Tram-Trains: A New Approach to Trams

[@bobi7152]

Good news! Nürnberg just approved a tram train to Erlangen!

[@carljo002]

Isn't it just a suburban tram line?

[@zeugundso]

​@@carljo002 it certainly has elements of a train as it will provide city to city connections from nuremberg to erlangen to herzogenaurach as well as higher speeds on connecting segments

[@Talon5516-tx3ih]

@@zeugundso A tram train goes onto existing heavy rail lines and replaces regional trains - or looking at it the other way, the regional trains can go onto the streets like a tram. Karlsruhe's network is about 500Km - i.e. that's the regional train network with a small amount in the city centre (in Heilbronn city centre too). If you're sharing the tracks with a goods train or an ICE, then you're on a tram train. I don't think anything like that is planned for Erlangen.

[@zeugundso]

@@Talon5516-tx3ih I just have a problem calling it a suburban tram as the city to city connections are a key part of the plan. It creates a rail connection between Erlangen and Herzogenaurach which hadn't had one for decades. Feel free to go to Herzogenaurach and tell them they are a "suburb" of Nuremberg though :D The term regio-tram is maybe more applicable.

[@Talon5516-tx3ih]

@@zeugundso We can argue all day about terminology :). I see they're calling it StUB for Stadt-Umland Bahn. I wouldn't translate Umland as suburban, but "surrounding area" which could be rural. That makes it sound more like an S-Bahn, but with tram vehicles.

[@doctorhabilthcjesus4610]

Your pronounciation of german street names is correct. Your accent is perfectly understandable, so everything is valid.

[@LuGer212]

yaaay, Karlsruhe Stadtbahn for the win! :D

[@PhoenixHen]

Hungary also runs a tram-train service between Szeged and Hódmezővásárhely

[@Pidalin]

We will buy tram/train units from Hungary if I know for our planned lines here in Czechia, but I didn't hear about that for a few years, so I don't know if they still want to do it.

[@magmastered]

5:20 The Kaiserstraße was already pedestrianised before just like most German inner cities, so it was clear it will stay pedestrianised.

[@TheTramly]

Fair point, I meant is as in the way of the city going "hey, this space isn't being used by tram-trains anymore, let's replace them with cars!", because I know that there's a like 50% chance that that would happen here in my home city of Prague, Czech Republic 😭😭

[@CharlsonS]

I want to add one thing: the biggest appeal of the Karlsruhe model is to quickly expand the tram system into the suburban area by taking over railways will little or no passenger service. When the S1 was extended to Neureut they initially wanted to build it on its very own tracks, but then it was decided to use the mostly disused Hardtbahn. Some of the railways used today by tram trains maybe would not exist today if it wasn't for the Karlsruhe model.

[@Tonydjjokerit]

Very true. We have this now in the UK such as cities in Sheffield and soon to be Cardiff!

[@tobs2470]

Nice to see Chemnitzer City-Bahn Tram-Trains being (shortly) mentioned as well! It's a really great system here!

[@OssWiX]

The Randstadrail actually used to he a heavy railway line converted into a line where on a limited section the right of way is shared between trams and the Rotterdam metro.

[@TheTramly]

Probably should've gone into more detail, yes, the Randstadrail includes the Rotterdam E metro line, however, it's now a tram-train system, so I think my explanation of it in the video still stands

[@gosudoyourself]

During the time I lived in Philadelphia, the 100 line was known as the "Norristown High Speed Line." It seems SEPTA has finally realized how ridiculous a name that is for a line with a top speed of 89 km/h and an average speed of 39 km/h, because now they're re-branding it again as the M.

[@randomscb-40charger78]

By the standards of interurbans and streetcars, that's pretty fast, but I'd prefer it if they called it just the Norristown Line.

