Lyon: The French City of Trams (And Much More)

leyon is France's second largest city and I think it might be one of Europe's Most underappreciated Transit metropolises with a complex and unique network of trams trains metro and more so in this edition of Transit explained let's look at the surprisingly large network of Lyon some of its many Transit modes and how it's going to get even bigger and [Music] better Leon is located in south central France in the foothills of the Alps and where the sewn and ran Rivers come together roughly 100 km west southwest of Geneva given its location the city and in particular its western parts are very hilly creating a challenging environment for public transit the high-speed line between Paris and Lyon was Europe's first high-speed route and Lyon's main trained station and the hub for high-speed tgp Services is paru station in the geographic center of the city which is seeing a number of major development projects going on to improve the facilities and the station area partu is a through station and is a major hub for international national and Regional train Services making it the busiest in the country outside of Paris Leon's primary passenger airport s exup Peri is located 17 km east of the city center and much like Paris shagal airport it's served by both regular and lowcost highp speed rail services at a dramatic connected High-Speed Rail Station like many cities in France Leon has a modern tram Network that serves the central northern eastern and southern parts of the city that was built in phases since 2001 now stretching over 100 km in length with 103 stops much like Paris leyon had a historic tram Network which was ripped out and its new tram network is of a modern design with fully dedicated lanes and unlike in Paris Lyon's network is fully connected and has always used goofy looking 100% low floor vehicles I should also say that the leyon trams are beautiful and probably the number one poster child for this type of new modern European Tramway which has spread across the continent and the globe like you'd expect with a modern tram Network vehicles used 750 volt DC overhead wires for power and run on standard gate tracks at up to 70 kmph I don't usually talk about how networks developed anymore in these videos but for Leon's trams I think it's a generally interesting thing so please indulge me the first two lines to open were T1 and T2 which are really substantial just by themselves T1 runs from a station in the south of the city across the rone to the Confluence area before again crossing the rone serving the City Center and partu Station and terminating in the city's North while T 2 runs from the Confluence areaa across the road to the east of the city where a large maintenance facility is located both of the first two lines also serve the major Leon parash station which sits squeeze between the son and Ron rivers and plays host to inter city and Regional train Services line T3 came in the mid 2000s and runs from part two to the northeast of the city along an old rail alignment with more local stops than most Regional trains around leyon but pretty wide stop spacing for a trm along with T3 came the Network's only other major mainten facility which I find kind of crazy given the network scale a few years later came T4 which initially ran from the south of the city to T2 via another Mainline rail station before it was extended North a few years later across T2 to part du connecting to T3 and then beyond to the north of the city interlined with T1 T5 kind of functions as a branch of T2 running from Midway on the route along the Eastern portion before branching to the north and heading to serve the major Euro Expo exhibition ground T6 kind of turns T1 into a 3/4 Loop running East from its Southern Terminus and cutting across both T4 and T2 before terminating in the east of the city t7 is sort of to T3 what T5 is to T2 except no new track was constructed for the route instead t7 runs from Midway along T3 to the previous event only stop serving the stadium which plays host to the olymp Leon football club this stop is a really unique design built like an angular Island platform which four trams can stop along at once allowing the stop to better handle game game day crowds and what if I told you that leyon actually has one more tram route and it's a rather unique one this route is actually an airport express tram because Leon R Express as it's called is a bit unusual and it's different from the rest of Leon's trams in a number of ways for one rather than 100% lowf floor Rolling Stock from Alem the line uses short Lux 70% low floor tram trains from Stadler with a top speed of 100 kmph as with most Airport Express routes the rone express runs from the city center in the case part de station to the airport along the same route as tram T3 with two intermediate stops the express service is enabled by a couple quad track stations further out of town and two tram stops with one directional passing Loops in more urban parts of the city which are really must-sees for anyone that loves tram infrastructure and what's great is that the express service really works with Express trams running the length of T3 in just 20 minutes instead of the 28 it takes T3 and with frequencies of 15 minutes for much of the day now what looks like a tram runs on overhead wires and is all over leyon trolleys leyon currently has nine trolley bus routes with a good mix of single and articulated trolleys with lots of doors and excellent onboard wave finding these are all used on the highfrequency sea routes across the city which provide a great all day service to complement the trams what's also great is that the trolleys like the trams move through the city very quickly because they receive aggressive signal priority at intersections what I will say is that there's just something lovely and wonderful about watching people riding on Lyon's numerous bike Lanes as trolley whiz by this is the future I want for our cities now back to the topic of trams as it turns out the termin of T5 T6 and t7 are not as random as it might seem instead all of these tram stops are collocated with stations on Lyon's Metro allowing the tram to both feed passengers into the metro and expand its reach the leyon Metro is really cool it uses the same rubber tired Metro technology with 750 volt DC power provided by guide bars as seen in Paris SMUD loan and Mexico City but it's the only such system with 2.9 M wide cars that allow it to move far more people the network first opened in the late 1970s and as of late 2023 it has four lines with 42 stations mostly with side platforms as with most French metros along 34 km of track and the system moves the better part of a million Riders every single day much of the network was built cut and cover like many Metro systems however trains run on the left like with National Rail in France as plans originally called for through run of Mainline trains as with the Subways of Tokyo the first line on the Metro is line a like the re in Paris Leon's Metro lines are given letters which is pretty uncommon this line has 14 stations over roughly 9 km of route and runs from the Terminus