Tram - Blog Posts
Timelapse video of people strawling around at the Kossuth square in front of the Reformed Great Church, Debrecen, Hungary. The evening of the 19th of November 2019.
I look like a college fuckboi but don't be decieved I am a nerdy high school kid who is socially introverted and a hardcore feminist ya dig
untitled travels, a set on Flickr.
I'll try and pick out some photos to mention in particular, but don't want to upload unending individual posts at this moment in time and overload you. This album may not mean much to you, but documents my travels so far... Mostly in London, starting and often retuning to Crystal Palace Park - as well as my overground and tram travels .... to the Museum of London and Morden Hall Park respectively.. Bognor Regis gets briefly into the mix as well as quite a lot of nature photos... You can see some themes of interest emerging - trees and duck/goslings!
This is a new percussive instrument entitled "A Day at the Grave of Karl Marx". It is an old film canister. It is good.
Wednesday the 13th, October 2010 AD.
Ok, here's some info regarding our gig in a tram next Wednesday.
Our gig starts at 16:06 and we are going to play in tram 7A which starts at Pasila Railway station, Helsinki. The tram goes all the way to Töölö, to culture cafe Korjaamo. The ride costs 2,50 eur if bought from the driver, 1,80 eur if bought from a ticket vending machine or 2,00 eur if bought via SMS.
At 22:00 we will play a gig at Korjaamo, which is free entry for everybody.
This is going to be something wicked! Tomorrow we are going to build some instruments we are going to use on the gig.
-tmu
Next gig in Helsinki
Ok. So we are having a gig in Helsinki in couple of weeks. We are going to play at a place called Korjaamo. Before our gig we are going to play in a tram. Yeah, that's right, we will play a gig IN A MOVING TRAM. Both of the shows will be more or less acoustic and we will re-compose some of our old songs to fit for a manjo, suitcase, a frying pan, acoustic guitar and EKO Tiger- keyboard. This is going to be the shit.
And for the other stuff, this weekend is a studio weekend. We got some guitar and bass recording to do, so we will be working hard with Musti to get some tracks laid on our HD.
-tmu
Deck Backyard Seattle Ideas for an unprotected, medium-sized coastal backyard dock
One of the recognizable place in Lisbon. If you are lazy to come up or down, you can take a ride with old tram! :) . . . . . #lisbon #lisboa #portugal #oldtram #city #cityliving #citylife #tram #travel #travelgram #instatravel #adventure #travelphotography #traveling #trip #traveller #tourism #tourist #travelingram #traveltheworld #travelblog #traveldeeper #travelpics #lovetravel #lovetraveling #travelblogger #travellife #nature #naturephoto #naturepics (at Lisbon, Portugal)
Sarreguemines station
One more border station between France and Germany, with a bit of a twist. Sarreguemines in Lorraine is, as its name suggests, on one side of the river Sarre or Saar, with Saarbrücken some 17 km downstream in Germany. Between the two runs a cross-border tram-train, which serves as urban transit within Saarbrücken, and as a small regional train beyond.
The vehicles used by the Saarbahn are dual-voltage (750 V DC for city tram lines, 15 kV AC for DB train lines) Flexity Link units, made by Bombardier. It's the third type of tram-train we've come across, having seen the Siemens Avanto in Mulhouse and the Alstom Citadis Dualis in Châteaubriant. Most trams in Saarbrücken are wrapped in some kind of advertisement, this one for a former exhibit at the former Völklingen Ironworks (something I definitely should talk about someday) - not only did the exhibit end in 2024, but the wrapping is dark, making the atmosphere onboard very dull indeed, especially on a grey day! They didn't think this one though!
Only the one track for the Saarbahn is electrified, so the French trains are all Diesel units. On the day I was there, three generations of DMU were present: the most recent bi-mode Regiolis, a Diesel-only AGC set from the early 2000s (top picture), and a pair of A TER railcars which are equipped for German signalling. A few direct Strasbourg-Saarbrücken services run each day with these "saucisses" as they are nicknamed. We've seen these trains before too - the design is identical to the BR 641s DB Regio have near Basel, and these are nicknamed "Walfisch" in German.
Out of service: the Trieste-Opicina tramway
While the reopening of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris is making big news, and while I'm in a bit of a tram phase on the blogs, spare a thought for the tram line between Trieste and Opicina, closed following an accident in 2016. And it's a real pity, because it was a wacky one.
Trieste is a city by the Adriatic Sea, surrounded by steep hills - and I mean steep. Opicina is 300 m higher, and the tram line features gradients as steep as 26% - link to the Hohentwiel hike for scale. Steel wheels on rails weren't going to be enough...
Initially, the steepest section was built as a rack-and-pinion railway, but in the late 1920s, it was replaced by a funicular system. Cable tractors would be coupled to the streetcars to push them up the hill, and control their descent on the way down - that's the curious boat-like vehicle in the photos (at least I'm getting boat vibes from it). The picture below shows just how steep the climb is.
In the later years of operation, these cable tractors were remotely controlled from the tram. The streetcars themselves date back to 1935, with wooden doors and fittings, making the Trieste-Opicina tramway a charming and technically unique heritage system.
