Mr Train played a part somewhere along the line (is that another pun?) But the Oystermouth & Mumbles railway is where public 'rail' service began for farepaying passengers. Horse-drawn, of course.
@@millomweb Mr Train's original trams used L shaped rail, which stuck up above ground level, which was not liked by cyclists , horses or walkers - or cars when they came along.
Toby's original line was the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway and Toby himself was an LNER J70, formerly GER C53. Henrietta was a W&U carriage, one of which was the coach wrecked in a field in The Titfield Thunderbolt.
Here's another difference- here in Toronto, we have streetcars (trams) that stop on request, otherwise they do not stop. Ottawa has a new light rail line and it makes all stops whether or not someone requests it. It runs entirely in its own ROW unlike Toronto where they run with other traffic. There is a new LR line under construction along Eglinton avenue and it will make all stops and does not mix with road traffic.
Tram in old German means (a wooden) beam in English. Way is today used in English, but old German also had it. The meaning of the word way remained unchanged in present in English. Trams were usually long beams of wood with uniform shape from one end to another (circular, square, etc.). Other languages like Slovak or Czech took the old german word tram into their vocabulary, where it is still used today (in german they use the term Balken insted). So tramway literally means a way made out of beams. Which later became rails made out of steel. See that image at 1:01 for reference. Some say that the tram was not the "rail", but the sleeper. I doubt that, since the earliest tramways (again 1:01) did not need that many sleepers and trams, especially a century ago, did not have sleepers, rather thin metal rods connecting the rails every couple of meters, just to keep the gauge. Early electric trams were small, light and slow (25 km/h max). A tramway started out not as the vehicle, it was the "beam road". Later the word tramway was used to call the vehicle itself and the "road" became the track. Back to present day. In Central Europe we have Tramways, High speed tramways, light rail and (heavy or big) rail. High speed tramway is a regular tramway that operates on tracks that are on the level of light rail = they are used exclusively by trams and usually have a proper "railway" signalling system, so the drivers are sure that the track in front of them is free of other trams (at least up to the next signal) if the light is green. reference to the word Tram: www.woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/tram
Yeah, literally "Tram" is the Germanic word for what "Rail" is in Latin languages, whilst similarly "Way" is the Germanic word for "Road" in Latin languages. This basically means that: Tramway Tramroad Railway Railroad ...All literally used to mean exactly the same thing.
@@RCassinello I was in Germany several times in the 1970s and the term strassenbahn was in use for trams. I have been to Germany several times in the last few years and strassenbahn seems to have fallen out of fashion and the term tram is now used.
I was looking for the German word "strassenbahn" for in the USA we took the word "Strass" translated into English is "Street" and the German word "Bahn" to the English word "Car" to come with the name "Streetcar". "Streetcar has been used on this side of the Atlantic since 1836 for what people in Britain call a "Tram".
I wonder if that word "Balken" has any relation to the word "Balkan" (meaning the geographical region in southeastern Europe) from the Turkish language (meaning a wooded, mountainous area)
I was brought up in Melbourne, Australia, which has long been one of the world's great tram cities. Trams never went out of fashion there and the network has continued to expand in recent decades.
I live in Toronto, Canada and we still have what we call streetcars. The system has expanded somewhat over the last 25 years but not by much and there is endless talk of expansion in the future but I probably won't live to see it.
In Calgary the C-Train is known as a Light Rail System even though the downtown portion runs through a street (7th) like a tram even though the rest of the system outside of the downtown is separated with a combination of controlled crossings and grade separations. In Edmonton, their system is also referred to as a Light Rail System even though it's almost a metro with it running as a full underground subway in the downtown portions of the system and a combination of controlled crossings and grade separations outside downtown and no tram-like portions.
In New Orleans, Louisiana U.S.A. the natives had "Streetcars". They could identify "foreigners" as soon as they used the term "Trolleys". They also used the term "Neutral Ground" (Sounds like a war zone) as opposed to "Median". They still operate 1920's vintage cars built by J.G.Brill and Perley-Thomas. They added roller bearings to the original trucks (Bogies if you will)..
Here in Finland they're constructing a new line that in English is called a light rail but in Finnish a fast tramway. The latter is probably more accurate, as it will run along the streets and the rolling stock looks extremely similar to the existing trams.
5:05 I've also associated "tram(way)" with urban transport for all of my life. Even if not a native speaker of English or living in an English speaking country, since after all, the Spanish term "Tranvía" is essentially the same word, kind of a direct port.
That's kind of true.😁 When "light railway" is used to describe a Colonel Stephens-type affair (something like the East Kent) it sounds fine but, when applied to a modern, state-of-the-art system, it starts to sound like "management-speak". Another one like that is "rapid transit system". Funny thing is though, I think "Docklands Light Railway" sounds just about right for what it is.😁
Still it doesn't eliminate the real difference between them two. It is more clearly seen in American style terms of "streetcar" instead of "tram", underlining the fact that tram is in-street feature, with lower average speed and "stops at every corner" - and the "light rail" which is express service, mostly over former heavy railways.
This segment reminds me of when Dr. Neil Degrasse-Tyson told the story of the photon that checked into a hotel and was asked if it had any luggage, to which the photon replied 'No, I'm travelling light!'
Here in Sydney Australia we have what's called the 'Light Rail', however it runs on both segregated lines and the road at times, so I guess technically its a tram? We did use to have bonafide trams but they were taken away years ago, only for some of their rails to be returned when the Light Rail was built
Denver has a light rail system that runs on the streets downtown and on segregated rails out to the suburbs. The street part uses a different type of train, but it looks more like a train than a team.
I was going to go "Aha, then under that definition, the train that ran through Weymouth is a tram!" But apparently it was. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weymouth_Harbour_Tramway
In America (which is explicitly not what this video is about), I’ve seen the term “light rail” to refer to what is usually called a “tram” in Europe. For example, the Baltimore, Seattle, and San José light rail systems all have dedicated sections where they have their own separated right of way, and then they have other sections where they either run in or at least cross roads.
Blackpool of course still has a tram network; and are still running the vintage stock at Weekends and Bank Holidays. Absolutely fantastic to travel on; compared to their boring modern-day replacements.
I nearly got hit by one of those when I went there. Then nearly hit by a horse pulling a carriage while getting out the tram's way. And, later, by a police car driving on the goddamn beach, which I'd decided to walk along to avoid the traffic that had nearly hit me earlier.
The DART in Dublin is light rail but shares a line with mainline heavy rail, so there's another messy definition or semi exception for you. Geoff & Vikki used the DART in All the Stations Ireland.
I'm sitting here wearing a Sound Transit shirt. My wonderful wife works in the safety department of Sound Transit which is charged with developing and operating light rail in Seattle Washington USA. It's wonderful to watch your videos and revel in the history of city based railway. The tube is where it all began whether underground or overground. We all share a link with our great great grandfather. I (mis)spent a great deal of my youth bumming a lift on the tube. I was supposed to be going to college in Southend via Benfleet station but I got on the London side and then got off at Barking and hopped the Tube into London where I would spend the day cruising all over the network. I loved experiencing how far the tube went. I'd just take my lunch and spend the day sightseeing. It was a long time ago and now my wife is part of light rail here. It's a funny old world. Keep up the good work Jago, your almost at 100k subscribers. Your a real youtuber now!
SOUTH SHIELDS, MARSDEN & WHITBURN COLLIERY RAILWAY says hello and how about me for earliest LR and freight carrying too? First passenger service in 1888 which was a few years after the freight started rolling. Formed under a wayleave as a mineral line, then by Act of Parliament and then subject to the Light Railways Act. A mixed bag as we say. And not to mention it was the first nationalised passenger carrying railway before the formation of British Rail.
A few points to muse: •Weymouth Quay Tramway = Heavy Rail • I always thought the Alton & Basingstoke Light Railway was the first ‘proper’ light railway to be opened under the Light Railways Act 1896 - I’m probably wrong. •Thomas the Tank Engine was reprimanded by the Old Bill for not having his wheels covered or having a cow catcher. Naughty boy.
The first light railway opened under the 1896 Act was the Rother Valley Railway (1900), part of the (pre-existing) Kent & East Sussex Railway. (Not to be confused with the current Rother Valley Railway (1991), a heritage line). The Alton & Basingstoke opened in 1904.
David Frankal has done lots. The funniest is where he refers to one he made four years earlier, when he took the first tram on the Manchester Airport extension, and you click through, and there are he and his mate in their school uniforms before their voices broke. Oh, and a gold star to his father, who must have driven them to the airport at about 5:30 in the morning.
A very good summary. However I think the Swansea & Mumbles line has a good claim to be the very first light railway, though because of its unusual character and unique history it doesn't fit neatly into categories. Perhaps it would merit a video of its own, a bit like the one you did on the Dublin & Kingstown Railway?
That's mainly because spin doctors told politicians that "Light Rail" sounds more exciting than "Tram" to voters. There is no true light rail n Melbourne because every single route also includes a fair bit of running on streets, so no matter what the publicists say, they are all trams.
Yeah, they are all trams in Melbourne...don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! I love the trams in Melbourne but live in Sydney with the boring, slow and very precious light rail.
Regarding light rail and trams in the UK making a comeback, I wonder why a modern trolleybus system hasn't been reintroduced somewhere? They are very popular abroad and as they don't need rails must be alot cheaper to install.
The're cheaper, but not that cheaper. The problem with trolleybus is that it is in many ways worse of both worlds, sharing a lot of problems with both diesel busses and trams. And with advent of battery busses with quick-charging overhead stations, the investment is not worth the (partial) upgrade, unless we are talking about developing existing network. As much as I love troleybusses, I doubt we'll be seing any new networks in the future.
@@librarian16 Years ago there were extensive trolleybus networks in many UK towns and cities, many of the systems at that time replacing exhisting tram networks. Now it seems the reverse is true in cities abroad with trams replacing trolleybuses. I can just about remember riding the trolleybuses in London as a small child shortly before the system closed. I used to regularly get the 630 with my mum from West Croydon to Earlsfield and back to visit an aunt.