[@snowless456]

@@randomscb-40charger78yea but there’s already the Norristown regional rail line

[@felixw19]

Ok a few corrections about Karlsruhe, since I happen to be a public transit nerd who lives there. 4:38 yes, this route shown here was the first to be operated by the new vehicles. HOWEVER on this route the vehicles didn't run into the city center, but to the central station (which is outside of the city center by more than a kilometer) completely on heavy rail lines. The connection to the tram network didn't exist yet. The first actual tram-train line that used both the tram network and the heavy rail network, was the line to Bretten in 1992. 5:21 Kaiserstraße was already pedestrianized for decades before 2021. Just with trams running though the pedestrian street. 5:46 other cities with Tram-trains are Saarbrücken and Mulhouse

[@ricktownend9144]

In the UK, it has taken absolutely ages to get any tram-trains working - in fact we have only one: a 3.67 km extension of the Sheffield 'Supertram' system to Rotherham. It has highlighted a 'con' you didn't mention: the different platform heights of the Sheffield trams, and the standard UK rail network, meaning that Rotherham station has had to have an extension built for the trams! Another 'con' is needing special wheels which will operate over heavy-rail and urban tram tracks In fact, having watched this video again, most of the other UK tram systems include parts which are like 'inter-urbans': Blackpool (which never lost its trams) runs 7 miles to Fleetwood, though not on heavy-rail tracks; Manchester Metrolink (trams) used the routes of closed heavy-rail tracks to Altrincham and Bury (each about 12km from the city centre) as did London Tramlink for almost all its branches. Edinburgh has an 8km extension to the Airport, after it leaves its street-running section. Even the Tram Museum (Crich, Derbyshire) has a country extension, and the Seaton narrow-gauge tourist tramway uses the trace of the closed Seaton railway branchline. Most exciting, though, will be Cardiff's 'South Wales Metro' project which will use real modern tram-trains for one of its two lines, using existing heavy rail infrastructure, and new-build street tracks in the centre. Díky za další zajímavé video!

[@mdhazeldine]

I don't think those cons are cons if you plan for the system to be a tram-train from the beginning. It sounds to me like in Sheffield's case, it was originally envisaged as a proper tram system at the start, and they only later had the idea to extend it, and that's when the problems started.

[@Talon5516-tx3ih]

I'm surprised anyone pays attention to platform heights in the UK as they never seem to match the trains. Germany largely ignores the problems too. In Karlsruhe the tram-trains have a higher floor height than the trams so level boarding is pretty patchy. The new underground stations had to be built longer than required in order to have two different platform heights - and I don't think that works either as here are several different vehicle types in operation.

[@Tonydjjokerit]

Same with the Tyne and Wear Metro using the former suburban lines to the Coast and South Shields!

[@veronikakerman6536]

The tram tacks could be build with a rail profile matching heavy rails, then, no special wheels would be needed. I am not aware that one vehicle can actually operate where the rail profiles do not match. I would not see it as a con, but rather a barrier to entry. It is a big problem tho, along with electrification voltages and signalling. A tram running on 25kV AC with ETCS?

[@Talon5516-tx3ih]

@@veronikakerman6536 Karlsruhe solved these problems decades ago and they run on 15KV AC on the train tracks and switch to 750V DC in the city (there is actually a 750V DC line outside the city as well before any pedants jump in). Not ETCS, though I guess there's no reason why not, but they must be equipped for PZB signalling.

[@Dietsch_]

I would like to note that the randstandrail line is more of an interurban Metro instead of a tram train but the line between Den Haag and Zoetermeer is a Tram train, we also have one in Utrecht between Utrecht and Niewegein/Ijsselstein

[@mdhazeldine]

I could be wrong, but it seems to me like the most common use of these systems is when you have two cities fairly close together and a tram-train links the two. It's almost like two tram lines that connect together into one longer one. Beyond a certain distance apart it becomes a bit pointless because the journey time would be too slow, and then you need a proper heavy rail system to travel between the cities. Rotterdam and The Hague (with Delft in between) is quite interesting, because there is a heavy rail line AND a tram-train between them, and the Hague and Delft has a standard tram line linking the two. So you have all 3 modes basically all running parallel. I visited there this summer and while I would've taken heavy rail from the Hague to Delft (as it's only 10 minutes), the line was closed for maintenance and I had to take the tram. It took like 25 minutes, but at least there was an alternative, and there were many people getting on/off along the route that would not have used the heavy rail system even if it had been working as it skips all those places.