Sadly, the line is not running. Two streetcars collided in 2016, they were repaired, but service has not resumed. One vehicle, coupled to the cable tractor, remains stationary at the foot of the climb, near where the second photo was taken. A look on Google Street View shows that cars are now habitually parked on the disused tracks. The number 2 tram route between Trieste and Opicina is currently served by the number 2/ bus.
Strasbourg's tramway's 30th anniversary!
On this day in 1994, Strasbourg inaugurated - or rather, resurrected - its tramway network. Like many cities in France, Strasbourg had a streetcar system until the late 1950s, when it was decided that cars would take over. 30 years of worsening congestion and pollution later, the town chose a tramway, which had made a successful return in the mid 1980s in Nantes and Grenoble, over an automatic metro to revitalise its transit service.
Unlike Nantes and Grenoble, Strasbourg looked to foreign streetcar manufacturers Socimi and ABB, who designed a fully low-floor tram with generous windows. The Eurotram was at first a 33-metre vehicle (original form seen above), which quickly proved insufficient. A lengthened version, with an extra motor module and carriage, appeared in the following years.
Personally, I quite like this tram for the massive windows, the very mechanical sounds as it runs, and the fact that the warning bell is a real bell (later models have an electronic bell which... just sounds worse). A downside I have noticed, though not for me specifically, is that it has a low ceiling.
After losing out in the 90s, national constructor Alstom won the next round of contracts for Strasbourg's trams in the 2000s. The Citadis model, fully low-floor and taller than the Eurotrams, entered service in 2005. More Citadis trams arrived in 2016, with a new design that I really like, and with special adaptations to allow it to run in Germany, as the network crossed the border to Kehl in 2017, a first for a French tram operator.
Today, the network consists of 6 lines, crisscrossing the city centre and heading out into the suburbs. A 7th line is in the planning stages, due to head North towards Bischheim and Schiltigheim. Despite refurbishment, the Eurotrams won't be around forever, and new trams are on order - more from Alstom.
The Mulhouse-Thann tram-train
Combining a suburban train service with the ability to navigate city streets sounds amazing. People can live nearer to the countryside, get frequent service into town, and, if everything lines up, commute straight into work without changes and avoiding the main station. The complementarity and opportunity to revitalise a branch line all sounds appealing... but a real challenge to implement. In France, only Mulhouse has truly achieved it.
Tram-trains aren't exactly rare in France: there are several lines around Paris, Nantes and Lyon have them (and many more had tram-train projects at some point). But, while the vehicles are capable of running in both modes, they are mostly used as a cheaper way to operate a line. The Nantes-Clisson and Nantes-Châteaubriant tram-trains, for example, which I have ridden, are just regional trains, running on heavy rail nearly all the way, and only stopping where the trains always used to.
Mulhouse is the only place in France to have true tram-train operations as described in the introduction: the tram-trains add traffic to line 3 between Mulhouse central station and Lutterbach, before switching to train mode and continuing on the branch line to Kruth as far as Thann.
The vehicles themselves are remarkable, as they need to be equipped for both streetcar and heavy rail operations, and each has its own requirements: lighting, horns, power supply, safety features... Mulhouse's vehicles are Siemens Avanto S70s, built in 2009-2010, and operated by SNCF as class U 25500. Similar units were introduced near Paris as early as 2005.
Colorado River Confluence by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook This is a photo on the East Rim of the Grand Canyon near the confluence of the Colorado and the Little Colorado Rivers. This lies in the Navajo Nation and you need a permit to go here. Permits can be purchased in nearby Cameron, Az. This is the site that is involved in the "Grand Canyon Escalade" bill, a bill that proposes to built tourist resort and a tram gondola down into the canyon, at the confluence of the 2 rivers. In this photo the Little Colorado is hidden behind the rock to the left. As you might expect, there has been a great deal of disagreement and discussion about the bill in the Navajo Nation. Many of the council members oppose the bill. The bill was defeated but there are signs it make reemerge with some changes. The project would include a hotel, visitors center, and a parking lot on the rim. There would be a tram gondola down to the canyon floor at the rivers confluence, a cafe near the rivers, and a river walk. The area currently is deserted pristine land. You have to drive 20-30 miles (30-50 km) down dirt roads to reach the site. There literally hundreds of miles of dirt roads around the East Rim covering a vast area. There are multiple spectacular viewpoints looking over the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, and the river views, in my opinion, are better than from the North or South Rims. In 3 full days of scouting and 3 full nights of shooting I did not encounter a single human. There are quite a few free ranging horses and a few cattle. I also encountered a few coyote. Note - If you go there you will be a long way from help, so take plenty of water and gas. This is the site of the proposed Escalade, but there are actually better views of the 2 rivers, which I will post soon. By the way, this is a single exposure taken with the new Sigma 14 mm f/1.8 lens, taken at f 1.8, 25 seconds, and ISO 12,800. I would now have been able to get this detail within the dark canyon without the wide aperture, at least not in a single exposure. For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. It's a pleasure to post here.