@@librarian16 depends on the country. I like trolleybuses, and with the current move to electrification, I think they deserve a better chance than what they get over battery buses. The main problems with battery buses are the autonomy and the weight, both can be increased with trolley wires. With a smaller) battery, you can still de-wire portions of a line where needed for aesthetic reasons, but they don't need to recharge at every terminus, as is the case with many current battery bus systems. Of course, if capacity is great enough for trams, you should build a tram line, but not all lines will carry enough passenger loads to justify that.
Tbh the way I see it, the DLR is much more of a metro than a light rail. For me a light rail is basically a high capacity tramway with majority separation from roads, with a tramway being a system that is majority street running, and by street running I specifically mean, running in a lane that cars could use not just crossing the road frequently and running in the median of a road. (Although I would count running in the median as street running if the tram stops required the passengers to get off onto the road instead of a platform)
So many systems make the line blurry. Tyne & Wear is considered a metro but the capacity is similar to that of the DLR. BART in San Francisco was originally thought of as a commuter network but now it’s more of a heavy rail metro. Meanwhile Crossrail acts more like a metro than the metropolitan line.
@@cargy930 A good few years indeed- passenger services ended in 1925 and goods in 1951. A few reminders are left, like the vestigial viaduct here in Midford - it appears, along with the still intact S&D viaduct (now part of a cycleway), in the opening scenes of the Titfield Thunderbolt.
In Kassel, Germany we have an interesting mix of what you'd call tram and light rail. In the city, the trains use the same tracks as our usual trams but they change at the (former) main station onto the regular rail network and are a bit like regional trains with way more stops outside the city, so they are called RegioTram.
That sounds somewhat similar to the light rail network in Denver, Colorado. They run on the street in the inner city and segregated from the roads in the suburbs.
@@ominous6845 Not just a very long tram. Tram-train vehicles must comply with rail standards. They usually can run also on 15kV 16,7 Hz (in Germany), not just on 600 V DC like trams. They must comply with other norms of the "big rail" like stiffness of the body (400kN) as well norms regarding their pantographs, wheel profile according to UIC-ORE, etc. A very long tram, which does not operate on any parts of rails where it would share the track with "big rail", is just a fast tram. Not a tram-train. It does not have to comply with "big rail" norms.
I lived in Wantage for many years and even worked just over the road from the Wantage Tramway terminus building (or maybe it was a depot - I'm not sure) on Mill Street, but I think this is the first time I've seen photos of the locomotives and carriages.
Nice installment, Sir. Then there's the San Diego Trolley, which calls itself a trolley and is also referred to as light rail. It operates on city streets so its also a tram. Guess that makes it a Light Trolley Tram (which is a regular Trolley Tram but with half the calories).
Interestingly, the early DLR P86 class light rail units had to sold when they could not be used on the tunnel to Bank. So they were sold to Essen in Germany where they now run as street trams. I may be wrong, but I seem to vaguely recall in the early days the DLR thought it might also run the P86 units along roads in places, though that was not to be. The definition of light rail and street trams seems to blur in many places anyway. Many lines have a mix of both features.
The Liverpool Overhead's death sentence derived from the decision to make it out of cast iron rather than masonry. They probably had to do this because in reality it was on stilts over existing stuff. In the end it just crumbled away.
@@alexhando8541 The Overhead was a double decked railway for most of its length. Freight trains under. The sulphur from the steam train's exhaust did not help, neither did neglect during WW2.
Lightrail here (NL) are trains (sprinter type) which could theoretically if we want to run on a tram or subway line... all 3 of them use the same standard rail here but regular trains are to long and heavy while the light-rail isn't, construction is also "subway-esk" with the locomotive as a second (and forelast) unit in the train and end-to-end open walkability; more standing spaces and less seating, no toilets (though after much complaints some were outfitted with small restrooms lateron) , these sprinters also can go at max 160kmph and are able to run on the less strong powerlines of trams and metros directly without adaptation; the regular trains cannot
@@chriswalford4161 Seend Station in Wiltshire should have been called "Seend, base camp". To get to the village passengers were confronted with a mile long 1in 8 climb..
Tram and Light Rail are one in the same, with "tram" both functioning as a general term, as well as a specific form of light rail, because of course, with English speakers, we've just gotta over-complicate all things communication! haha. Here in the US, what most in Europe would call a tram, we call a streetcar nowadays. Effectively only a short line in the center of a high-density urban core of a large city, and typically running in a loop, rather than point to point, which actually makes it what light rail was originally made to function as, later making it to function also as a compliment to bus services. Now light rail in the US is dominantly a hijacking of what light rail is supposed to be, and corrupting it into some botched form of Commuter rail and short-distance ICE rail, and it's #1 reason for being pushed to be implemented and made is for gentrification purposes only in order to secure lots of big kickback paychecks from big name developers and businesses that lobby for it. And they're biggest ploy to garner public support to fund it (besides the classical lie of "to improve and expand transit to the greater community for you) is to advertise it as the best form of transit to implement, while always promising inter-modal "TOD" (Transit Oriented Developments) with "guaranteed" low & affordable income subsidized units being the majority of units in each multi-use building they build". All is of course, as usual, a complete lie. These TODs are all exclusively high-end, hipster, rich bastard hoods that gentrify the hell out of the surrounding area, forcing most people to have to move away due to no longer being able to afford to live in the area because of it. And of course, insert all the cliche, overpriced boutique restaurants, cafes, coffee shops and gift shops built into their bases, alongside salons, spas and massage parlors. Totally subsidized, totally made for people to be able to find it affordable. TOTALLY. Oh yeah, and, each of them have entire blocks dedicated to 3-5 story parking lots, too, because you know, inter-modality and the light rail it is "built for" being so great and definitely not to further promote the use of personal vehicles. lol. It's such a freaking joke. And where is that supposed inter-modality? That Transit part of TOD? Non-existent, obviously. At this point, nobody should be the least bit surprised by it either. Orenco (Orenco Station specifically) is a hood (TOD) developed under this exact guise, and ended up EXACTLY as I explained it just now. Yet people from across the country and even internationally attempt to claim it's somehow a quality and great example of why TOD & Light Rail is so great. It only proves they have no clue what the hell they're talking about. TriMet (the transit agency behind it all) has literally a single bus line there alongside the MAX line (LRT). That's it. And the bus line? It's one of their least touched lines, and for damn good reason - the route makes little to no sense, and goes to/through hardly any hoods that actually have ridership and lower income households within them. It's ridiculous. And on top of it, it hardly runs at all. I think once an hour at peak, and again, they're is almost never anyone using it at any point in the route for good reason. And it's obvious in the end when you look at Europe versus the US that the history behind Light Rail (LRT) is massively different in a plethora of ways. And hell, somehow we ended up referring to Gondolas as "Aerial Trams" nowadays too haha. No idea when where or why culturally the US began to refer to them and market them as such.
So here in Seattle, the term “light rail” literally means “rail with a light car”. The trains here are huge & heavy, and they rely on this weight to maintain traction with the rail. Light rail on the other hand maintains traction with powerful electric motors with extremely high torque. This allows light rail to accelerate & decelerate much more smoothly, but decreases its top speed. Most importantly however is that it allows the cars to be light, in the same weight class as a bus. This allows light rail to go up hills, but it also allows light rail to be at street level and at speed safely. Trains at street level in the Western US can only go a couple of miles per hour, basically walking speed, because otherwise there is a very serious risk of a very serious collision. Seattle’s underground light rail network originally had buses running on the same lines as the light rail, a practice which only ended in early 2020 (the system having been built ten years earlier). Lighter rail also needs less strong bedding to keep the rails aligned, so spongy but easy to work with materials like freshly poured concrete can be used (concrete sleepers for heavy rail have to be pre-seasoned and use a very high grit mix to improve their strength against load. Wood sleepers are cheaper, easier to season, and easier to transport which is still why they are the global standard). This makes construction of new Light Rail lines extremely rapid, about the same speed as constructing roads.
I agree with the lighter rolling stock, but Dallas has a light rail network that uses heavier rails than some freight roads (136lb, IIRC). I think light rail is the new term for interurban (at least in the States).
Similarly to the London trams, the West Midlands Metro also avoids streets for the most part. The majority of the route is along a former railway, and it only runs along actual roads for the short distance from Priestfield to Wolverhampton. It also now takes to the streets in Birmingham City Centre, but only along pedestrianised streets, except for the odd delivery driver who uses them.
We have a Tram-Train in Sheffield (at least I think we do , last time I heard it was stuck on the back of a lorry at some traffic lights because the lorry couldn't negotiate a corner). Apparently it's a tram that can run on tram and main line tracks. Thankfully nobody came up with the idea of using Pacers for this function, which were basically a Leyland bus on train wheels. The gentleman you mentioned by the name of "Train" didn't escape my notice either.
Interestingly the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (a co-operation between Leeds, Wakefield, Kirklees, Calderdale and Bradford local authorities) has just published a masterplan for an extensive rapid transit network across West Yorkshire which will incorporate and co-ordinate buses, trains, trams and so called light rail links across the county, and one thing they appear keen on is the use of Tram Trains.
@@kevinh96 A coordinated timetable - Hope that works out. A good few years ago Leeds was considering a Metro system and at the same time a group was lobbying for the re-introduction of trolley buses instead.
@@kevinh96 I am a little cautious about the idea of "Tram-Trains". They seem to be presented as a "jack of all trades" solution, a universal vehicle that can run on the street, new light rail track and old heavy rail lines. But you can end up with a vehicle that fills all of these roles but doesn't do any of them very well. Long distance passengers are faced with slower, smaller vehicles that stop too frequently whereas the old heavy rail trains were faster and could carry more people, even if they were a little less frequent. Meanwhile in the urban core you have huge LRV style vehicles squeezing round tight corners and potentially quite narrow streets, often at speeds not more than brisk jog. Certainly the idea has its uses, but they are not the best of all worlds.
