, run apart from the road for some of their distance. That’s what probably saved Adelaide’s Glenelg tram when the rest of the city’s trams were withdrawn … it only takes to the street in the city itself, and along Jetty Road, Glenelg.

Apart from the Glenelg tram, the only Australian city to have retained trams is Melbourne … although they have kept the expression ‘going like a Bondi tram’ when things are going satisfactorily, even though it’s many years since the track from Sydney to Bondi was taken up.

The Glenelg trams were built in the 1920s, and most of them are still in everyday service. And, it’s emphasised that the tramway is an integral part of the city’s transport system first and a tourist attraction second; a ticket costs no more than a bus ride over the same distance.

On the Glenelg tram, I was lucky enough to meet a retired driver."Look at this tram!’" he said. "Seventy-five years old, and still going strong! All it needs is the commutator cleaning, and the brushes changing occasionally, and she’ll go forever. I can’t think why they got rid of most of them." Trams of a similar age are still on the streets of Dresden, Germany. They’re augmented by some built in the 1990s, in the same factory in the Czech Republic.

Many European cities kept their trams, and most of them are modern vehicles. Indeed, they’ve gone as far as to build new tramways. Belgium has a relatively short coastline, but Belgians like to visit the seaside as much as anyone else. This led to considerable congestion, relieved by the building of the Kusttram, from De Panne, on the French border, to Knokke, on the north-eastern extremity of the country.

And, they do more than just get people from place to place. It’s possible to buy, at a discount, combined tickets for the tram and various attractions along the coast.

At Innsbruck, in Austria, the trams are a familiar sight in the streets. And, sometimes, they get a ‘nostalgia tram’ out of the city’s Transport Museum, and put it on a regular run. They don’t advertise it … usually, the first you know about it is when you see something that looks like an ornate Edwardian public toilet schlepping down the line.

I rode up to Igls on one such, along the famous scenic No. 6 route. Entering the city on the way back, we were told that the tram had to go back to the museum, and we should transfer to a modern vehicle … infinitely more comfortable, but not nearly so much fun!

One European country which did not fare very well with its trams was Britain. Although they are starting to make a comeback in some places, the only place which kept its trams throughout was the seaside resort of Blackpool. But, many were preserved, in the Tramway Museum at Crich, in Derbyshire and at the Beamish Open-Air Museum, near Chester-le-Street in the north-east of England.

The trams began disappearing from Britain’s streets in the late 1940s. But, at the same time Claude Lane, a manufacturer of electric milk trucks called ‘floats’ used his manufacturing techniques to build his scaled-down trams. After operating for some years at Eastbourne, on the south coast, the operation was moved to a disused railway line at Seaton, in Devon. The Seaton Tramway operates several trams. Some were built especially to the tramway’s 2’9" gauge; some were gauged up from Lane’s original 2’ 0" gauge models, while others are former regular trams, gauged down from 3’6" … or even 4’8".

There’s just one thing, though. At no point does the Seaton Tramway share its route with other road users. But, I suppose there are exceptions to every rule!

Check out:

www.ivb.at

www.tram.co.uk

www.dvbag.de

www.dekusttram.be

www.railpage.org.au/tram/glenelg