[@Pidalin]

Yes, you are right, nice example are cities Liberec and Jablonec in Czechia or Katowice region in Poland, you have several bigger cities almost connected together, so you don't even realize it's intercity tram system. But you can build trams even in places where normal trains would be to heavy and expensive, also it's easier to find and train tram drivers than train operators and with low unemployment in Europe where it is hard to find people, this is really a massive difference.

[@laurentschmidt2758]

4:40 while there were already tramtrains between Karlsruhe and Pforzheim in 1992, those simply replaced conventional trains and ran exlusively on DB-tracks. The first real tramtrain service ever was started on Sep 25, 1992 between Karlsruhe Albtalbahnhof via the city-centre to Bretten Gölshausen with the change from 750 V DC to 15 kV AC happening between Durlach and Grötzingen and the border between operation as tram vs train in Grötzingen station 4:50 these are not just tramtrain-tunnels these are tram/tramtrain tunnels; these tunnels are used by 20 tramtrains per hour - outnumbered however by 48 trams per hour

[@melotron91]

my hometown is also looking into building a tram-train in the future. (Oradea, Romania - about 200.000 people in the city + surrounding areas). looking forward to see them in action!

[@cityforall]

Thanks for interesting video! Bloopers are very cute :)

[@TheTramly]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the video

[@IamTheHolypumpkin]

Frankfurt is Building it’s first Tram-Train right now. Although it doesn’t go into the city center but purposefully avoids it as a circumferencial line. It should rather be called Stadtbahn-Train or U-Bahn-Train, as there’s no interlining with any tram and even interlining with the U-Bahn is restricted Tina few hundred meters at on of the three norther termini. Still it operates like a tram parts of the way, so it’s a Tram-Train

[@TheTramly]

Circumferential rail lines for the win!! We badly need one here in Prague, although it's not happening anytime soon (AKA in this century) 💀

[@tripmood365]

Great tram video, my friend 🍁

[@carljo002]

It Kind of feels like Karlsruhe's City Center is dead because the trams don't run above ground anymore. Also I think they didn't have to build a Tunnel, they could've used nearby Kriegsstraße just south of Kaiserstraße as a corridor for the tram trains, keeping the Standard low floor trams on Kaiserstraße and probably saving a lot of money.

[@CharlsonS]

Counterpoint: we needed the tunnel because the surface alignment really sucked and Kriegsstraße alone is plain and simple not a good enough substitute.

[@carljo002]

@@CharlsonS Fair enough, but still, 1,5 Billion (projections from 2021) is really expensive

[@hluos7uhluos7u94]

We have them here in my German city. They use electricity in the city stops but change to diesel and rush out of the city to nearby places and smaller cities. They are great, ruined by idiotic tarrif zones that are complicated and expensive.

[@oskarsyren]

I would love to see a video on the Silesian interurban system!

[@aoilpe]

I’m quite satisfied with the first French Tram-Train between Mulhouse-Ville and Thann.

[@markusstudeli2997]

Swiss cities like Basel, Bern and Zürich took a different approach by simply extending (narrow gauge) tram lines far beyond city limits into suburbs and surrounding towns. Examples are the new Limmatthal Line and the Glatthal Line in Zürich, the Tram Line 10 from Basel to Rodersdorf or the Tram Line 6 from Bern to Worb. To share regular train line tracks seems like too big a risk, given the fact that Switzerland counts on the clock-face scheduling of regular trains, and the risk of trams delaying regional or interregional trains would be far too great. Swiss trams also often have to navigate through narrow and curvy old towns, so having 1000 mm narrow gauge tracks as a tram standard is advantageous. But this also doesn't allow trams to switch to the regular train network. In other countries, such tram trains make sense, particularly if hardly used old train lines exist that can easily be shared between tram and freight trains, for example.