Brussels has the pre-metro which is basically a tram that runs separate from the road and can be upgraded quickly to a full metro if the demand is there. Which I guess is a light rail although technically a tram. As for the Liverpool Overhead I'd say it was more Diesel Punk than Steam Punk.
Technically you didn't need an Act of Parliament for a railway, however, if you need to compulsorily purchase property, divert the King/Queen's highway or cross roads on the level, you needed an Act of Parliament. In addition, in the early days of railways, there were no Companies Acts and therefore, an Act of Parliament was needed to setup the company. The extension of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway to Dalkey was built without an Act of Parliament (this was in the era when Britain and Ireland were united).
@@highpath4776 The company took a lease of land from the Board of Works. The route was not great and contains many sharp curves, which bedevil the line to this day (if they had gone for an Act of Parliament, they could have altered the route). In addition, as they could not cross public roads on the level, the company had to gouge a mile long cutting along the route to carry the line under said roads. The line being of sharp curvature and in a cutting has caused problems to this day - the line remaining in use as part of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART).
I was waiting for you to mention the Brill Tramway, later called the Metropolitan Railway Brill Branch. This, for a short time was part of the LTPB, and indirectly part of the Underground.
What about Glasgow?. Glasgow had a huge tram system until the City Fathers (Cooncil) deliberately ran it into the ground in the 1950's. They did more damage than Dr. Beeching did to the railways in the 60's.
I remember the Glasgow trams in the early 1960s. Locals called them tramcars, or more often just cors. They were painted orange and green to keep both Protestants and Catholics happy! (The same livery was applied to the trolleybuses and motor buses that replaced them.)
There's also the Sheffield Supertram which scores the hattrick of running on the roads through Sheffield, segregated tracks near Sheffield, and on Network Rail's "heavy rail" tracks through Rotherham.
@@johnburns4017 Yeah it's a stupid name, I wish we could change it. Thankfully I now live in Europe so I can unironically refer to the "Toronto tram system".
One observation that seems to differentiate trams from light railways is that trams seem to exclusively pick up their power from an overhead cable whilst railways (light or otherwise) can pick up their power either from a conductor rail or an overhead cable. Why the difference? Well if trams share their space with the roads, then you don't want people being able to touch the live conductor - which if it's high overhead should be difficult.
The old London tram systems used both overhead and centre rail subsurface pickup - sometimes interchangeably on the same route, eg on the lines from Victoria (78) and Embankment (33) to West Norwood. The centre rail collection system doesn't seem to have electrocuted anyone, bot cyclists needed to be careful not to get their front wheel embedded in it.
An amusing (to me at least) recollection of the tram system in Rome. A cyclist, on getting the bicycle wheels stuck in the tram rail, spied a tram coming. Unable to free the wheels, the cyclist signalled the tram to go round... Difficult!
As a person currently living in Rome, I think it represents well the mentality of the people here, and also how neglected the small tram network has been for decades now. At least the construction of some new lines has been recently funded, as well as the purchase of newer veichles. The urban rail network here is in general quite chaotic and inefficient (3 underground lines that have little in common with each other, some urban rail lines that look like the underground ones but legally are not, proper trams, a tram that is legally a light railway...) but it's fascinating nonetheless.
Yes. I recall two tram systems. The one run by the City transit authority with green trams and the elderly blue and white system that headed out to Cinecittà from Termini. In the years between living there and returning as a visitor many of the lines seem to have disappeared.
@@michaelwilson6584 The blue and white system has been closed since the opening of the A underground line in 1980, however there is a meter-gauge light rail line that follows the Casilina road from Termini station to the Centocelle neighbourhood, which is what's left of a long line to the town of Frosinone, gradually closed during the Eighties. Nowdays it's a quite neglected line with old and poorly kept high-floor rolling stock, but a few months ago plans have been finally approved to turn it into a standard gauge line integrated with the existing tram network, and to extend it to Tor Vergata University and Anagnina underground station. Rome is very far from having the public transport infrastructures it would need, due in part to its history (if you dig a hole in a random place you have great chances of finding some kind of ancient object or building), in part to the inefficiency of mayors and public offices, and in part also to the mentality of its citizens
@@michaelwilson6584 Yes! I used to see it every day, and I still live relatively close to it (I've only been living in Rome for a couple of years now, I'm from a totally different part of Italy). More historic cars are on display at the Rome Transport Museum next to the Piramide/Ostiense/Porta San Paolo station complex.
Well as a german, I never heard of the "lower german origins" of the word Tram as its mentioned here. In the 16-17-18-19th century underground mines, these wagons on wooden rails where called "Hunt", the old german word for "Hund"=dog. I thought the word "Hunt" came from the pulling like a Hund= dog of these waggons by the miners... I think Tram has its french origines somehow...
Light rail here in the US is basically a tram/streetcar that has a dedicated right of way, where streetcars/trolleys are just small rail vehicles that run on the street.
@@MihkelKiil it does have a separate ROW, which a streetcar doesn’t. Look at Portland, OR. It has a streetcar system that only operates on city streets, and a light rail system that runs on regular tracks, but also on the street.
This is interesting because just because they run on the street, they don't need to be that small. A good number of cities in Central Europe use rather large rolling stock along normal street lanes. To me, at least, a tram uses normal street lights (with possible additional signals) whereas light rail uses railway-like signaling.
@@2712animefreak as far as I know, the only 5 segment LRVs or streetcars (the ones commonly found in abroad) here in the US is NJ Transit’s Kinki Sharyo extended LRVs.
@@LesD9 I had a feeling in the late 70 early 80s that the BBC WORLD service wasn't available in England. May be it would have been had dad put up that areial wire from the house to the tree.
Thank you Mr Hazzard. I'm in Australia, I wasn't particularly interested in trains, or London , but I find your explanations and humour very relaxing and your delivery and voice are likewise easy on the ear. Well done sir, I have even leaned things, turns out, London trains are quite a fascinating saga ,who knew?!..well, apart from you obviously. Carry on .
Theres a new line currently being built in Switzerland. while the locals call it a tram, its officially called the Limmattal railway. 8 miles long, shes segregated from traffic through use of grass like in Prague. so question now is, is it a Tram or Light Rail?
We used to have a monorail in Sydney but they demolished it some years ago. When they planned it about they forgot to plan a route that actually served much purpose!
There are a few very precise cases where a monorail is the best mode for transit, but in almost all other cases, more conventional modes like trams, trains or metro are not only cheaper, but better. Monorail is better when space is tight, and steap slopes have to be dealt with. Or when you want to build a tourist attraction, rather than a transportation mode (hence why they are so popular with theme parks around the world). For about every other case, just go for something else.
@@barvdw Which is why I find this interesting...... rail.bombardier.com/en/solutions-and-technologies/worldwide-projects.html/bombardier/projects/middle-east-africa/egypt/innovia-monorail-300---cityflo-650---cairo--egypt/en especially the length of the two lines, speed of travel and power supply.
Hi I always enjoy your video I think you missed one of the different between standard rail and light rail and that is the track itself as light rail is lighter than standard rail. Keep up the good work
Historically rail 'strength' is defined in lbs (pounds), or actually lbs per foot, i.e. weight of the rails. At points and crossings the weight of the rails are increased compared with that in other areas to allow for the additional wear encountered. My son knows all about this as he is an apprentice CNC machinist at a factory that makes points and crossings for Network Rail, London Underground and DLR, amongst others - he started his interest as a youngster by building a 1:19 scale (16mm to the foot) narrow gauge railway in our garden.
I'm intrigued by the partly obscured warehouse sign in the picture of the Liverpool Elevated Railway. Yorkshire Kipper Works? Yorkshire Ripper Works! Or perhaps the too far ahead of its time Yorkshire Zipper Works
The Edinburgh Trams only run on the road for about 20% of the route. And then most of that 20% isn't even road open to normal public traffic. Not that 8.7 miles is even a long route in the first place though.
In North America, there was an early 20th century transportation system referred to as the "interurban" railway. It would be interesting to know which of these classifications mentioned it would fit into.
Sometimes Light Rail takes over from the main railway. The Manchester Metrolink covers the former LYR line from Manchester Victoria to Bury Interchange as well as the southern part of the former MSJ&R.
Great video ! Couple of points; The Mumbles "Tramway /Railway" ? And was the Surrey Iron Railway technically a "Tramway"? {Ref. Tramway Path by Mitcham Station } Food for thought !
'Light Rail' my A$$...ever TRY picking one up?! At 4:43 the 'Fifth Street & University Heights' Tram is from New York..specifically the Bronx section of the City. One of these Horse drawn Carriages still exists in a private collection.
Now, if someone could convince TfL to extend either the DLR or Tramlink so they have a direct interchange... that’d be the best commute ever. Fun and informative as always!
hmm the tram line actually crosses over the commuter rail line between Beckenham Road and Beckenham Junction so it doesn't seem impossible to at least run trams into Lewisham commuter rail station for an easy transfer. The land near where the lines cross appears to be mostly allotments too which are probably easier to build a junction over than people's houses. Intriguing idea but you know it's illegal to link 2 different parts of South London without forcing people to buy a Zone 1 ticket and change at London Bridge, right?
Don't know if this is still the case , but back in the 80's another requirement to be defined as a "Light Railway" was that the driver (if there is one) mustn't be in a separate cab. Which is presumably why we have "Operators" sitting in with the passengers on the DLR.
I shall have to go on the new tram network. It wasn't there when I used to work in Croydon. The rule only applied to Light Railways, ie segregated train lines. They were also not allowed to carry goods as Jago said. I had a friend who worked in BR and he was most peeved at the consessions that a "Light Railway" got as opposed to main line trains.
