What’s Light Rail? What’s a Tram? What’s the Difference?

a subject that crops up a lot in the comments for my videos is the question of light rail what is it how does it differ from regular rail how does it differ from a tram so i thought it might be interesting to look at the question in more depth at least for the uk i mean i'm not saying light rail isn't interesting in other countries it's just not my area of interest i'm not saying that they aren't in let's go back to the beginning way back to before steam trains were even invented the term tram is so old that we don't even know where it originates but we think it's from low german it first crops up in writing in the 16th century as a term for one of those wagons they used for mines and quarries for carrying minerals and escaping thuggy pursuers a tramway was exactly what it sounds like a way for trams it might be made of wooden beams or paving slabs but the point was that it was easier than pushing the tram over the bare ground eventually people figured out that iron wheels on iron rails offered the optimum combination of low friction and hard-wearing equipment for much of the 19th century building a railway in britain was a bit of a pain in the old back side you had to get an act of parliament for one thing and jump through all sorts of hoops to get your line approved fine if you were planning a main line with heavy traffic but what if you just wanted a few miles of track to carry a handful of wagons from your village to the main network the concept of tramways gave promoters a sort of loophole a good example of the result of this is the wantage tramway in oxfordshire this opened in 1875 and connected the town center at wantage with the great western railway station at wantage road if you're a regular viewer you'll know that calling the station wantage road was the great western's way of saying nowhere near wantage trains were short the railway was only a couple of miles long there was no need for complicated infrastructure or high speed and so a tramway would do your typical tramway locomotive was small as of 1889 they had to incorporate certain safety features they had a speed governor to keep them at a safe velocity and at least in theory had to have their wheels covered and be equipped with cow catchers for the safety of other road users they usually had a bell rather than a steam whistle to avoid startling the horses they generally had two cabs to maximize visibility for the driver tramways were usually laid alongside roads for simplicity and their coaches often had balconies and steps at the end so passengers could alight at ground level little thought of accessibility in those days i fear of course you can no doubt find exceptions to all of these rules wantage tramway number five the only surviving locomotive has none of those safety features in 1896 the light railway act was passed this provided a neat little halfway house between tramways and main lines instead of an act of parliament builders only had to get a less onerous light railway order the term light railway meant more or less what it sounds like a railway that carried less traffic than a regular railway at a lower speed therefore requiring less heavy engineering it had fewer restrictions than a tramway and this resulted in a boom in the construction of light railways it also meant that older lines that would otherwise be closed down could be resurrected in a cheaper to operate form the absolute king of this practice was colonel holman f stevens who's something of a legend among railway enthusiasts his railways were distinctly ramshackle utilizing older and often mismatched rolling stock acquired from wherever he could get it on the cheap buildings would often be made of corrugated iron and track would typically be overgrown he was also one of the pioneers of cutting costs by substituting steam locomotives for cheaper internal combustion usually there was a locomotive called hesperus about the place his lines cheated death for decades and several of them are still with us today stevens was by no means the only large railway promoter but he's the most famous meanwhile street railways were becoming a popular way of getting around cities the concept of the urban tramway had been pioneered in america where rough and unpaved streets had made trams the savior of the commuting buttock in 1860 an american gentleman named george francis train whose globe trotting exploits were incidentally the inspiration for the character of filius fogg introduced the concept to britain with a line in birkenhead the concept soon spread and with light railways becoming a distinct entity the old words tram and tramway came to attach themselves specifically to urban street railways with the rise of road transport both light railways and tramways fell out of style by the 1960s only a handful remained all this is a long way from the modern concept of light rail and indeed tramways modern light rail is a very different beast as a general rule it's electrically powered purely urban and uses track that's segregated both from other railway lines and roads trains are usually smaller than mainline rolling stock and capable of taking tighter curves and steeper gradients they have a lower passenger capacity but they'll often operate more frequently than your usual train they don't carry goods travel long distances or run express services monorails don't seem to be classed as light rail despite meeting most of the criteria what you consider to be the first modern light rail system in britain is open to debate you could argue that the 1890 city and south london railway now part of the northern line was the first but the office of road and rail doesn't class the underground as light rail so i'm going to go ahead and pin the title on the late lamented liverpool overhead railway this was opened in 1893 it was an elevated railway that used electric multiple units to provide a commuter service through the liverpool docks and looked kind of like a steampunk version of the dlr or if you like the dlr looks like a cyberpunk version of the liverpool overhead railway anyway if you disagree with my assessment that's what the comment section is for what is certain is that by the 1970s light rail was coming into vogue as a clean and low-cost method of meeting the rapid transit needs of cities in britain much like colonel stevens had done in the first couple of decades of the century transport planners often took advantage of closed or underused heavy rail routes the pioneer was the tine and weir metro in 1980 this was followed in 1987 by the docklands light railway which i mostly mention because like half my stock footage is from the dlr trams have come into fashion for much the same reason as light rail they do tend to be considered a form of light rail in fact and honestly the only real difference that anyone seems to be able to put their finger on is that a tram runs on the streets rather than being segregated from the street that being said some trams really pushed the definition the croydon tram link only really runs through the streets in croydon itself being segregated for speed and convenience elsewhere so if it runs on the streets for any distance however short it is considered a tramway and if not it's a light railway there are probably exceptions to this rule because in my experience of talking about railway history there are exceptions to every rule and 500 people in the comments section will let you know what they are i hope you found this brief look at the subject interesting and maybe a little useful if you did then please do hit the like button subscribe for more and hit the bell icon to be kept up to date on future videos i'd also like to thank my wonderful donors for helping to keep this crazy venture going and i'll see you again very soon cheerio [Music] you

Channel: Jago Hazzard

Views: 106,563

Keywords: Light rail, Light railway, Tram, Trams, Tramway, Trains

Id: sLseWel747E

Length: 9min 5sec (545 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021