[@MrToradragon]

During the early days of railways, it rather seems like other things like tax revenues or impacts on private properties or military functions of fortifications were taken into consideration, rather than environmental impacts of smoke. Also in those early days, technology was quite poor and lines build up to 1840's had to have curves with quite large radius, so options where and how to build were limited. Also technology of switches was limited, so stations had often relied on turntables. Another thing to consider is that at that time cities were still often confined by walls and properties behind the walls were expensive. Also in early days there was not that much of a difference between railways and tram lines that had utilized steel rails (some tram systems had used steel plates on wooden beams, but that was also the case of first railways) and railway goods carriages were transported to customers in city over the tram lines. (The limiting factor there are flanges of carriages and grooves of the tram rails) There also were, before electric trams, steam trams, basically small locomotive that had pulled special carriages around the city Some of those can also operate with limitations, on standard railways. It basically all goes down to flanges. I do not think that interurban trains of North America and tram(trains) of Europe should be mixed, those system had originated from different needs, distances and societies and also from different organization of railway network. Where in the USA it made sense to build new electrified line, in Europe was most likely already served by some main line or could be served by combination of main line and branch line. Another thing to consider about the demise of US tram networks is that by the 1950's most of the equipment was ate the end of it's operating life and maintenance was not the best in 1930's and 1940's, so buses and cars were most likely the cheaper option. Another thing to take into account is whether the traditional railway infrastructure has to have sufficient free capacity, which is usually not the case in and around the Prague and also perhaps case of many other major European cities. So there is possibility that tram-trains would have to be too expensive to implement compared to simple fast tram line. I simply can't imagine, that Prague would implement tram-trains on any line that goes towards Elbe, nor on line going to southern or Western Bohemia, those lines are already used at their full capacity. So the system would be confined maybe to two lines out of which perhaps only line to Dobříš would see some benefits of tram-trains as in case of line do Rudná, it would perhaps make more sense to extend metro B those 6 kilometres from works at Zličín. Another thing to consider is whether the given city also has metro or not as in such case maybe it would make more sense to bring metro to some railway stations at outskirts of city where passengers would change from train to metro than to build tram-train system that would do more or less the same job.

[@federicomarintuc]

0:01 this is THE tram

[@danieleyre8913]

New approach? Karlsruhe has had them for 35 years! Some of the system’s original units have already been retired and scrapped! And no they’re not any “approach to trams”, you have it the wrong way around. They’re an approach to trains! They’re essentially mainline trains that can also run on some of the tram network.

[@TheTramly]

Well, in the grand scheme of things, they're still quite new and arguably, yeah, they're probably more of a new approach to trains rather than trams, however, they're not exactly traditional trams either, so.. I think the title could still stand

[@danieleyre8913]

@@TheTramly The concept was around in the USA in the early-mid 20th century as the “interurban”; Long distance light rail that would use the street car network in the CBD. The big difference is that the tram-trains use the mainline instead of a light rail system.

[@CharlsonS]

They are an approach to trams. They are definitely not trains lol. The Real struggle was to get trams running on the mainline, not the other way around.

[@danieleyre8913]

@@CharlsonS _”They’re definitely not trains lol”_ Nah, silly me, they only operate on mainline rail infrastructure, and meet mainline regulations. How could I possibly think that by meeting the definition of a train; they’re trains?

[@CharlsonS]

​@@danieleyre8913and they operate on tramways as well? The idea of the Karlsruhe model was to get trams out onto the mainline and not to get trains into the city. The vehicles have the base design of trams accommodated to mainline standarts.

[@radio_marco]

I think Basel also has some sorts of Tram-Trains.

[@Myrtone]

How about freight tram-trains? Re 6:49 I wonder if the delays could increase the need for schedule padding on the national rail network.

[@CaseysTrains]

Interurbans (and Philadelphia) mentioned! By the way Route 100 is being renamed to the M Line in 2025 after years of people confusingly calling it the Norristown Hi-Speed Line which is such a misnomer its not even funny. 55 MPH isn't flippin' Hi-Speed! Even for a Tram Train. South Shore got us beat on that part.

[@danukil7703]

Thank you for the explainer! I can imagine how tram-train systems would be good for cities and towns with preexisting tram lines, but would you argue that tram-trains would also be better than more standard metro systems for cities without tram lines?

[@DiamondKingStudios]

The tram-train model sounds like it could work in Lancaster County, PA, which has about 553,000 residents and used to be served by the Conestoga Traction Company. The boroughs and other such developed parts of the county, which generally precede the rise of the automobile, are still compact enough and relatively free of low-density sprawl that I could see a tram-train working there if the RRTA had the funds to build it and could cooperate with Lebanon, Dauphin, York, and Chester Counties and the freight railroads for some of the further destinations. In fact, due to how much railroad trackage was built in the United States, of the lines that are still active, there are plenty of places that could be used for tram-trains (of which a few actually have to some extent), if only the owners of that trackage could agree to put wires overhead.