@@victoredwards247 A Light Railway is different from Light Rail as the Light Railway Act of 1897 is still in force to this very day, sorry if I'm being a pedant
Tramlink is considered a Tram-train (also according to Wikipedia). A tram, that is, that uses (ordinary) train tracks too. And its vehicles are - to what I know - referred to as Light-rail vehicles, LRV's. So it is, too, a form of Light-rail if you will. And it is a form of Tram, too. I like referring to it as "Modern Trams" - probably I'm not the only one there, and I take my stance from others. For a more detailed go on this, please refer to my comment on Jago's video about the proposed "Docklands Light Tramway".
Writing from New York, a fair distinction might be...: * TRAM or trolley or trolley-car or street_car: Runs mostly on or parallel to a road, which is often a _shared_ right - of - way; power is from an _overhead_ catenary & captured via a pantograph; car doors are minimally above _ground_ level// _-&-_ * LIGHT_RAIL: Runs on a _dedicated_ right - of - way, where there _never_ are pedestrians; power is from a shoe on the car's under-carriage and it over-runs the _third_rail_ ( FAR too lethal to be exposed on a road), which is offset to the side of the railbed; car doors are high above the roadbed, since _all_ stops are _always_ at raised platforms.// =-= As an aside: The track gauge _can_ be the same for light_rail and
street_cars. A good example is Philadelphia, where street_car lines come into the center of the city and share tracks with light_rail. The street_cars stop beyond the raised platforms, so changing modes means 3 or 4 steps. This is a very old system and works quite well, with each mode concentrated where it fits better. /Mike_R
The metro logo at 7:21 looks similar to the Metro logo of the Washington DC metro with the exception of the serifs. I guess there are only so many ways to display the letter “M.”
This Stevens needs a video of his own. ( I once knew a couple of Trains, father and son, both transport nuts, the former latterly to be found frequenting a certain paddle steamer until he passed on ). Tram rails and wheels are designed to behave differently on corners than those of trains because tram routes can have much tighter radii. In fact I stumbled across a document specifying this, which cryptically and somewhat bizarrely said trams ride on their flanges, but I haven't been able to find it again since to clarify exactly how this worked. Manchester trams are a hybrid system. mixing rail and street specification. The rails and wheels are to railway specifications. They use old railway lines but with new track, yet still use many of the original stations and the original platforms. When on the roads in the city, it does look a bit surreal in the city centre with chest high platforms surrounded by people.
The Manchester trams have an irritating habit of screeching around corners. They also look out of place. Those high street platforms look awful and are irritating to use. Low platform trams are a dream to use. walk straight on from the pavement then a nice flat floor in the tram. Real hop on and off. Manchester should have taken away the platforms on the old stations or filled in between.
@@johnburns4017 The platforms are odd indeed because lots of places combine road working with old rail routes and have normal low platforms for trams. Maybe it's because in Manchester they used the actual same stations and just put trams into them instead. But what would it have taken to lower the platforms at the old stations? No train uses the same platforms or rails as trams on the old rail routes. Where they run side by side, trams and trains are kept absolutely separate, each on their own track to the same stations with the tram using one of the redundant train platforms.
@@neilbain8736 Trams have to be segregated as they cannot run on the same track, due to crash protection, line of sight driving, and various other reasons. They are literally electric buses on rails.
The DLR is actually not a light rail but rather a full metro and the Tyne and Wear metro, midland metro and Manchester metrolink are actually all light rail networks. Light rail may include metro elements, usually in city centres such as subway tunnels to get an otherwise street level tramway under a pedestrianised city centre, often with stops under the main train station, the shopping centre, the University, the cathedral and the town hall but the difference is that metro networks, also known as rapid transit don't have level crossings with anything, be it traffic lanes, cycle lanes, footpaths or anything else and they don't share lanes with them either. They decided to call the DLR light rail to distinguish it better from the London underground and because their vehicles were modelled on duewags articulated b wagen and are essentially high floor trams apart from the 3rd rail shoe instead of a pantograph and the lack of a drivers cab. I love the cyberpunk/steampunk comparison between the LOR and DLR!
The tram company which used to be around Colwyn Bay, and Llandudno, was called "The Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Electric Light Railway." this stopped operating in the 1950's, but there are a number of the components still in use.
Sydney just got a light trail extension - although most of it runs down existing streets. And being Sydney, the cars are incompatible with the existing light rail route. You can still see a lot of the remnants of the extensive original tram network they ripped out. Melbourne was sensible and kept their trams.
If only Dunedin had had the money and foresight to maintain the High Street cable car- == to the San Francisco ones....and the event more interesting and vertiginous Rattray St to Kaikorai Valley line......they'd be great tourist attractions as well as local user friendly like the one in Wellington
![เปิดบ้าน พี่ตูน Bodyslam หลังใหม่คนแรก ที่ภูเก็ต l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/flFwcmyDQSk/mqdefault.jpg)
Light Rail, fighter of the Dark Rail.
"These are not the Light Rail cars you are looking for"
We don't talk about London's Dark Rail network. Some things are better left forgotten.
Aaaaaah aaaaaaaaaaaaah!
CHAMPION OF THE... SUNNN
You’re a Master of Karate...
Light rail now with 56% less saturated fats
What about trams-fats?
With fibre we’ll be able to reduce exposure to trams-fats
Yes, but look at the sugar content!!
Hilarious! It's great hearing someone with a sense of humor! Also is it saturated or unsaturated fats!?
I think it's saturated if the passengers are overweight and if they are polytechnic students then poly unsaturated.
So modern trams were introduced to the UK by an American named Mr. Train. Nominative determinism got so close and yet so far away on that one.
Mr Train played a part somewhere along the line (is that another pun?)
But the Oystermouth & Mumbles railway is where public 'rail' service began for farepaying passengers. Horse-drawn, of course.
@@millomweb Mr Train's original trams used L shaped rail, which stuck up above ground level, which was not liked by cyclists , horses or walkers - or cars when they came along.
@@highpath4776 You mean his trams were L shaped !
I know what I want and I want it now.
I want trams, 'cause I'm Mr. Train.
@@millomweb No , the rails were. (the wheels were flangeless I think).
4:51 "George Francis Train"
"Hah! Really?!" - Jay Foreman
This is when I knew I was among People of Culture
I see you are a man of culture
I knew someone was going to make that reference here.
So Civilised
+
Now I understand why Toby the Tram Engine looks like he does - every day is a school day!
Great stuff!
Toby's original line was the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway and Toby himself was an LNER J70, formerly GER C53. Henrietta was a W&U carriage, one of which was the coach wrecked in a field in The Titfield Thunderbolt.
Here's another difference- here in Toronto, we have streetcars (trams) that stop on request, otherwise they do not stop. Ottawa has a new light rail line and it makes all stops whether or not someone requests it. It runs entirely in its own ROW unlike Toronto where they run with other traffic. There is a new LR line under construction along Eglinton avenue and it will make all stops and does not mix with road traffic.
Tram in old German means (a wooden) beam in English. Way is today used in English, but old German also had it. The meaning of the word way remained unchanged in present in English. Trams were usually long beams of wood with uniform shape from one end to another (circular, square, etc.). Other languages like Slovak or Czech took the old german word tram into their vocabulary, where it is still used today (in german they use the term Balken insted). So tramway literally means a way made out of beams. Which later became rails made out of steel. See that image at 1:01 for reference. Some say that the tram was not the "rail", but the sleeper. I doubt that, since the earliest tramways (again 1:01) did not need that many sleepers and trams, especially a century ago, did not have sleepers, rather thin metal rods connecting the rails every couple of meters, just to keep the gauge. Early electric trams were small, light and slow (25 km/h max). A tramway started out not as the vehicle, it was the "beam road". Later the word tramway was used to call the vehicle itself and the "road" became the track. Back to present day. In Central Europe we have Tramways, High speed tramways, light rail and (heavy or big) rail. High speed tramway is a regular tramway that operates on tracks that are on the level of light rail = they are used exclusively by trams and usually have a proper "railway" signalling system, so the drivers are sure that the track in front of them is free of other trams (at least up to the next signal) if the light is green.
reference to the word Tram: www.woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/tram
Yeah, literally "Tram" is the Germanic word for what "Rail" is in Latin languages, whilst similarly "Way" is the Germanic word for "Road" in Latin languages. This basically means that:
Tramway
Tramroad
Railway
Railroad
...All literally used to mean exactly the same thing.
@@RCassinello I was in Germany several times in the 1970s and the term strassenbahn was in use for trams. I have been to Germany several times in the last few years and strassenbahn seems to have fallen out of fashion and the term tram is now used.
I was looking for the German word "strassenbahn" for in the USA we took the word "Strass" translated into English is "Street" and the German word "Bahn" to the English word "Car" to come with the name "Streetcar". "Streetcar has been used on this side of the Atlantic since 1836 for what people in Britain call a "Tram".
I wonder if that word "Balken" has any relation to the word "Balkan" (meaning the geographical region in southeastern Europe) from the Turkish language (meaning a wooded, mountainous area)
@@caramelldansen2204 I am no linguistic expert, but I do not expect a connection. It might be just a coincidence.
I was brought up in Melbourne, Australia, which has long been one of the world's great tram cities. Trams never went out of fashion there and the network has continued to expand in recent decades.
Including the conversion of the old Port Melbourne Line (Which was the first Railway in Australia) to a light Rail system in the late 1990s.
Melbourne’s tram system is the largest in the world.
I live in Toronto, Canada and we still have what we call streetcars. The system has expanded somewhat over the last 25 years but not by much and there is endless talk of expansion in the future but I probably won't live to see it.
Oops that’s what I meant. It’s a bit of a shame really that it’s not a train line anymore.
@@soulsphere9242 I was about to say that. I think it was 1987.
In Calgary the C-Train is known as a Light Rail System even though the downtown portion runs through a street (7th) like a tram even though the rest of the system outside of the downtown is separated with a combination of controlled crossings and grade separations. In Edmonton, their system is also referred to as a Light Rail System even though it's almost a metro with it running as a full underground subway in the downtown portions of the system and a combination of controlled crossings and grade separations outside downtown and no tram-like portions.
