In 1994, the unquestionable tram capital of the world would have been
Moscow, surrounded by a galaxy of very impressive systems in countries of
the FSU. Bankruptcy and decline soon set in and within ten years or so,
these systems were greatly diminished. St Petersburg beat Melbourne for
route length but has since closed a lot of track.
In terms of patronage, some of those European systems were gigantic. The
closest Australia has ever had to an ace international public transport
system, in terms of the task performed, was the Sydney Tramway system. The
enthusiastic embrace of the automobile age post-war put a damper on every
Australian public transport system, from which they've only modestly
recovered. By the 2000s, Sydney's suburban train system looked like it was
taking off in a big way and was headed in the direction of the Sydney
tramways' peak patronage, but then it ran into capacity constraints, then
covid, from which, by the time it recovers, much of the initial part of the
Sydney Metro will be in place and taking a large chunk off the suburban
patronage, the rate of growth of which will level out somewhat.
In terms of density of operation - passengers per route km - Prague and
Budapest are in the lead (about 2.5 million passengers per route km), but
the megacities of Paris and London are rapidly catching up, by virtue of
their sheer population sizes. Some of the small systems are surprises
though. Istanbul leads the world in passengers per route km (4.4 million),
while Jerusalem is up in the league of Prague and Budapest on the same
count, an extraordinary success for a new system. Other biggies on this
count are Warsaw and Bucharest. In spite of its route length, Melbourne is
a mere cockle in the international setting, with only 800,000 passengers
per route km, sitting a little below the modest lower end of European
performers, like Brussels, Berlin and Amsterdam.
Perhaps the plaque would have been better to read "in the known world"! In
those days, only the most intrepid western tram fans had any inkling of the
tram world east of the iron curtain and the scale and technological
sophistication of it (though, ironically, Risson very likely knew quite
well). For most, beyond that wall thar be dragons. Some of the ignorance
was charming though. I was always amused at the claim that the Sydney O
class was the largest tram class in the world. If only they knew what an
international minnow the O class actually was! That claim has since faded
from the books, so obviously the knowledge base is now much larger than it
was.
Tony P
On Sunday, 12 June 2022 at 20:23:46 UTC+10andrewh...@... wrote:
> Noel, those three cities are only if you want simple, frequent and fast
> services.
>
> That isn't how the Tram Capital of the world operates but we'll happily
> accept the title.
>
> Andrew.
>
> On Sun, 12 Jun 2022 at 20:08, noe...@...> wrote:
>
>> Very debatable.
>>
>> Two or three cities I have been to on my travels would be up there,
>> Prague and Vienna with Budapest a maybe.
>>
>> NMF
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:tramsdo...@... tramsdo...@...> On
>> Behalf Of Mal Rowe
>> Sent: Sunday, 12 June 2022 3:39 PM
>> To: TramsDownUnder tramsdo...@...>
>> Subject: [TramsDownUnder] Tram Capital of the World
>>
>> It's official - Melbourne is the Tram Capital of the world.
>>
>> Yesterday took me through the Elizabeth St tram terminus for the
>> umpteenth time, but it was the first time I have noticed a plaque in the
>> pavement of the Sir Robert Risson Tram Terminus.
>>
>> It made the official (as in announced by Victoria's then Minister for
>> Public Transport) statement that Melbourne is the Tram Capital of the world.
>>
>> So that's settled.
>>
>> Mal Rowe - expecting a dissenting view from al least one TDU member
>> mentioning Prague
>>
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>