[@danukil7703]

@@DiamondKingStudios I hope it would work! However, I do wonder what the response of the Amish population in Lancaster County would be to a tram-train. I have no familiarity with the traidtions of the local Amish community, nor have I ever been to Lancaster County, PA

[@DiamondKingStudios]

@@danukil7703 I haven’t spent much time there, either; I’m only familiar with the area due to family living there. I feel the Amish would probably be just as fine with it as they were in the late 1800s when the original interurbans were developed, or as when the highways were built. They probably wouldn’t use it, but that’s fine; enough people live in the towns that I think would use it, as it may allow more Lancaster residents to move out to Lititz, Ephrata, Landisville, Manheim, Columbia, and East Petersburg, among other townships, boroughs, and CDPs, and commute to the city for work. It would also make easier travel to Harrisburg, Lebanon, Reading, York, and perhaps connect with the SEPTA Paoli/Thorndale Line if that gets extended to Coatesville. If I ever wanted to visit Landisville specifically again, I’d make use of a tram-train once I arrived at Amtrak’s Lancaster station. I just brought up Lancaster County because of its compact development and history of interurbans.

[@ob0273]

Představoval bych si to trochu detailnější, třeba o konkrétním využití. Spousta lidí (i já dřív) si to představuje jako odlehčený vlak, že to pojede z nějaké zastávky menšího města a přijede to do většího města, kde to bude jezdit v ulicích. V češtině tomu pomáhá název vlakotramvaj dávající do popředí to slovo vlak. Ale tak to není, je to primárně tramvaj, která může jet i po klasických kolejích - tedy v tom menším městě pojede ulicemi, kde posbírá lidi, kteří to mají daleko na zastávku, přijede po kolejích do města a pak je vyloží buď na nádraží nebo může opět sjet do ulic ve velkém městě (ale není úplně šťastné v hodně velkých městech, kde trvá dlouho, než tramvaj přejede z jednoho konce na druhý). Já si to taky dřív představoval špatně, proto mám pocit, že to chce víc vysvětlení. Každopádně video je povedené i tak, dobrá práce.

[@BLACKSTA361]

Hopefully Manchester goes all in on Tram Trains

[@petrpinc7695]

Hopefully Manchester combines trams and buses under same ticket system. It is ridiculous, when you need two different tickets for travel in the same city-centre. Buses have problems of their own. 1 single door for getting on and off. Barely any information display if any, what the next stop will be. In some buses there is not even a single line display. Another problem. I do not know how mothers with large babytrollers or immobiles on wheelchairs turn 90° and get through that narrow aisle. Is it really necessary to make that aisle narrow with a cabinet for newspapers? Ridiculous.

[@BLACKSTA361]

@@petrpinc7695 And Trains. Manchester has some of the worst Train System of any Major City of their size. But the potential is there Like you said. If they want the System overall to become successful they need to do those little things right first

[@arxligion]

Here we just call this light rail.. they go straight from streets downtown to the suburbs and can go fairly fast

[@petergaskin1811]

That's why the Germans have S-Bahn (suburban services), StadtBahn (inter-urban services) and Straßenbahn (tramlines).

[@danieleyre8913]

S-Bahn is an urban rail network/system that uses the mainline railway infrastructure (as owned by DeutscheBahn). Stadtbahn is an urban rail network that has its own custom railway system/infrastructure (thus is a light rail system). S-Bahn and Stadtbahn do the same job, they just do it on different systems. Strassenbahn is a regular tram system. U-Bahn is a metro. U-Stadtbahn is a premetro or light metro system. All of these are generally run by civic or state governments.

[@Pidalin]

@@danieleyre8913 German "S-bahn" is just renaming normal trains to S system. 🙂 We did this even here in Czechia and all bigger cities mostly have their own "s-bahn-like" system now, but these lines existed already before.

[@bahnspotterEU]

@@Pidalin Not originally. The term "S-Bahn" has been bastardised to just being rebranded regional trains. Originally though, it was very much city- and commuter-focused. Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich, Rhein-Main etc. show that very well.