In New Orleans, Louisiana U.S.A. the natives had "Streetcars". They could identify "foreigners" as soon as they used the term "Trolleys". They also used the term "Neutral Ground" (Sounds like a war zone) as opposed to "Median". They still operate 1920's vintage cars built by J.G.Brill and Perley-Thomas. They added roller bearings to the original trucks (Bogies if you will)..
They also had a streetcar named Desire (Sorry, couldn't help myself).
Here in Finland they're constructing a new line that in English is called a light rail but in Finnish a fast tramway. The latter is probably more accurate, as it will run along the streets and the rolling stock looks extremely similar to the existing trams.
5:05 I've also associated "tram(way)" with urban transport for all of my life. Even if not a native speaker of English or living in an English speaking country, since after all, the Spanish term "Tranvía" is essentially the same word, kind of a direct port.
Tram sounds working class and light railway sounds like a posh way of not calling something a tram when it is.
That's kind of true.😁 When "light railway" is used to describe a Colonel Stephens-type affair (something like the East Kent) it sounds fine but, when applied to a modern, state-of-the-art system, it starts to sound like "management-speak". Another one like that is "rapid transit system".
Funny thing is though, I think "Docklands Light Railway" sounds just about right for what it is.😁
@@2H80vids even though it’s heavier than a lot of other metro networks! It only looks light by comparison to the LU 😄
Still it doesn't eliminate the real difference between them two. It is more clearly seen in American style terms of "streetcar" instead of "tram", underlining the fact that tram is in-street feature, with lower average speed and "stops at every corner" - and the "light rail" which is express service, mostly over former heavy railways.
6:43 Both descriptions are correct. 👍
This segment reminds me of when Dr. Neil Degrasse-Tyson told the story of the photon that checked into a hotel and was asked if it had any luggage, to which the photon replied 'No, I'm travelling light!'
Here in Sydney Australia we have what's called the 'Light Rail', however it runs on both segregated lines and the road at times, so I guess technically its a tram? We did use to have bonafide trams but they were taken away years ago, only for some of their rails to be returned when the Light Rail was built
Missed opportunity for a closing pun to the effect of "I hope you enjoyed this enlightening video on..."
Denver has a light rail system that runs on the streets downtown and on segregated rails out to the suburbs. The street part uses a different type of train, but it looks more like a train than a team.
I was going to go "Aha, then under that definition, the train that ran through Weymouth is a tram!" But apparently it was.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weymouth_Harbour_Tramway
Good point. A "tramway" that took full length main line passenger express trains! (though not at all express on the town section)
In America (which is explicitly not what this video is about), I’ve seen the term “light rail” to refer to what is usually called a “tram” in Europe. For example, the Baltimore, Seattle, and San José light rail systems all have dedicated sections where they have their own separated right of way, and then they have other sections where they either run in or at least cross roads.
Blackpool of course still has a tram network; and are still running the vintage stock at Weekends and Bank Holidays. Absolutely fantastic to travel on; compared to their boring modern-day replacements.
Growing up there i used it to go from Talbot square to my aunts tabacconists in whitegate drive..happy days
I nearly got hit by one of those when I went there. Then nearly hit by a horse pulling a carriage while getting out the tram's way.
And, later, by a police car driving on the goddamn beach, which I'd decided to walk along to avoid the traffic that had nearly hit me earlier.
The DART in Dublin is light rail but shares a line with mainline heavy rail, so there's another messy definition or semi exception for you.
Geoff & Vikki used the DART in All the Stations Ireland.
I'm sitting here wearing a Sound Transit shirt. My wonderful wife works in the safety department of Sound Transit which is charged with developing and operating light rail in Seattle Washington USA. It's wonderful to watch your videos and revel in the history of city based railway. The tube is where it all began whether underground or overground. We all share a link with our great great grandfather. I (mis)spent a great deal of my youth bumming a lift on the tube. I was supposed to be going to college in Southend via Benfleet station but I got on the London side and then got off at Barking and hopped the Tube into London where I would spend the day cruising all over the network. I loved experiencing how far the tube went. I'd just take my lunch and spend the day sightseeing. It was a long time ago and now my wife is part of light rail here. It's a funny old world. Keep up the good work Jago, your almost at 100k subscribers. Your a real youtuber now!
SOUTH SHIELDS, MARSDEN & WHITBURN COLLIERY RAILWAY says hello and how about me for earliest LR and freight carrying too? First passenger service in 1888 which was a few years after the freight started rolling.
Formed under a wayleave as a mineral line, then by Act of Parliament and then subject to the Light Railways Act.
A mixed bag as we say.
And not to mention it was the first nationalised passenger carrying railway before the formation of British Rail.
A few points to muse:
•Weymouth Quay Tramway = Heavy Rail
• I always thought the Alton & Basingstoke Light Railway was the first ‘proper’ light railway to be opened under the Light Railways Act 1896 - I’m probably wrong.
•Thomas the Tank Engine was reprimanded by the Old Bill for not having his wheels covered or having a cow catcher. Naughty boy.
The first light railway opened under the 1896 Act was the Rother Valley Railway (1900), part of the (pre-existing) Kent & East Sussex Railway. (Not to be confused with the current Rother Valley Railway (1991), a heritage line). The Alton & Basingstoke opened in 1904.
And that is why Toby the Tram Engine came to the Island of Sodor. And there was much rejoicing.
I've walked part of old route with the railway ramblers from Basingstoke to Alton. It was considered a light railway. And had a short life.
The Welsh Highland Railway has a short section on the road in Porthmadog. About 50 yards on its 22 mile length.
As ever, there are exceptions.
On the subject of light rail please do a video on the Manchester Metrolink
David Frankal has done lots. The funniest is where he refers to one he made four years earlier, when he took the first tram on the Manchester Airport extension, and you click through, and there are he and his mate in their school uniforms before their voices broke. Oh, and a gold star to his father, who must have driven them to the airport at about 5:30 in the morning.
@@georgebattrick2365 I think I went to the trafford centre station / stop on its first day of use (lockdown but I had two days work in trafford)
@georgebattrick2365 interesting
A very good summary. However I think the Swansea & Mumbles line has a good claim to be the very first light railway, though because of its unusual character and unique history it doesn't fit neatly into categories. Perhaps it would merit a video of its own, a bit like the one you did on the Dublin & Kingstown Railway?
It probably does, it’s certainly unique and, as you say, hard to categorise. Maybe I should head down there one of these days.
Here in Melbourne, our trams magically get renamed light rail when they get off the road on their own dedicated (ex-heavy rail) path.
Known as the "lie trail" around the time of Melbourne's 1990 tram dispute.
Yep!
That's mainly because spin doctors told politicians that "Light Rail" sounds more exciting than "Tram" to voters. There is no true light rail n Melbourne because every single route also includes a fair bit of running on streets, so no matter what the publicists say, they are all trams.
@@JamesTK That brightened my day! Light headlines bearing down in a tu
Yeah, they are all trams in Melbourne...don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! I love the trams in Melbourne but live in Sydney with the boring, slow and very precious light rail.
Regarding light rail and trams in the UK making a comeback, I wonder why a modern trolleybus system hasn't been reintroduced somewhere? They are very popular abroad and as they don't need rails must be alot cheaper to install.
The're cheaper, but not that cheaper. The problem with trolleybus is that it is in many ways worse of both worlds, sharing a lot of problems with both diesel busses and trams. And with advent of battery busses with quick-charging overhead stations, the investment is not worth the (partial) upgrade, unless we are talking about developing existing network. As much as I love troleybusses, I doubt we'll be seing any new networks in the future.
In many places, they have been taken out because they slow down traffic.
They are very popular in some countries but tend to be replace by trams when passenger loads increase.
@@librarian16 Years ago there were extensive trolleybus networks in many UK towns and cities, many of the systems at that time replacing exhisting tram networks. Now it seems the reverse is true in cities abroad with trams replacing trolleybuses. I can just about remember riding the trolleybuses in London as a small child shortly before the system closed. I used to regularly get the 630 with my mum from West Croydon to Earlsfield and back to visit an aunt.
@@librarian16 depends on the country. I like trolleybuses, and with the current move to electrification, I think they deserve a better chance than what they get over battery buses. The main problems with battery buses are the autonomy and the weight, both can be increased with trolley wires. With a smaller) battery, you can still de-wire portions of a line where needed for aesthetic reasons, but they don't need to recharge at every terminus, as is the case with many current battery bus systems.
Of course, if capacity is great enough for trams, you should build a tram line, but not all lines will carry enough passenger loads to justify that.
Tbh the way I see it, the DLR is much more of a metro than a light rail.
For me a light rail is basically a high capacity tramway with majority separation from roads, with a tramway being a system that is majority street running, and by street running I specifically mean, running in a lane that cars could use not just crossing the road frequently and running in the median of a road. (Although I would count running in the median as street running if the tram stops required the passengers to get off onto the road instead of a platform)
A metro system IS light rail.
@@stefansoder6903 no
@@stefansoder6903 - I agree but it is also referred to light Metro as a marketing ploy to confuse people further.
A tramway is a light rail graded (street and/or street operation) system.
@@stefansoder6903 With overhead wires, yes, but not when the power source is a third-rail system.
So many systems make the line blurry. Tyne & Wear is considered a metro but the capacity is similar to that of the DLR. BART in San Francisco was originally thought of as a commuter network but now it’s more of a heavy rail metro. Meanwhile Crossrail acts more like a metro than the metropolitan line.
Light rail? Oh, now I have to find my copy of the Titfield Thunderbolt.
I love that film! Introduced me to the term “light railway order.”
Ironically, the line used to film the movie had already been axed before production, beating Beeching's butchery by a good few years too.
