Re: WAY OT: Fw: [Tramnews] Trams to be taken off Calcutta roads inphases

I guess the current "back to rails" trend has not reached the Indian continent!

"Peter D. Ehrlich" wrote:

> Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 05:38:55 -0300
> From: "Marcelo Benoit" <mmbenoit@a...>
> Subject: Trams to be taken off Calcutta roads in phases

I know this is way off topic, gang, but I thought you'd be interested in
this forwarded message from the [Tramnews] web site.  A picture of a
Calcutta tram appeared in the June 1996 issue of the now-defunct Passenger
Train Journal (along with three PCC articles, one of them written by me).
The URL is below.

The incredibly decrepit 6-axle Calcutta trams have their window spaces
covered with wire mesh, including where the windscreen would be.   LOL

Milantram
>
>     http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/sep/20tram.htm
>
> Trams, the eco-friendly, slow moving mass transport system might be
> reaching the end of the road in Calcutta, the only city in the country
> where these two-carriage cars run.
>
> "Though a symbol of the metropolis's heritage, the trams will have to
> be removed in a phased manner to decongest roads," West Bengal
> Transport Minister Subhash Chakraborty said, unveiling an ambitious Rs
> 164.79 billion master plan for traffic and transportation in Calcutta
> metropolitan area.
>
> "We will keep a patch or two to operate heritage trams, but the rest
> will be taken off the roads to provide the city additional 76-km of
> arterial road space," he told a seminar attended by five of his
> cabinet colleagues.
>
> Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta pointed out that the move would not
> lead to unemployment as the tram workers would be absorbed in buses
> run by the Calcutta Tramways Company.
>
> "If we remove tramlines from the huge stretches of APC Road, AJC Road
> and Rashbehari avenue, there would be ample space to construct a
> six-lane roadway," he said.
>
> Pointing out that the Left Front government was once the biggest
> proponent of this eco-friendly mass transport system, he said recent
> cost-benefit analyses, however, had forced the government to think
> otherwise.
>
> PTI

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