Exploring Karlsruhe And Its Trams And Tram/Trains
As the main reason I went to Karlsruhe was to see their tram/trains, properly called the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn, in action, I’m combining all the posts in the city in one.
It’s also probably a good idea to combine the pictures, as the main street of the city is being dug up to create a new tunnel for the tram/trains across the city. So you can’t really see any of the city’s attractions.
Notice that Karlsruhe’s tram/trains can be quite large and I think I saw some of four or possibly five coaches. Their network is also over two hundred and fifty kilometres, so small it is not! By comparison the Sheffield Supertram is just thirty kilometres, but Sheffield has a population twice that of Karlsruhe. These figures show how undeveloped our tram systems are compared to those in Germany.
It will certainly be worth returning to Karlsruhe, when the tunnel is complete and the network is expanded.
The operation of Karlsruhe’s tram-trains are often described as the Karlsruhe model. Kassel is described as working to this and so is the Tyne and Wear Metro, although that is not a tram-train, but it does share tracks with heavy rail.
Karldruhe also uses Vossloh Citylink tram-trains, which are similar to the Class 399 ordered for Sheffield for operation as tram-trains to Rotherham.
The Anonymous Widower 
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