@@cargy930 A good few years indeed- passenger services ended in 1925 and goods in 1951. A few reminders are left, like the vestigial viaduct here in Midford - it appears, along with the still intact S&D viaduct (now part of a cycleway), in the opening scenes of the Titfield Thunderbolt.
More informative content and dry wit. Keep it coming.
Yay nearly 100k subs well done! I remember this time last year, you only had around 15k!
Very informative, as always, so thank you.
In Kassel, Germany we have an interesting mix of what you'd call tram and light rail. In the city, the trains use the same tracks as our usual trams but they change at the (former) main station onto the regular rail network and are a bit like regional trains with way more stops outside the city, so they are called RegioTram.
Such systems are know as Tram-Trains.
That sounds somewhat similar to the light rail network in Denver, Colorado. They run on the street in the inner city and segregated from the roads in the suburbs.
@@ominous6845 Not just a very long tram. Tram-train vehicles must comply with rail standards. They usually can run also on 15kV 16,7 Hz (in Germany), not just on 600 V DC like trams. They must comply with other norms of the "big rail" like stiffness of the body (400kN) as well norms regarding their pantographs, wheel profile according to UIC-ORE, etc. A very long tram, which does not operate on any parts of rails where it would share the track with "big rail", is just a fast tram. Not a tram-train. It does not have to comply with "big rail" norms.
I lived in Wantage for many years and even worked just over the road from the Wantage Tramway terminus building (or maybe it was a depot - I'm not sure) on Mill Street, but I think this is the first time I've seen photos of the locomotives and carriages.
Nice installment, Sir. Then there's the San Diego Trolley, which calls itself a trolley and is also referred to as light rail. It operates on city streets so its also a tram. Guess that makes it a Light Trolley Tram (which is a regular Trolley Tram but with half the calories).
Watching vintage Jago and realising there is no “you are the X to my Y” gag
Interestingly, the early DLR P86 class light rail units had to sold when they could not be used on the tunnel to Bank. So they were sold to Essen in Germany where they now run as street trams. I may be wrong, but I seem to vaguely recall in the early days the DLR thought it might also run the P86 units along roads in places, though that was not to be. The definition of light rail and street trams seems to blur in many places anyway. Many lines have a mix of both features.
They did indeed plan to run DLR trains along the road to Mile End - I did a video on it a few weeks back.
In Germany, some cities utilise their tramways for freight.
The Liverpool Overhead's death sentence derived from the decision to make it out of cast iron rather than masonry. They probably had to do this because in reality it was on stilts over existing stuff. In the end it just crumbled away.
@@williethomson8353 what
@@williethomson8353 What happened then?
@@alexhando8541
The Overhead was a double decked railway for most of its length. Freight trains under. The sulphur from the steam train's exhaust did not help, neither did neglect during WW2.
@@johnburns4017 I think more the fact it was in liverpool related to the general uncaredforness
@@highpath4776
What do you mean?
Lightrail here (NL) are trains (sprinter type) which could theoretically if we want to run on a tram or subway line... all 3 of them use the same standard rail here but regular trains are to long and heavy while the light-rail isn't, construction is also "subway-esk" with the locomotive as a second (and forelast) unit in the train and end-to-end open walkability; more standing spaces and less seating, no toilets (though after much complaints some were outfitted with small restrooms lateron) , these sprinters also can go at max 160kmph and are able to run on the less strong powerlines of trams and metros directly without adaptation; the regular trains cannot
GWR were pretty fast and loose with their station names. But if they added "Road" to the title, you knew you were in for a long schlepp...
Perhaps not as bad as if you alight at Dent Station. You have a 2 mile (walk) to Dent !
@@millomweb That's nothing compared with the climb back up.
Not for nothing was the Great Western Railway known as 'The Great Way Round'!
It’s roughly the same with “Parkway” now
@@chriswalford4161 Seend Station in Wiltshire should have been called "Seend, base camp". To get to the village passengers were confronted with a mile long 1in 8 climb..
Tram and Light Rail are one in the same, with "tram" both functioning as a general term, as well as a specific form of light rail, because of course, with English speakers, we've just gotta over-complicate all things communication! haha.
Here in the US, what most in Europe would call a tram, we call a streetcar nowadays. Effectively only a short line in the center of a high-density urban core of a large city, and typically running in a loop, rather than point to point, which actually makes it what light rail was originally made to function as, later making it to function also as a compliment to bus services.
Now light rail in the US is dominantly a hijacking of what light rail is supposed to be, and corrupting it into some botched form of Commuter rail and short-distance ICE rail, and it's #1 reason for being pushed to be implemented and made is for gentrification purposes only in order to secure lots of big kickback paychecks from big name developers and businesses that lobby for it. And they're biggest ploy to garner public support to fund it (besides the classical lie of "to improve and expand transit to the greater community for you) is to advertise it as the best form of transit to implement, while always promising inter-modal "TOD" (Transit Oriented Developments) with "guaranteed" low & affordable income subsidized units being the majority of units in each multi-use building they build". All is of course, as usual, a complete lie. These TODs are all exclusively high-end, hipster, rich bastard hoods that gentrify the hell out of the surrounding area, forcing most people to have to move away due to no longer being able to afford to live in the area because of it. And of course, insert all the cliche, overpriced boutique restaurants, cafes, coffee shops and gift shops built into their bases, alongside salons, spas and massage parlors. Totally subsidized, totally made for people to be able to find it affordable. TOTALLY. Oh yeah, and, each of them have entire blocks dedicated to 3-5 story parking lots, too, because you know, inter-modality and the light rail it is "built for" being so great and definitely not to further promote the use of personal vehicles. lol. It's such a freaking joke. And where is that supposed inter-modality? That Transit part of TOD? Non-existent, obviously. At this point, nobody should be the least bit surprised by it either.
Orenco (Orenco Station specifically) is a hood (TOD) developed under this exact guise, and ended up EXACTLY as I explained it just now. Yet people from across the country and even internationally attempt to claim it's somehow a quality and great example of why TOD & Light Rail is so great. It only proves they have no clue what the hell they're talking about. TriMet (the transit agency behind it all) has literally a single bus line there alongside the MAX line (LRT). That's it. And the bus line? It's one of their least touched lines, and for damn good reason - the route makes little to no sense, and goes to/through hardly any hoods that actually have ridership and lower income households within them. It's ridiculous. And on top of it, it hardly runs at all. I think once an hour at peak, and again, they're is almost never anyone using it at any point in the route for good reason.
And it's obvious in the end when you look at Europe versus the US that the history behind Light Rail (LRT) is massively different in a plethora of ways. And hell, somehow we ended up referring to Gondolas as "Aerial Trams" nowadays too haha. No idea when where or why culturally the US began to refer to them and market them as such.
I am sure the good Colonel would have loved eBay for all his rolling stock needs...
Unless outbid by Adrian Shooter!
1:08 hey that’s “The Railroad” on the Island of Sodor.
So here in Seattle, the term “light rail” literally means “rail with a light car”. The trains here are huge & heavy, and they rely on this weight to maintain traction with the rail. Light rail on the other hand maintains traction with powerful electric motors with extremely high torque. This allows light rail to accelerate & decelerate much more smoothly, but decreases its top speed. Most importantly however is that it allows the cars to be light, in the same weight class as a bus. This allows light rail to go up hills, but it also allows light rail to be at street level and at speed safely. Trains at street level in the Western US can only go a couple of miles per hour, basically walking speed, because otherwise there is a very serious risk of a very serious collision. Seattle’s underground light rail network originally had buses running on the same lines as the light rail, a practice which only ended in early 2020 (the system having been built ten years earlier). Lighter rail also needs less strong bedding to keep the rails aligned, so spongy but easy to work with materials like freshly poured concrete can be used (concrete sleepers for heavy rail have to be pre-seasoned and use a very high grit mix to improve their strength against load. Wood sleepers are cheaper, easier to season, and easier to transport which is still why they are the global standard). This makes construction of new Light Rail lines extremely rapid, about the same speed as constructing roads.
Same weight as a bus - I see it now - the reappearance of 'Pacer trams' !!!!!!
Really interesting, thank you.
I agree with the lighter rolling stock, but Dallas has a light rail network that uses heavier rails than some freight roads (136lb, IIRC). I think light rail is the new term for interurban (at least in the States).
@@BNSFandSP Again, at the heart of it could be legal reasons for ease of placing the tracks.
@@BNSFandSP The main feature of light-rail in the US IMO is an express type of service while the streetcars| trolleys are low-speed in-street service
Similarly to the London trams, the West Midlands Metro also avoids streets for the most part. The majority of the route is along a former railway, and it only runs along actual roads for the short distance from Priestfield to Wolverhampton. It also now takes to the streets in Birmingham City Centre, but only along pedestrianised streets, except for the odd delivery driver who uses them.
Yeah he’s a pain in the neck that delivery driver
2:31 “Equipped with Cowcatchers”
“But I don’t catch cows 🐄 sir” said Thomas
Thank you - very informative.
We have a Tram-Train in Sheffield (at least I think we do , last time I heard it was stuck on the back of a lorry at some traffic lights because the lorry couldn't negotiate a corner).
Apparently it's a tram that can run on tram and main line tracks. Thankfully nobody came up with the idea of using Pacers for this function, which were basically a Leyland bus on train wheels.
The gentleman you mentioned by the name of "Train" didn't escape my notice either.
All the Pacers! All of them.
Interestingly the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (a co-operation between Leeds, Wakefield, Kirklees, Calderdale and Bradford local authorities) has just published a masterplan for an extensive rapid transit network across West Yorkshire which will incorporate and co-ordinate buses, trains, trams and so called light rail links across the county, and one thing they appear keen on is the use of Tram Trains.
@@kevinh96 A coordinated timetable - Hope that works out.
A good few years ago Leeds was considering a Metro system and at the same time a group was lobbying for the re-introduction of trolley buses instead.
