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by DoDo
This summer, Budapest put new trams in service on the world's busiest tram line, trams from the Siemens Combino family that are the world's longest trams for passengers:
For me as a railfan, trams and tramways were too ordinary and everyday sights, and never considered them 'proper' railway. So I was astonished to discover that trams have plenty of afficiados among Western railfans. What's more, it turned out my (former) home city Budapest was an eldorado for them: an extensive network even after four decades of closures, lots of different tram types, lots of older types in regular traffic. So, I thought trams deserve Train Blogging coverage, and took the occasion of the arrival of the Combinos to remedy my long dismissal by reading up on tramways, and present their development via the trams of Budapest. But when the Combinos had big technical difficulties, I delayed posting. Now I do it with a wider picture selection.
The basic idea of a tram is: a railway for transporting people in crowded cities, with at least part of the tracks shared with road vehicles (from carts to cars). Consequences in construction: special rails sunk into the road, sharp curves, light carbodies (no need to withstand forces in a long train), entrances for fast loading/unloading and low platforms.
This idea was taken up rather early: the first trams (the very first: New York, 1832) were horse-drawn, then pulled by small steam locomotives. (For a preserved example, though not in a city, visit the Chiemseebahn in Bavaria.) But I will limit my coverage to what really accelerated the spread of tramways: electric trams. Werner von Siemens presented the world's first electric locomotive, a small critter on miniature tracks, in 1879. Two years later, he could already build the first tram line, in district Lichterfelde in Berlin. But only a half dozen pilot lines were built (mostly by Siemens) over the next three years. Just then, the first line was built in the USA, where soon a great boom started. How much so is demonstrated by the fact that the builders led to the later electrics giants: beyond Siemens, innovator Frank J. Sprague's company was later bought by Edison, the Thomson-Houston Co. developed into General Electric, the German branch of the former became AEG. In Europe, after the everyday success of the first few lines, an incredible construction boom started at the end of the decade. This boom was set off in 1887 in Budapest: the city leaders had an ambitious plan, and the two main traffic companies BKVT and BVVV became initial prime customers of the German firms Siemens and later AEG.
Looking back from today, the NIMBY issue of that age may sound strange: the wires of a catenary were considered an eyesore. So when Siemens built the first line, they developed a special system: on one side, the 'normal' rail and a guiding rail flanked a ditch, and hidden underground in it, two powered rails placed even closer supplied electricity, as the tram's downward trolley pole slid between them. The system was problematic, however: strong wear on the trolley poles, water-protected but no defense against snow and ice, and dirt filling up the ditches. Catenaries replaced the "Budapest system" everywhere by the nineteen-twenties.
Above, you can already see some tramcar development: now the drivers' cabin is closed. When Budapest trams got pantographs, those first had a 'lyra' form, later the diamond shape. Meanwhile, motors grew stronger, and carbodies larger, also in cross-section: the original stagecoach-like sides with curved lower edge turned flat. Also, domestic production of trams ran up. Trams developed not only in form but field of application. The first trams typically ran in suburbs, from which development branched in two directions: (1) strictly downtown street trams, and (2) so-called overland trams and/or interurbans, which went out into the agglomeration. (An example of the latter, the Chicago North Shore line, ran the particularly nice Electroliners.) In Budapest, a number of overland lines were built by various tram companies. Later, together with suburban 'proper' railways, they merged into the BHÉV company (which itself later integrated into the Budapest Traffic Company).
WWI and the early spread of motorisation braked development. Still, as traffic kept growing, there was demand for ever larger trams. The natural next step was bogie vehicles. There were experiments early in the 20th century, but not so successful (just the BKVT F type -- they quickly were converted into standard two-wheel critters, as seen above). Worldwide, the first successful bogied tram type was the American PCC. So Hungarian industry tried again, too: 30% longer, all steel (no wooden walls), and much more powerful than anything before, pre-WWII development reached its pinnacle in the groundbreaking "Stukas" (delivery started 1940). They got the nickname because during acceleration, they gave off a loud noise sounding like German Ju-87 "Stuka" dive-bombers.
After WWII, like much of Europe, Budapest lay in ruins, materials were scarce, money was scarce. So trams of old types had to continue running -- but at least they could be upgraded. The most important change was to replace the wooden chassis with a steel one. The new chassis had a standardised look for a great variety of original types.
Post-war scarcity also had its effect on travelling habits -- travelling by clinging to the railing outside the entrance became quite normal, well into the sixties:
But when the wooden->steel chassis upgrades went full-swing, a new type was built too, albeit only an improved version of the "Stukas". A stupendous 375 trams of the new standard type UV (series 3200/3800) were built in a decade starting 1956, and would determine the image of Budapest trams for four decades. Though there are few visible differences with the "Stukas" (one is the cut-out for the bogies), they are more solid and stronger, and built for multi-car operation.
