The tram: a relic that lives on
The etymology of tram takes us to the English tramway , which is formed with the words tram (which can be translated as "flat rail" ) and way (translatable as "via" ). A tram is a railway that travels on a road or street .
General characteristics
The term refers to the vehicle that moves on rails and whose circulation takes place in an urban environment . Trams, like buses or the subway (underground), allow passengers to move from one point to another in a city .
Tram travel characteristics may vary. In some regions, trams travel through the streets among the rest of the vehicles, without any separation or distinction. In other cases, however, there are exclusive lanes for trams, which run separately from cars , motorcycles, etc.
Trams in history
The first trams, created at the beginning of the 19th century , were blood trams : that is, pulled by mules or horses . These were carriages created to travel around cities on special lanes, generally transporting merchandise.
In 1879 , the electric tram emerged in Berlin . Thanks to its growth, in the first decades of the 20th century it became the main means of transportation . However, its popularity began to decline with the rise of internal combustion engine vehicles .
In recent years, however, the tram has made a resurgence in several European nations. This is due to its lower environmental impact compared to cars and buses and the traffic collapse caused by the high number of cars on the streets .
Rivalry with the bus
Around 1935, technical advances in bus manufacturing put the continuity of the tram in several cities at risk. Some of the main reasons are its greater agility and the absence of a specific infrastructure .
But perhaps the factor that caused the most damage to the image of the tram at that time was the idea of progress that the bus represented. Human beings cannot resist moving forward, even if this means leaving behind ideas that are better than new ones.
The tram train
Also known as a tram-train , the tram-train is a vehicle derived from the tram. Its main difference is that it can travel through more than one route . Thanks to having a more versatile system, it is capable of traveling along train and tram tracks, considerably enhancing its journey.
The tram train and light rail are more versatile
All the signaling and power systems of the current railway system can be applied to the design of the tram train, so that when it operates in tram mode it can travel at less than 70 kilometers per hour , while when entering the railway network it can reach 100 kilometers per hour .
The country that is at the forefront of this hybrid vehicle is Germany , where the first models appeared already in the 1980s. Over the years, the train-tram has also been developed in Spain, the Netherlands, Argentina, United States, France and the United Kingdom , among other parts of the world.
The light rail
This is another derivative of the tram. It is characterized by including segments that can be totally or partially segregated from vehicle traffic , with specific lanes for their use, sometimes separated and even through tunnels that cross the city.
One of the most prominent is the Stadtbahn , also developed in Germany, which represents a hybrid between the tram and the subway. It moves through underground and surface routes, and has some street sections and other exclusive ones. Two examples of this type of light rail are the Stuttgart and the Frankfurt am Main Metro .