@@rogerbarton497 supertram was doomed to fail from the beginning, there just isn't space for them
@@kevinh96 I am a little cautious about the idea of "Tram-Trains". They seem to be presented as a "jack of all trades" solution, a universal vehicle that can run on the street, new light rail track and old heavy rail lines. But you can end up with a vehicle that fills all of these roles but doesn't do any of them very well. Long distance passengers are faced with slower, smaller vehicles that stop too frequently whereas the old heavy rail trains were faster and could carry more people, even if they were a little less frequent. Meanwhile in the urban core you have huge LRV style vehicles squeezing round tight corners and potentially quite narrow streets, often at speeds not more than brisk jog.
Certainly the idea has its uses, but they are not the best of all worlds.
Brussels has the pre-metro which is basically a tram that runs separate from the road and can be upgraded quickly to a full metro if the demand is there. Which I guess is a light rail although technically a tram.
As for the Liverpool Overhead I'd say it was more Diesel Punk than Steam Punk.
?Diesel Punk. It was electrically powered and the steam atmospherics gratis thanks to the MDHB lines running beneath.
Technically you didn't need an Act of Parliament for a railway, however, if you need to compulsorily purchase property, divert the King/Queen's highway or cross roads on the level, you needed an Act of Parliament. In addition, in the early days of railways, there were no Companies Acts and therefore, an Act of Parliament was needed to setup the company.
The extension of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway to Dalkey was built without an Act of Parliament (this was in the era when Britain and Ireland were united).
Was it done by a general agreement ?
@@highpath4776 The company took a lease of land from the Board of Works. The route was not great and contains many sharp curves, which bedevil the line to this day (if they had gone for an Act of Parliament, they could have altered the route). In addition, as they could not cross public roads on the level, the company had to gouge a mile long cutting along the route to carry the line under said roads. The line being of sharp curvature and in a cutting has caused problems to this day - the line remaining in use as part of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART).
An act of parliament was not needed to set a up a company, it was a royal charter, as setting up such an organisation was a royal propagative.
Light Railways could be a healthier alternative to the Trams
Why "healthier"?
@@erejnion Because they are "Light"
@@davidsummer8631 Never explain a joke. 😉
Where’s the facepalm icon?
@@davidsummer8631 oh god
I'm off to hide in the corner in shame that this joke flew over my head.
Always interesting and informative! Keep up the good work fella and stay safe!
I was waiting for you to mention the Brill Tramway, later called the Metropolitan Railway Brill Branch. This, for a short time was part of the LTPB, and indirectly part of the Underground.
That’s one that deserves its own video.
Could do a mini series on the UK’s tram networks. Sheffield, Manchester, Blackpool, Nottingham, Edinburgh and Birmingham.
What about Glasgow?. Glasgow had a huge tram system until the City Fathers (Cooncil) deliberately ran it into the ground in the 1950's. They did more damage than Dr. Beeching did to the railways in the 60's.
I would love to go the Glasgow subway.
@@DavidWilliams-km5xu Do it when you can - make sure to ride all the way round "both" lines too.
I remember the Glasgow trams in the early 1960s. Locals called them tramcars, or more often just cors. They were painted orange and green to keep both Protestants and Catholics happy! (The same livery was applied to the trolleybuses and motor buses that replaced them.)
There's also the Sheffield Supertram which scores the hattrick of running on the roads through Sheffield, segregated tracks near Sheffield, and on Network Rail's "heavy rail" tracks through Rotherham.
My city, Toronto, has a lot of trams routes, though we call them streetcars. Love riding them too.
That is what the Yanks call them. Now stop it!
@@johnburns4017 I am Canadian.
@@alexandraclement1456
I know. :)
@@johnburns4017 Yeah it's a stupid name, I wish we could change it. Thankfully I now live in Europe so I can unironically refer to the "Toronto tram system".
Clearly, that is short for something - and my guess is "street tramway carriage".
One observation that seems to differentiate trams from light railways is that trams seem to exclusively pick up their power from an overhead cable whilst railways (light or otherwise) can pick up their power either from a conductor rail or an overhead cable. Why the difference? Well if trams share their space with the roads, then you don't want people being able to touch the live conductor - which if it's high overhead should be difficult.
The old London tram systems used both overhead and centre rail subsurface pickup - sometimes interchangeably on the same route, eg on the lines from Victoria (78) and Embankment (33) to West Norwood. The centre rail collection system doesn't seem to have electrocuted anyone, bot cyclists needed to be careful not to get their front wheel embedded in it.
An amusing (to me at least) recollection of the tram system in Rome. A cyclist, on getting the bicycle wheels stuck in the tram rail, spied a tram coming. Unable to free the wheels, the cyclist signalled the tram to go round... Difficult!
As a person currently living in Rome, I think it represents well the mentality of the people here, and also how neglected the small tram network has been for decades now. At least the construction of some new lines has been recently funded, as well as the purchase of newer veichles. The urban rail network here is in general quite chaotic and inefficient (3 underground lines that have little in common with each other, some urban rail lines that look like the underground ones but legally are not, proper trams, a tram that is legally a light railway...) but it's fascinating nonetheless.
Yes. I recall two tram systems. The one run by the City transit authority with green trams and the elderly blue and white system that headed out to Cinecittà from Termini. In the years between living there and returning as a visitor many of the lines seem to have disappeared.
@@michaelwilson6584 The blue and white system has been closed since the opening of the A underground line in 1980, however there is a meter-gauge light rail line that follows the Casilina road from Termini station to the Centocelle neighbourhood, which is what's left of a long line to the town of Frosinone, gradually closed during the Eighties. Nowdays it's a quite neglected line with old and poorly kept high-floor rolling stock, but a few months ago plans have been finally approved to turn it into a standard gauge line integrated with the existing tram network, and to extend it to Tor Vergata University and Anagnina underground station.
Rome is very far from having the public transport infrastructures it would need, due in part to its history (if you dig a hole in a random place you have great chances of finding some kind of ancient object or building), in part to the inefficiency of mayors and public offices, and in part also to the mentality of its citizens
Is it Ansgnina station that has an old Blue and White car on exhibit?
@@michaelwilson6584 Yes! I used to see it every day, and I still live relatively close to it (I've only been living in Rome for a couple of years now, I'm from a totally different part of Italy). More historic cars are on display at the Rome Transport Museum next to the Piramide/Ostiense/Porta San Paolo station complex.
The Sheffield Tram-Train: The tramway that is also a light railway that borrows Network Rail lines partway
Then you've got a stretch of the Tyne and Wear Metro that shares track with the main line so that could be called Light-Rail-Train...
A tram-train is where at light rail tram is built to heavy rail specifications that can operate on heavy and light rail networks.
I wondered if this would get a mention. A shame these videos are often a touch London-centric.
@@citizenerased1992 - The reason why the videos are London-centric is Jago loves in London.
@@davidbull7210 arguably the Tyne and Wear Metro is a short train not light rail as most of its lines are the old North Tyne loop.
Well as a german, I never heard of the "lower german origins" of the word Tram as its mentioned here.
In the 16-17-18-19th century underground mines, these wagons on wooden rails where called "Hunt", the old german
word for "Hund"=dog. I thought the word "Hunt" came from the pulling like a Hund= dog of these waggons by the miners...
I think Tram has its french origines somehow...
Light rail here in the US is basically a tram/streetcar that has a dedicated right of way, where streetcars/trolleys are just small rail vehicles that run on the street.
The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail in New Jersey runs along the streets
@@MihkelKiil it does have a separate ROW, which a streetcar doesn’t. Look at Portland, OR. It has a streetcar system that only operates on city streets, and a light rail system that runs on regular tracks, but also on the street.
This is interesting because just because they run on the street, they don't need to be that small. A good number of cities in Central Europe use rather large rolling stock along normal street lanes. To me, at least, a tram uses normal street lights (with possible additional signals) whereas light rail uses railway-like signaling.
@@2712animefreak as far as I know, the only 5 segment LRVs or streetcars (the ones commonly found in abroad) here in the US is NJ Transit’s Kinki Sharyo extended LRVs.
If it has a pantograph it looks like a tram . Trouble with that is that mainline trains with overhead power use pantographs to pick up power .
Are they anything to do with the light programme?
Try retuning to DAB.
I hear they often provide a Home Service. (According to a friend!)
@@LesD9 I had a feeling in the late 70 early 80s that the BBC WORLD service wasn't available in England. May be it would have been had dad put up that areial wire from the house to the tree.
Jago again comprehensive and interesting. Love the DLR and how this has grown and London's tram network! many thanks
Tram runs along tracks that share the road.
Light rail has its exclusive route, not shared with road traffic
@@hotpointlil: what then is the Croydon system since it runs on rail tracks and through the streets?
@@eattherich9215 Let's go with Super Hybrid Intermodal Transit system. 😋
Thank you Mr Hazzard. I'm in Australia, I wasn't particularly interested in trains, or London , but I find your explanations and humour very relaxing and your delivery and voice are likewise easy on the ear. Well done sir, I have even leaned things, turns out, London trains are quite a fascinating saga ,who knew?!..well, apart from you obviously.
Carry on .
If you dig into London, it is fascinating, full stop !
Theres a new line currently being built in Switzerland. while the locals call it a tram, its officially called the Limmattal railway. 8 miles long, shes segregated from traffic through use of grass like in Prague. so question now is, is it a Tram or Light Rail?
"Monorails don't seem to be classed as light rail despite meeting most of the criteria"
Well, I hear those things are awfully loud.
It glides as softly as a cloud...
We used to have a monorail in Sydney but they demolished it some years ago. When they planned it about they forgot to plan a route that actually served much purpose!
There are a few very precise cases where a monorail is the best mode for transit, but in almost all other cases, more conventional modes like trams, trains or metro are not only cheaper, but better. Monorail is better when space is tight, and steap slopes have to be dealt with. Or when you want to build a tourist attraction, rather than a transportation mode (hence why they are so popular with theme parks around the world). For about every other case, just go for something else.
