Bordeaux’s Trams
Bordeaux has three tram lines that cross in various places in the city centre.
They are larger beasts than typically and in the city centre they run using a ground current collection system, so that there are no unsightly wires.
Every tram stop seems to havce a local map, but these could show a larger area, as two or three times, the place I needed was just off the map.
The Bilbao Tram
The Bilbao Tram runs from the older part of the town, along the River Nervión, past the Guggenheim Museum and then on to the bus terminal and the northern parts of the city.
It uses the same Barik card as the Metro, but be warned you can only add money to the card using a credit card at Metro stations. They are also the only place you can buy a card.
I would also stay in a hotel close to the tram, as it is such a convenient way to get around the major sights in the centre of the city.
Although the tram stop is at the Guggenheim, you need to climb up and down a lot of steps to get to the main entrance. Or you can do what I did and go in the disabled entrance by the river!
The Nightmare That Is Croydon
I went to IKEA at Croydon, as I needed to get some drawers and seat cushions, which weren’t in stock at Edmonton. The easiest way to get there is to take the Overground to West Croydon and then get the Tramlink to Ampere Way.
The Nightmare That Is Croydon
This picture sums it all up. There was no signposting to the westbound tram stops and in the end, I had to cross the road in a long subway, take an eastbound tram and then walk across to a westbound one.
It really needs a good sort-out and it not up to the usual standard that Londoners expect.
They could also make it a lot more pedestrian friendly crossing thev road at West Croydon station and getting to and from the tram at IKEA.
They could start by putting up some proper signs to direct people who want to go west from West Croydon. It would probably at the moment mean going via East Croydon, but then hopefully signs would stop people from getting lost, like I did!
At least two pedestrian crossings with lights also need to be installed. or does Croydon have a policy of discouraging pedestrians. After all they do make bit of a mess to the motor, if you hit one hard.
There doesn’t seem to be any plans to route some westbound trains past West Croydon station, but then it does seem to me, that it’s now too late, as logically, this should have been done, when the initial lines were laid down.
Edinburgh’s Tram Infrastructure Goes In
The infrastructure for the new Edinburgh tram line appears to be substantially installed.
I still have doubts that the design of the lines isn’t the best.
Edinburgh is an important city architecturally and I do wonder if the trams should be like they are in Seville; without overhead wires. I can see the day, when all city centre trams will be like those Spanish ones. it would certainly make building the systems a lot simpler.
It does strike me too, that now I can see where the tram route goes, does it go close enough to the main station at Waverley? I asked in an earlier post, why the trams don’t go over the North Bridge in front of the station. It would appear that the original Edinburgh trams did, from a map I’ve seen. These days too, modern trams are much better at climbing hills, as they do regularly in cities like Geneva.
Perhaps Edinburgh’s biggest mistake with the trams was to start them when they did. If you were designing a system now, it would be much simpler and less disruptive to install and probably a lot cheaper too!
Disappointing Turin
One of the purposes of my trip was to visit places in Italy, that I’d never been to with C. Hence my visit to Turin, where I hoped to see some of the places made famous by The Italian Job.
It didn’t help as it was raining, but I was staying in the centre close to the main square and the cathedral.
So I just had a walk around, rode on a few trams and had a rather poor meal.
The latter was probably the most disappointing, as on this trip, I’ve eaten very well. But not in Turin. I had the worst vitello tonnato, I’ve ever had.
Do People Shout More On Trams?
I travel on buses and trains a lot.
In Manchester on one tram in particular there was a lot of shouting both directly and into mobile phones.
So do people shout more on trams? Or does the noise echo up and down?
Riding Manchester’s Trams
I had hoped to see some Eccles cakes at Eccles, but I didn’t even see a bakers, as I walked from the train to the tram.
I took the tram from Eccles to the interchange at Cornbrook, from where I went south to Didsbury Village and then back up to the centre of Manchester.
The new line to Didsbury wasn’t open, the last time I used the system and new stations seem better than the old with to me, much welcomed local maps and other improvements.
Manchester is fairly unique amongst UK tram systems in that it runs two different types of tram; the voriginal T68 and the new M5000. The new ones can also be coupled into pairs to make a four car train.
A Train Builder With Form
I have been following the farce of the Fyra trains between Brussels and Amsterdam with interest. Modern Railways this month, gives a very full account of the problems and the big row between the Dutch and the Belgians and the Italian company; AnsaldoBreda who built the V250 trains. These trains were incidentally called Albatross by the makers.
I’ve just been reading about AnsaldoBreda on Wikipedia. It says this about the problems the company has had with an order for IC4 trains for Denmark.
Delivery of 83 IC4 trainsets for the Danish State Railways DSB was originally planned for 2003-2006. As of March 2013, 22 trainsets have still not been delivered,[52] On 2 July 2012, the DSB announced that the Transportation Authority had approved Denmark’s railway operator to put back into operation the fleet of 37 IC4s which had been withdrawn from service in November 2011. In December 2011, it was reported that one of the missing IC4 trainsets planned for delivery in Denmark was found in Libya. Reportedly, AnsaldoBreda and then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi gave Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi the trainset as a present on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Gaddafi’s revolution in 2009.
I suppose now, it doesn’t work, as there is sand in the bogies!
No wonder the Dutch and the Belgians bought a load of dud trains, that go bunga bunga!
Incidentally, I was led to look up AnsaldoBreda by looking at the progress of the Midland Metro extension to Birmingham New Street station. I found that the same Italian company had sold a load of dodgy trams to the Brummies. The details are here.
Velez Malaga Sends Its Trams To Australia
The BBC World today, was dominated by this story, about how Velez Malaga was sending its trams to Australia, as it can’t afford them.
I do wonder who is footing the bill for all these Spanish practices?
A Tangle Of Wires
I took this picture at a major traffic intersection in Geneva.
A Tangle Of Wires
I think it shows how in the future we’ll see more trams using battery technology and other wireless propulsion methods, like I saw in Seville.
Imagine sorting that mess out, if say it got torn down.
The Anonymous Widower 