Re: Re: First new tram for Sydney''s $2.1b light rail line finally unwrapped
  prescottt

If there's an axle there's usually both a ramp in the floor plus seats on plinths.

"Low floor" has an industry meaning. It's a completely stepless gangway (aisle, vestibules, door thresholds), but there may be steps up the seats immediately in front of/next to the seats. "Low entry" is the above except that the aisle is elevated in areas away from the doors.

There are trams with no steps whatsoever, even to seats, but you could count the models virtually on the fingers of one hand. The Sydney CAFs are one example. They don't have a special category, they're within the definition of "low floor", but I suppose you could call them stepless trams.

There are no completely stepless buses, impossible because of the size of those big round black things that roll along the road, but most European bus manufacturers have managed to come near-as and have been producing low floor (per definition) buses for the best part of a quarter of a century now. They're now only just starting to trickle into Australia but the local industry has been too set in old ways to take them up in any great numbers. The largest number of them are operating in Victoria.

Tony P
---InTramsDownUnder@..., <mal.rowe@...> wrote :

On 10/08/2017 4:49 PM, Matthew Geier matthew@... mailto:matthew@... [TramsDownUnder] wrote:


It actually looks like the Citadis 503 has real axles on the motor
bogies - so presumably it has ramped floors like the Melbourne E's to
get over the axles.


... or perhaps they will continue their past practice of placing the seats on plinths ...

http://tdu.to/241248/1/202_interior_20Mar2017.jpg http://tdu.to/241248/1/202_interior_20Mar2017.jpg

Mal Rowe - not sure if "100% low floor" has any real meaning at all