@@barvdw Which is why I find this interesting......
rail.bombardier.com/en/solutions-and-technologies/worldwide-projects.html/bombardier/projects/middle-east-africa/egypt/innovia-monorail-300---cityflo-650---cairo--egypt/en
especially the length of the two lines, speed of travel and power supply.
Trams have stops, railways (both light and heavy) have stations or halts.
Hi I always enjoy your video I think you missed one of the different between standard rail and light rail and that is the track itself as light rail is lighter than standard rail. Keep up the good work
Historically rail 'strength' is defined in lbs (pounds), or actually lbs per foot, i.e. weight of the rails. At points and crossings the weight of the rails are increased compared with that in other areas to allow for the additional wear encountered. My son knows all about this as he is an apprentice CNC machinist at a factory that makes points and crossings for Network Rail, London Underground and DLR, amongst others - he started his interest as a youngster by building a 1:19 scale (16mm to the foot) narrow gauge railway in our garden.
I'm intrigued by the partly obscured warehouse sign in the picture of the Liverpool Elevated Railway. Yorkshire Kipper Works? Yorkshire Ripper Works! Or perhaps the too far ahead of its time Yorkshire Zipper Works
Sir, I disagree with your assessment! The comment section is not for disagreeing with assessments, but for flamewars!
NO IT ISN'T ! :(
@Ross Bourne OH NO IT ISN'T
(God, it's lonely in here with just the two of us playing.)
The Edinburgh Trams only run on the road for about 20% of the route. And then most of that 20% isn't even road open to normal public traffic. Not that 8.7 miles is even a long route in the first place though.
Anyone else having Thomas the Tank engine flash backs, Toby the Tram ☺️
I once went on a tram in Nottingham. It felt strange being on a train in the city center. And I say train because it wasn't a single carriage.
No, N.E.T.’s vehicles are articulated trams. Anybody in the city would have told you that!
2:32 T O B Y ! ! !
Regular law breaker...
@@dangerousandy I prefer 'Maverick'
...or not T O B Y. That is the question
In North America, there was an early 20th century transportation system referred to as the "interurban" railway. It would be interesting to know which of these classifications mentioned it would fit into.
There is a carriage from the overhead railway in the museum of Liverpool, would reccomend
How about doing a video on trolleybuses, Mr H.? The tramway's equivalent of that uncle nobody mentions at family gatherings.
Sometimes Light Rail takes over from the main railway. The Manchester Metrolink covers the former LYR line from Manchester Victoria to Bury Interchange as well as the southern part of the former MSJ&R.
Same with Wimbledon - Mitcham - Croydon line in London. I rode it as a railway in 1979 and as a tramway in 2018.
Great video ! Couple of points; The Mumbles "Tramway /Railway" ? And was the Surrey Iron Railway technically a "Tramway"? {Ref. Tramway Path by Mitcham Station } Food for thought !
Ah! More truncation humour. Jolly good.
'Light Rail' my A$$...ever TRY picking one up?! At 4:43 the 'Fifth Street & University Heights' Tram is from New York..specifically the Bronx section of the City. One of these Horse drawn Carriages still exists in a private collection.
Now, if someone could convince TfL to extend either the DLR or Tramlink so they have a direct interchange... that’d be the best commute ever.
Fun and informative as always!
@Podkova Croydon to Canary Wharf, avoiding London Bridge or Canada Water in rush hour; that’s the dream!
hmm the tram line actually crosses over the commuter rail line between Beckenham Road and Beckenham Junction so it doesn't seem impossible to at least run trams into Lewisham commuter rail station for an easy transfer. The land near where the lines cross appears to be mostly allotments too which are probably easier to build a junction over than people's houses. Intriguing idea but you know it's illegal to link 2 different parts of South London without forcing people to buy a Zone 1 ticket and change at London Bridge, right?
@@misterthegeoff9767 Illegal though it may be, it’s time to rebel, for the sake of south London residents everywhere (in south London)!
@Podkova: agreed. Make it go down South Norwood Hill and I can stop driving to my Brother's. 😄
For a Light Rail Tramway and the first ever passenger service in the world you should checkout the Swansea and Mumbles Railway
Don't know if this is still the case , but back in the 80's another requirement to be defined as a "Light Railway" was that the driver (if there is one) mustn't be in a separate cab. Which is presumably why we have "Operators" sitting in with the passengers on the DLR.
The Croydon tram driver sits in a separate cab. There is a door through to the passenger compartment, but it is usuall locked.
I shall have to go on the new tram network. It wasn't there when I used to work in Croydon.
The rule only applied to Light Railways, ie segregated train lines. They were also not allowed to carry goods as Jago said. I had a friend who worked in BR and he was most peeved at the consessions that a "Light Railway" got as opposed to main line trains.
@@victoredwards247 A Light Railway is different from Light Rail as the Light Railway Act of 1897 is still in force to this very day, sorry if I'm being a pedant
The operator's area on DLR trains is now sectioned off because of covid-19.
@@alexhando8541 Enlightenment is never a bad thing ! :-) I shall have to look that up !
Tramlink is considered a Tram-train (also according to Wikipedia). A tram, that is, that uses (ordinary) train tracks too. And its vehicles are - to what I know - referred to as Light-rail vehicles, LRV's. So it is, too, a form of Light-rail if you will. And it is a form of Tram, too. I like referring to it as "Modern Trams" - probably I'm not the only one there, and I take my stance from others.
For a more detailed go on this, please refer to my comment on Jago's video about the proposed "Docklands Light Tramway".
2:23 - It’s Toby!
6.31 The Yorkshire ...ipper Works Ltd. Of course I read it as Ripper. 😱😏
Clipper
Steampunk version of the DLR
Writing from New York, a fair distinction might be...:
* TRAM or trolley or trolley-car or street_car: Runs mostly on or parallel to a road, which is often a _shared_ right - of - way; power is from an _overhead_ catenary & captured via a pantograph; car doors are minimally above _ground_ level//
_-&-_
* LIGHT_RAIL: Runs on a _dedicated_ right - of - way, where there _never_ are pedestrians; power is from a shoe on the car's under-carriage and it over-runs the _third_rail_ ( FAR too lethal to be exposed on a road), which is offset to the side of the railbed; car doors are high above the roadbed, since _all_ stops are _always_ at raised platforms.//
=-=
As an aside: The track gauge _can_ be the same for light_rail and
street_cars. A good example is Philadelphia, where street_car lines come into the center of the city and share tracks with light_rail. The street_cars stop beyond the raised platforms, so changing modes means 3 or 4 steps. This is a very old system and works quite well, with each mode concentrated where it fits better. /Mike_R
The metro logo at 7:21 looks similar to the Metro logo of the Washington DC metro with the exception of the serifs. I guess there are only so many ways to display the letter “M.”
This Stevens needs a video of his own. ( I once knew a couple of Trains, father and son, both transport nuts, the former latterly to be found frequenting a certain paddle steamer until he passed on ).
Tram rails and wheels are designed to behave differently on corners than those of trains because tram routes can have much tighter radii. In fact I stumbled across a document specifying this, which cryptically and somewhat bizarrely said trams ride on their flanges, but I haven't been able to find it again since to clarify exactly how this worked.
Manchester trams are a hybrid system. mixing rail and street specification. The rails and wheels are to railway specifications. They use old railway lines but with new track, yet still use many of the original stations and the original platforms. When on the roads in the city, it does look a bit surreal in the city centre with chest high platforms surrounded by people.
The Manchester trams have an irritating habit of screeching around corners. They also look out of place.
Those high street platforms look awful and are irritating to use. Low platform trams are a dream to use. walk straight on from the pavement then a nice flat floor in the tram. Real hop on and off. Manchester should have taken away the platforms on the old stations or filled in between.
@@johnburns4017 The platforms are odd indeed because lots of places combine road working with old rail routes and have normal low platforms for trams. Maybe it's because in Manchester they used the actual same stations and just put trams into them instead. But what would it have taken to lower the platforms at the old stations? No train uses the same platforms or rails as trams on the old rail routes. Where they run side by side, trams and trains are kept absolutely separate, each on their own track to the same stations with the tram using one of the redundant train platforms.
@@neilbain8736
Did the Manchester trams lay new track on the old reused lines?
@@neilbain8736
Trams have to be segregated as they cannot run on the same track, due to crash protection, line of sight driving, and various other reasons. They are literally electric buses on rails.
@@johnburns4017 Yes they did.
The DLR is actually not a light rail but rather a full metro and the Tyne and Wear metro, midland metro and Manchester metrolink are actually all light rail networks. Light rail may include metro elements, usually in city centres such as subway tunnels to get an otherwise street level tramway under a pedestrianised city centre, often with stops under the main train station, the shopping centre, the University, the cathedral and the town hall but the difference is that metro networks, also known as rapid transit don't have level crossings with anything, be it traffic lanes, cycle lanes, footpaths or anything else and they don't share lanes with them either. They decided to call the DLR light rail to distinguish it better from the London underground and because their vehicles were modelled on duewags articulated b wagen and are essentially high floor trams apart from the 3rd rail shoe instead of a pantograph and the lack of a drivers cab. I love the cyberpunk/steampunk comparison between the LOR and DLR!
The tram company which used to be around Colwyn Bay, and Llandudno, was called "The Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Electric Light Railway." this stopped operating in the 1950's, but there are a number of the components still in use.
It's surprising to think about how early Birkenhead was in the tram game, especially given how little of it remains!
Sydney just got a light trail extension - although most of it runs down existing streets. And being Sydney, the cars are incompatible with the existing light rail route. You can still see a lot of the remnants of the extensive original tram network they ripped out. Melbourne was sensible and kept their trams.
If only Dunedin had had the money and foresight to maintain the High Street cable car- == to the San Francisco ones....and the event more interesting and vertiginous Rattray St to Kaikorai Valley line......they'd be great tourist attractions as well as local user friendly like the one in Wellington