[@Pidalin]

@@bahnspotterEU Here in Czechia for example around Prague, these S lines go like 1 hour ride around Prague, it's not just close surroundings, but 1 hour by train is still pretty normal commuting time for a lot of people, especially for those who love to stay in traffic jams.

[@2712animefreak]

There is one more issue. It isn't that big, but it needs to be mentioned. Since you're driving the vehicle both on the street and on railways, your drivers need to be licenced for both tram and for train operations, and the you'll likely have to facilitate training employees for both yourself.

[@robertheinrich2994]

excuse your pronounciation of the german street names? why? they were pretty spot on.

[@petrhajduk9955]

In Czechia German language teachers are strict you know :D On a more technical level, best source nowadays is probably wikipedia article about the place with IPA transcription in [brackets].

[@robertheinrich2994]

@@petrhajduk9955 that's a fair point and a great suggestion where to look.

[@TheTramly]

Thank you! My German isn't exactly great, and trust me, if I included every single mispronunciation of a German street/town name in the blooper reel, it would've been a whole video in and of itself💀💀

[@robertheinrich2994]

@@TheTramly but you are trying. and you are trying very hard. and if pays off, it was good.

[@friz64_]

yayy I live there :3

[@FunAngelo2005]

It litteraly is just a in-town train

[@TohaBgood2]

Dude, this is just called light rail in the US. Almost all of the US light rail systems fit this description and use the same (usually Siemens S700/200) tram-trains.

[@petrhajduk9955]

Yes and no, light-rail is typically purpose-built, but tram-train tries to benefit from existing tram or train infrastructure. But yeah somebody could perhaps dive deeper into the interurban - light-rail - tram-train triangle.

[@TohaBgood2]

@@petrhajduk9955 It's sort of an open "secret" that US light rail is by need and by default interuban. In the US the FRA does not allow mixing of passenger and freight without satisfying onerous crash standards, but most of the modern US light rail system use either old interurban rights of way or bought out freight rights of way. In other words, there's a reason why the longest tram lines in the world are always in the US.

[@mikeblatzheim2797]

​@@TohaBgood2 But they aren't in the US. Afaik the longest purely tram line is the Kusttram in Belgium. Meanwhile there are some lines in the Karlsruhe system using tram/train vehicles that extend over 40 miles. I'm not aware of any US tram line that comes even close to that. Things like the NJ River line aren't trams.

[@TohaBgood2]

@@mikeblatzheim2797What you said is not accurate. The longest tram line in the world is the LA A line. And US light rail lines tend to be extremely long since most of them serve faraway suburbs and converge downtown. "The A Line runs 48.5 miles (78.1 km)[2] between Azusa and Downtown Long Beach, serving 44 stations. It is the longest light rail line in the world, surpassing the 42-mile (68 km) Coast Tram in Belgium."

[@mikeblatzheim2797]

@@TohaBgood2 If you're going to quote straight from Wikipedia, at least do the decent thing by not omitting "since 2023". US light rail lines aren't exeptionally long, and I don't know where you got that impression from. In the Ruhr area, light rail lines don't just serve faraway suburbs, but neighbouring cities as well. Lines of around 30 miles in length aren't uncommon. Line 5 in Mannheim for example is a ring line with a length of over 40 miles. Of course, those lines are in addition to usually extensive heavy rail and bus transport. And then there's Karlsruhe. For some reason I couldn't find official lengths for their lines, but even just entering the end points into google maps gives you distances of 55 miles for the S8 (which used to be significantly longer), and over 70 miles for the S4. Sure, on some parts those lines may run on heavy rail lines, but the vehicles they use are most definitely light rail. No other city comes close to that.

[@allanegleston4931]

please note , nice vid , but there are many examples of " heavy rail" in urban ares in the united states with prupulsion inclding electric third rail. overhead and disel power . one such system is the los angles california usa metrolinkg wich uses locs and bi level cars . i like this concept . please spread it . greeting from usa.