of t7 along the north of the city before crossing the rone and turning South to terminate at parash station line B opened at the same time as line a at the opening of the network and was originally planned to be a branch of the first line however it never actually operated this way with the only relic of that plan being a trap connection to line a at line B's Northern end and a single platform station at its northern Terminus of sharen built in the space of one of the tracks today line B is 10.2 km long with 12 stations running south from line a to part du to the intersection of trams T1 and T6 before crossing the rone in a big single board tunnel on an extension that was built in the 2010s and continuing South to leyon Southern Hospital on an extension that just opened this year line D opened in the 1990s as France's first fully automated heavy metro line and like the skyron in Vancouver it features no screen doors instead relying on track intrusion sensors to make sure the tracks are clear the line runs a total of 12 1 12 km with 15 stations from the hilly west of the city under the son and rone in deep tunnels all the way to the city Southeast along a then cutand cover route forming a triangle transfer with lines A and B the southernmost station on line D actually connects to tram T4 and a Mainline rail station while the station which T5 terminates at is the first station on line D after turns to run east west as it turns out leyon loves its short Metro trains the MPL 75 trains that run on line a are just three cars long while the MPL 85 trains which run on line D have just two cars all platforms on lines a b and d are designed to accommodate four car trains though and in the late 2010s line B was actually automated like line D and new trains called the ml1 16 were ordered which come and walk through married pairs a first for the network that allows fourcc car trains to operate at times but you've probably been wondering whatever happened to L SE well L SE of the leyon Metro is extremely weird and I actually covered it as one of the 10 weirdest Railways in the world so may sure to check out that video when you're done the line opened in 1974 and runs 2.4 km with five stations North from hotel de station on line a what makes this line so weird is that it's actually converted finic line with a rack that allows the trains to climb the extreme grades at the southern end of the line between hotel theil and qua Rus that make qua pette station in the middle one of if not the steepest Metro stations in the world the line also continues North Beyond quaro station but as a more boring steel wheel overhead line powered Metro without a rack what I do find interesting is how the trains really do look just like the rubber tired MPL 75 stock even though they are quite different speaking of phics leyon actually has two more running from sanjan on Leon station on the western End of Line D into the surrounding Hills the first of these F1 runs South with three stations while F2 runs to the north with two what excites me about leyon is that it's actually seeing a ton of improvement and expansion projects on its Transit Network despite it already being really good the first project which I want to mention is the extension of T6 north and west to form an Oso satisfying loop around central parts of the city alongside T1 with an extension that's set to open in 2026 there are also two entirely new Tram routes T9 and T10 which will be similar to existing routes but will extend the network to new places and strengthen existing links both lines are set to to also open in 2026 which should make it a very exciting year for French tram Fant T9 will start from a new platform at The Interchange of Metro lines A and B and then travel North alongside T1 and T4 before continuing on new tracks to the east which will take it across the canal deonas to serve the community to the north before dipping back south to connect to the Eastern Terminus of metro line a T3 t7 and the rone express T10 will run from along T4 at its interchange with Mainline rail services and line D of the Metro at its Southern Terminus to the west through the south of the city traveling past the city's Port along the rone where a large and much needed new tram maintenance Depot will be located beyond the port the line will turn west to run parallel to T1 and T6 connecting to the southernmost station on metro line B before it passes under the river and what about T8 well T8 is sort of in limbo as it was planed to run from part two to The Interchange between Metro lines A and D and is thus seen as a lower priority this is doubly so because a new underground Express tram running west from Jean Mass using a combination of existing tram tracks and deep new tunnels and stations to the west and southwest of the zone is currently moving forward to replace the previous idea of a metro line e that means only time will tell the fade of T8 fortunately Leon's trolley Roots will also be getting a big boost they've already been seeing new modern trolley buses from Swiss manufacturer hes who you might remember is also building brisbane's new Metro vehicles and the city is planning on ordering even more of these vehicles which have battery range extension capabilities to Electrify the numerous Roots which currently run on diesel this will be made possible with a significant expansion of the overhead trolley infrastructure in the city which will be used to charge buses going off wire along newly electrified routes I also personally think another project is likely to be in the cards in the future though it's not being built just yet and that's an extension of metro line B North both to parallel a heavily trafficed tram Corridor and to bring about the replacement of the rather wacky interchange with line a while for now the Metro is not being dramatically expanded what is happening is still really exciting plans call for automating line a of the metro and adding screen doors as with Metro automation projects in Paris plans also call for fully walk through automated trains on lines A and B with all mpl1 16 trains eventually moved over to line D and replacement trains for line c as well seriously enhancing the passenger experience on the network now the question I had when writing this video was which city has better Transit Montreal or leyon on one hand Montreal has a much larger Metro and one with way bigger train but Leon has tons of tram lines as well as phics trolley buses Regional trains and is doing a much better job modernizing its Metro than its Canadian cousin though Montreal does have the r it's also a much bigger city than Lyon whatever the better Metro may be let me know what you think in the comments down below and as always thanks for [Music] watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: RMTransit

Views: 71,814

Keywords: transit, transportation, rail, railway, railfan, public transit, public transport, public transportation, train, subway, metro, underground, rail transport, urban planning, lyon, lyon metro, tramway, funicular, trolley, trolleybus, france, french

Id: p56_x5YbqS4

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 09 2023