From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A tram inMoscow, which has one of the largest existing tram networks in the worldStreetcars inToronto--a city that operatesthe largest streetcar system in North America.A double deck tram inLondon, 1910. Double decker trams were commonplace in Great Britain andDublin before tramways were torn up in the 1950s and 1960s
Atram (tramcar,streetcar ortrolley) is a passengervehicle that is like a lighttrain. It carries people to places within a city. Because a single tram can carry many people at the same time, riding on a tram instead of driving a car is a good way to help preventpollution andstop the roads getting too busy.
The wordtram is used mainly outsideNorth America, while within North America these vehicles are calledstreetcars as they run mainly on streets. In some areas the cars are calledtrolleys as the carry a trolley pole on the roof.
More modern and larger trams manufactured since the 1970s, such as the one in the second picture fromWarsaw, are calledlight rail vehicles. These vehicles are bigger because they are very often made of two or more parts, with a bendy section in the middle which works like a humanjoint. In railway jargon, these types of vehicles are called "articulated". These may often have their own right-of-way instead of travelling on the street and their stops are usually farther apart than the stops of trams so that they can travel faster.
On Market Street inSan Francisco, vintage streetcars from the 1910s through the 1940s, called "historic streetcars" (theF Market line), that travel on the street are a popular tourist attraction. Another city whose trams are highly used by tourists isHong Kong, because here the trams havetwo floors which is very rare in the world.
Trams first came into use in the 1830s, and were pulled by horses, and sometimes called horsecars. Step by step these were replaced by electric trams.
From the 1900s to 1930s, in manymetropolitan areas in North America, there were special bigger and longer streetcars that travelled long distances to distantsuburbs and towns on what were calledinterurban lines. These streetcar lines sometimes had "dedicated tracks" with their own right-of-way (land surrounding the tracks) and made fewer local stops.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, in theUnited States, there was a conspiracy byStandard Oil,General Motors, andFirestone Rubber. They formed a company calledNational City Lines to buy streetcar systems, tear up the tracks, and replace them withbuses in almost all the cities inNorth America. They did this so they could make bigger profits by selling moreoil, buses, cars and rubbertires. This conspiracy is somewhat referred to in the 1988 filmWho Framed Roger Rabbit. Because of this, it was necessary to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds in the 1980s and 1990s to reconstruct the streetcar systems as light rail systems usinglight rail vehicles.
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