What is a Tram, Actually?

this video was indirectly suggested by my patrons over on patreon well partially on a video dealing with the cuden trams I got asked if so much of the tram system is just reworked Railway line is it even actually a tram system an interesting question that surely had a simple answer I thought but then I saw an online discussion about these these are new buses coming into service in South London next year that are being described as tram buses well I'd just call that a bus and the more I thought about it the more I found myself thinking what even is a tram how do you define what a tram is and how does it differ from other vehicles think about it this is a tram this is a tram this looks nothing like those but nevertheless it is a tram this does look like a tram but it isn't this ran on a Tramway but it isn't a tram this would once have been called a tram but it clearly isn't so what exactly is a tram well let's do what every hack writer and school pupil with an essay to pad out does and look at the dictionary according to the Oxford dictionary Lads a tram is a passenger vehicle powered by electricity conveyed by overhead cables and running on Rails laid in a public road well on that basis quite a lot of trams in the UK aren't trams or at least not entirely the systems in London Manchester and Edinburgh all include tracks that are segregated from the road often the tracks aren't even accessible from the street that goes for every line that used to be a railway for instance but okay let's say for the sake of argument that it has to have at least part of the line running on or alongside the street not that everything that runs on a track in the street is a tram conventional trains quite often run on the street especially in industrial areas this locomotive Shannon was constructed for the wage Tramway company and haed mostly conventional trains that ran on a roadside Tramway how about the passenger vehicle part there are freight trams but they aren't very widespread bread this one is the cargo tram of Dresden which ran from 2001 to 2020 and delivered car parts to the Volkswagen factory Freight trams are rare though the cargo tram was useful because it was a frequent service along a single route unless either you have a service that requires heavy use of a single route or you're delivering to and from places on the tram line it's easier to send cargo by lorri there are also maintenance trams which of course do not normally carry passengers but again these are not common compared to the passenger trams what about that electricity thing trams are usually powered by electricity these days but the Douglas bay horse Tramway on the aisle of man isn't trams have been powered by horses steam internal combustion natural gas ammonia and just about any other form of power you can think of but oddly enough while I'm being pedantic about the power source the idea that a tram must be powered by electricity is actually a very old one have you ever wondered why trolley buses are called trolley buses it's because another word for a tram at least in America is a trolley in fact back in the early 20th century trolley buses were also called trackless trams so clearly it was thought that tram equals powered from overhead line even while Steam and horse trams were still in service there are other vehicles known as trams that are trackless there are rubber tired trams which use a rail to guide them but otherwise act very much like trolley buses there is the autonomous rail rapid transit system which looks like a tram but uses no rails at all and is optically guided I wouldn't call that a tram and nor does the law in most places they're legally classed as buses speaking of what makes a tram bus like the one we talked about at the beginning well according to the manufacturer irizar which I may be pronouncing wrong it's because they're set out like a tram they have a similar internal layout and they have low floors but not all trams have low floors look at the ones in Manchester the other way in which these buses resemble trams is that they will be recharged using a Pantagraph on an overhead wire at the end of their route so I'd say that really they're just a variant on the trolley bus wait a second tram trolley trolley bus tram bus H so in the end what are the characteristics of a tram it's a passenger vehicle except when it isn't it's powered by electricity except when it isn't it runs along tracks set into the road except when it doesn't it seems Frank that a tram is anything that's called a tram UK tram a representative body consisting of people involved in the Tramway industry has their own definition they state that a tram line is a line wholly or in part along the street to which the public have access it is holy or mainly used for the carriage of passengers it uses parallel rails which provide support and guidance for vehicles carried on flanged Wheels so there go the buses that want to be trams they may however fall under legislation covering road vehicles an interesting additional Point UK tram uses is that tram lines use line of sight operation trains are Guided by signals and the driver operates on the basis that there's not going to be anything on the track trams operate on the basis that there might well be something or someone on the track and therefore they operate at a limited speed and can be stopped fairly quickly this also means means that they can operate quite close together without fear of collision and that you cannot at present have a driverless tram I'm going to throw something else into the mix a tram is a light rail vehicle I don't think you can find anything in modern operation on a Tramway that could be called a heavy rail vehicle or even is compatible with heavy rail so let's consider all this and see if we can't come up with a usable definition a tram is a light rail vehicle usually but not not always used for passengers it is capable of Street running even if it doesn't always do so these days it is usually powered by electricity and it is operated using line of sight but even UK tram admits that their guidance is just guidance rather than rules so ultimately in answer to the question posed by the title well I hope you enjoyed this video if so please do leave a like and you may wish to subscribe for more I would like to thank as ever my donors on Kofi and patreon and here on YouTube for your support you are the clear guidelines to my vague suggestions and I will see you all again very soon cheerio

Channel: Jago Hazzard

Views: 43,566

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Id: sT_XBdjPHeM

Length: 8min 20sec (500 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 07 2024