[@allanegleston4931]

there is a hydrogen fuel cell tram train running in riverside ca usa. brand new service

[@williamhuang8309]

Tram trains look really attractive for smaller cities with smaller towns that are close to each other But if the towns are too far apart then using heavy rail which can hit higher top speeds than a tram would be better

[@TheTramly]

Absolutely, tram trains are definitely a viable solution, but it all depends on the specific needs of the city/town/region

[@Pidalin]

In some places, classic trains would be too heavy and have too big capacity which you don't need, some tram system separate from classic railway could be better. But problem is that in small cities, pretty much everyone is a car person, so they will block these ideas by who they vote in elections, they don't want any trams, they want more parking.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

⁠@@PidalinI grew up in a smaller city (200k) that had a variety of cities of similar and larger size within two hundred miles in different directions, and I always wanted some way other than by the highways to reach them, which we used to have (before the 1950s; the last one was part of a long-distance service that ran twice a week and closed in 1971). Unfortunately I was probably one of few.

[@Pidalin]

@@DiamondKingStudios Funny is what you consider smaller city in US, here in Czechia, city of 20 000 people can be capital city of it's region. 😀

[@DiamondKingStudios]

@@Pidalin But the region capital is almost analogous to the county seat here; most US states are larger either in size or population (often both) than your entire country.

[@Pidalin]

I very like idea of "intervillage tram," but you always hear about such ideas, but nothing happens in reality. Problem is that out of bigger cities, everyone is a car person, so to build tram tracks would be against their religion and they would block it by their votes, so it would have to be forced to them by central government, so they would vote even more radical parties later, like our "car-nazi" party Motoristé, they will turn all railways into parking. 😀 I visited Katowice 2 times and their trams are pretty crazy, firstly because of how it is weird to go 2 hours by tram and second, tracks out of Katowice center are in terrible condition, so when you have such system, it's also important to maintain it properly.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

What you said in the end about needing to maintain important systems, here in the United States we built too many highways and roads to be able to do that; it’s cheaper to take the loans and build another residential subdivision, roads and all, farther away from town and wait thirty more years to worry about it again.

[@josnagels8038]

Tauranga, NZ would be ideal for train and trams, yet Anti Rail governance influenced by road profiteering cronies dismisses this solution, so it’s NZ’s most car dependent “car sewer” city. Transportation plans are reminiscent of outmoded 1950’s American extravagant model, Billions on more roads, greater congestion creating a liability which will bankrupt communities, with the 2020’s nonsense excuse being “climate friendly” roads. The stupidity of ignoring obvious rail transit solution is simply unbelievable… but the Big Road Cartels must entrap roads for ongoing daily profiteering whilst ruining lifestyles and the planet. Present 2024 govt has now defunded rail 97%. The increased future highway budgeted expenditure is simply astronomical for next decade whist NZ Railways upkeep allowance is reduced to one tenth of Roading Expenditure Monies, yet rail proportionally carries more freight (plus passengers if such trains were reinstated). NZ has a truly unbalanced, unsustainable road transportation that will maximally burden citizens for the future. Positively many people want their trains back, but by stealth, powerful vested interests obstruct that direction.

[@oskarsyren]

Yep you butchered that. Zoetermeer is pronounced pretty much like you would read it in English. Zoo-ter-mere

[@Cptn.Viridian]

Tram trains is such a silly name. Just call them Interurbans please I beg you.

[@josnagels8038]

Tauranga, NZ would be ideal for train and trams, yet Anti Rail governance influenced by road profiteering cronies dismisses this solution, so it’s NZ’s most car dependent “car sewer” city. Transportation plans are reminiscent of outmoded 1950’s American extravagant model, Billions on more roads, greater congestion creating a liability which will bankrupt communities, with the 2020’s nonsense excuse being “climate friendly” roads. The stupidity of ignoring obvious rail transit solution is simply unbelievable… but the Big Road Cartels must entrap roads for ongoing daily profiteering whilst ruining lifestyles and the planet. Present 2024 govt has now defunded rail 97%. The increased future highway budgeted expenditure is simply astronomical for next decade whist NZ Railways upkeep allowance is reduced to one tenth of Roading Expenditure Monies, yet rail proportionally carries more freight (plus passengers if such trains were reinstated). NZ has a truly unbalanced, unsustainable road transportation that will maximally burden citizens for the future. Positively many people want their trains back, but by stealth, powerful vested interests obstruct that direction.