Tramcars couldn't be lengthened further, while multiple cars waste space. So the logical next step was articulation. In Budapest, after the wood->steel upgrades, the tramway company's own maintenance shop felt itself prepared to attempt construction on its own. In 1961, it presented the CSM type (series 1200II). These showcased the rounded 'streamlined' forms now fashionable for all kinds of vehicles. But the bogie-less vehicles nicknamed 'Bengáli' (wordplay from a word for 'unwieldy') weren't too sound a construction, weak and shaky and loud and heavy, so with time, they were passed off to countryside towns.
The failure of the maintenance shop was taken with glee at Ganz, the company normally making trams. So they got to construct another articulated type, whose 181 exemplars would serve the busiest lines almost exclusively until now. This was type GCSM, whose rather bland but surprisingly widely known nickname preserves the memory of this builders' rivalry: 'Industrial Articulated'. Built from the middle of the sixties, their looks conformed to the new fashion of functional design: flat surfaces, sharp edges.
In the meantime, in the East Bloc, the Czech(oslovak) ČKD factory became market leader. They once bought the license of the American PCC type, and developed it further in the "Tatra" product line. When the construction of a third, outer Budapest boulevard created new demand at the end of the seventies, it was cheaper to buy non-articulated type T5C5 Tatras than get a GCSM successor from Ganz. These trams are the ultimate in Spartan functional design, the one big innovation was tainted-glass windows. The 322 trams supplied enabled the phasing-out of old types mentioned above.
Meanwhile in Germany, the future was born. In the West, most tram lines were torn up to make way for roads. But in some bombed-out German cities, people thought reconstruction is an opportunity to reform transit systems. The idea was to mix the benefits of all types of urban rail: a line that enters the city as suburban railway or overland tramway could then continue as downtown tram, or even go underground below too busy streets ('light metro'). These systems were called Stadtbahn = city-rail. For the concept to really work out, new technologies had to arrive. In the seventies, they came. Little noticed outside professional circles, there has been a revolution in electric motors: asynchronous AC motors have come of age, which were not only lighter and much stronger than what was before, but allowed continuous acceleration. Progress in automatisation made variable-level entrances a fail-safe technology: the plates below the door would either form a platform or descend to turn into steps. Suspension with rubber springs and dampers provided a smooth ride. In 2001, after a long battle within the ruling Socialist-liberal coalition, Budapest bought a couple dozen used (thus cheap) type TW6000 trams from Hannover. Despite being a quarter century old, they became the technologically most advanced trams in the city... Though they were a bit high-level and heavy for Budapest, they convinced the sceptics (including me).
In the nineties, chiefly the French tram revival pushed another technology revolution. Now trams became low-floor (with most equipment on the roof), lightweight, and streamlined again. This wasn't without great mishaps: rushing new types into service meant that there were a lot of teething problems, chiefly with electronics, but also wear and tear. Siemens' flagship Combino trams had to be withdrawn across the world because of fissures in their aluminium carbodies. So when a big order came from Budapest, Siemens resurrected an earlier steel design under the same name. The big order was for the world's busiest tram line, along the Grand Boulevard (lines 4/6). This is nothing to be proud of, the daily 200,000/hourly max. 10,500 passengers would be in the capacity range of a subway. But an orbital subway was never built, so pairs of "Industrial Articulateds" transport the masses in close succession. So when finally new vehicles were ordered, they were for the world's longest passenger trams (precisely 53.99 m; only the CarGoTram freight trams in Dresden/Germany are longer [59.4 m]). The new series 2000II got the nickname Óriáshernyó (=giant caterpillar).
The first trams were put in service on 1 July. However, they had so many problems that they had to be taken out of service for repairs, repeatedly. There were corroded old catenary-holding poles falling over under the weight of new, thicker catenary, doors not working properly due to faulty software and tolerances, air conditioners with a concept ignoring the limited amount of electricity a DC system can give... This of course grew into a big pre-local-elections political scandal, ultimately 'solved' by the major firing the traffic company head... But by now, the teething problems seem to have been sorted out, the giant caterpillars are back in regular service, with no big problem for weeks.
Finally, the tourist department speaking. If you are a tram fan and want to visit Budapest, I recommend a ride on these lines (also see present tram lines' map):
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Occasional Train Blogging: Trams | 90 comments (90 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Occasional Train Blogging: Trams | 90 comments (90 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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