Why does Croydon have Trams and their Future Explained.

london is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world with one of the most iconic transit solutions in history the london underground so how come the city with the london underground also has trams well that's more of a story about trains and i'd point you to jager hazard's channel to learn about the oddities of the london underground but all you need to know is that it's because of geology and a bunch of other reasons we don't have time to go into now what is it like the seventh time or something london had trams before this network in the early 20th century but they were ripped up and removed during the interwar period then entirely just removed after the second world war in the preamble to mass vehicle ownership in the 1960s and if you want a tad bit more about trams in general in london uh go watch this video from jay foreman but in context of tram link i still think that metrolink is a better name by the way its inception was rather mundane compared to other systems the first idea of creating a new tramway was first brought forward in the 1960s when the mayor suggested the idea of running a line from east croydon to new addington a new estate being constructed just south of garden central and soon after british rail also in a private study demonstrated the relative ease of converting the line to wimbledon to accommodate trams as well both these proposals were then combined to create a system that would run between central kaiju and wimbledon new addington and beckham junction though much like the other networks across the country at the time it would have to wait for the public move to change and while the plans had been more or less completed quite early they were left dominant for around 30 40 years until momentum started to gain in the 1990s when the crowding council accepted the plans in principle we then worked along with london transport to praise plans to parliament which resulted in london transport being given required powers to build and operate the network then much like in nottingham consortiums of companies were then allowed to bid for the planning construction and operation of the network of which the big names in transport bid for until tram track croydon consortium was chosen with the tram track con coyden that is a mouthful being made up central west the royal bank of south scotland server alpine amy and bombardier transportation soon after the consortium got to work on the lines and began construction in 1997 and just three years later all the different lives of the network would all open in phases during may 2000 the rolling stock on the network currently consists of 23 bombardier acr 4 thousands and 12 vario bonds the bombardier cr4000s are part of the fight city swift family of trumps which can also be found on manchester's metro league in the form of the most recent more recent m5000 trams the vario bombs are the newer trams on the network and are from stadler the system then continued its operations under the tram track cardigan consortium from 2000 up until around 2008 when it was brought out by tfl transport for london to be clear who continued to operate tramlink presently with average journeys being around 30 million on the network not including the 2021 financial year showing the successes of the network though like most tram traffic networks in the uk bar a few the operation of the network has as of not yet not been profitable so what's next for tranlink well while several proposals have been forwarded over the recent years the only one that was being sought was the extension of the network from the terminus at wimbledon or from collier's wood to sutton though this has now been shelled thanks to the financial pressures of the kobit 19 pandemic along with other issues meaning that the extension isn't likely to see the light of day for at least a few years tramlinx network is a bit of an oddity in a city in which urban transit was effectively born but again proves the feasibility of applying crimes to different types of urban areas with high enough populations to warrant them and again shows how trans have been reintroduced successfully in the uk thanks for watching and as always have a great day

Channel: Thoroughfare

Views: 2,197

Keywords: tfl, transport for london, trams, tramlink, croydon, wimbledon, explained, croydon trams, london, transit, past and future, tube, london underground, tflnow, croydon tramlink, Croydon

Id: ylS7SUUluZ0

Length: 4min 20sec (260 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 26 2022