THE INTERNATIONAL LIGHT RAIL MAGAZINE www.lrta.org www.tautonline.com JANUARY 2016 NO. 937 PARIS: TRAMS KEY TO MULTI-MODAL SUCCESS Innsbruck tramway enjoys upgrades and expansion Bombardier sells rail division stake Brussels: EUR5.2bn investment plan First UK Citylink tram-train arrives ISSN 1460-8324 £4.25 Sound Transit Swift Rail 01 Seattle ‘goes large’ A new approach for with light rail plans UK suburban lines 9 771460 832043 For booking and sponsorship opportunities please call +44 (0) 1733 367600 or visit www.mainspring.co.uk 27-28 July 2016 Conference Aston, Birmingham, UK The 11th Annual UK Light Rail Conference and exhibition brings together over 250 decision-makers for two days of open debate covering all aspects of light rail operations and development. Delegates can explore the latest industry innovation within the event’s exhibition area and examine LRT’s role in alleviating congestion in our towns and cities and its potential for driving economic growth. VVoices from the industry… “On behalf of UKTram specifically “We are really pleased to have and the industry as a whole I send “Thank you for a brilliant welcomed the conference to the my sincere thanks for such a great conference. The dinner was really city and to help to grow it over the event. Everything about it oozed enjoyable and I just wanted to thank last two years. It’s been a pleasure quality. I think that such an event you and your team for all your hard to partner with you and the team, shows any doubters that light rail work in making the event a success. and thank you for always being in the UK is here to stay and I really appreciated the extra respective to our suggestions.” can present itself in a way that is attention to detail on our behalf.” Sarah Alton – Communications & second to none.” Marsid Greenidge – Head of Marketing Business Partner, Colin Robey – Managing Director, Communications, Keolis UK Nottingham City Council UKTram SUPPORTED BY ORGANISED BY 9 CONTENTS The official journal of the Light Rail Transit Association JANUARY 2016 Vol. 79 No. 937 www.tautonline.com EDITORIAL EDITOR Simon Johnston Tel: +44 (0)1733 367601 E-mail: [email protected] 13 Orton Enterprise Centre, Bakewell Road, Peterborough PE2 6XU, UK ASSOCIATE EDITOR Tony Streeter E-mail: [email protected] WORLDWIDE EDITOR Michael Taplin 24 Flat 1, 10 Hope Road, Shanklin, Isle of Wight PO37 6EA, UK. E-mail: [email protected] NEWS EDITOR John Symons 17 Whitmore Avenue, Werrington, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs ST9 0LW, UK. E-mail: [email protected] SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR Neil Pulling WORLDWIDE CONTRIBUTORS Tony Bailey, James Chuang, Paul Nicholson, Richard 4 Felski, Ed Havens, Bill Vigrass, Andrew Moglestue, M. Ballinger Mike Russell, Nikolai Semyonov, Vic Simons, Herbert Pence, Alain Senut, Thomas Wagner. NEWS 4 SYSTEMS FACTFILE: PARIS T1 & T8 24 PRODUCTION First phase of Midland Metro’s Birmingham T1 and T8, the oldest and youngest lines in Lanna Blyth city centre extension opens; Bombardier Paris’ extensive network, are explored by Tel: +44 (0)1733 367604 E-mail: [email protected] sells Transportation division stake; the UK’s Neil Pulling – battening together what is DESIGN first tram-train arrives; Rio starts tramway becoming an ever more cohesive network. Debbie Nolan trials; South Wales Metro moves closer. ADVERTISING COMMERCIAL MANAGER WORLDWIDE REVIEW 29 Geoff Butler SEATTLE: CUTTING-EDGE LIGHT RAIL 9 New Gent extensions to open in February Tel: +44 (0)1733 367610 E-mail: [email protected] 2016 will be a key year for light rail progress and April; Tallinn awards tram airport line PUBLISHER on Puget Sound, as Vic Simons reports. contracts; Uithoflijn CAF mock-up revealed; Howard Johnston Kansas City streetcar testing underway. Tramways & Urban Transit is jointly published by the SWIFT RAIL 15 LRTA and LRTA Publishing on the third Friday of each Nicholas Falk and Reg Harman explore a MAILBOX 34 month preceding the cover date. new approach to suburban rail transport. Further considerations on Upper Silesia; LRTA WEBSITE AND DIARY Are vinyl wraps not vandalism too? Brian Lomas E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] INNSBRUCK: UPGRADES AND GROWTH 20 LRTA MEMBERSHIP (with TAUT subscription) CLASSIC TRAMS: VIENNA AT 150 36 From bleak prospects in the 1970s, this Tramways & Urban Transit is sent free to all paid-up Austrian city is now forming the stage for Mike Russell visits Vienna for one of the members of the Light Rail Transit Association. an LRT revival. Ray Deacon pays a visit. biggest sesquicentennial parades ever seen. SUBSCRIPTIONS AND MEMBERSHIP ENQUIRIES LRTA Membership Secretary (Dept T06), 38 Wolseley Road, Sale M33 7AU, UK. Why light rail sits above the ‘poverty’ line Tel: +44 (0)117 9517785 BACK ISSUES As any reader of this publication will now know, the advocation of light Tel: +44 (0)117 951 7785 rail systems is not just for the enthusiast. In the modern age – and on an PRINT AND DISTRIBUTION economic, social and environmental level – rail-based urban transport Warners (Midlands) plc, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1778 391000. makes sense in a way that private travel just doesn’t. Anyone who has sat LRTA REGISTERED OFFICE for any extended period in a traffic jam in a major city will testify to that. c/o 138 Radnor Avenue, Welling, Kent DA16 2BY, UK. Yet even within public transport there are a variety of viewpoints on Private company limited by guarantee, No. 5072319 the mode. For example, why is it that buses are seen as inferior to the steel in England and Wales. wheel on steel rail option? I am sure I’m not alone in knowing people who will happily LRTA CHAIRMAN use a tram or metro yet who wouldn’t ordinarily dream of using a bus. Andrew Braddock In my humble opinion this is for a number of reasons. For the inexperienced public E-mail: [email protected] transport user, rail-based services give more certainty that you will get to your intended LRTA DEPUTY CHAIRMAN destination. Trams can’t be diverted, are less likely to get caught up in traffic and feel Paul Rowen quieter, more comfortable and more secure. They also allow us all to do our little bit to LRTA PUBLISHING REGISTERED OFFICE c/o 8 Berwick Place, Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL7 4TU, help Mother Nature. Taxis offer the familiarity of the private car, so people are more UK. Private Limited Company, No. 06169422 likely to use them – yet they only compound the traffic and pollution problems. in England and Wales. Unfairly so, buses have more of a ‘poverty’ mode image. Even the best and most © LRTA Publishing 2015 modern services suffer this stigma, and after a while it becomes a vicious circle. Articles are submitted on the understanding they may also The more that ridership becomes dominated by the less-affluent, the more it becomes later be used on our websites or other media. A contribution is accepted on the basis that its author is responsible for the associated with poverty and the less appealing it becomes to the full spectrum of opinions expressed in it, and such opinions are not those of society. Trams and metros feel modern and progressive (even though the technology LRTA Publishing or the LRTA. All rights reserved. is far older than that of the motorbus and hasn’t changed hugely in over a century), No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in while buses now have the impression of being old and coming from a bygone age. any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and Yet ride on the Paris Metro, Berlin’s U-Bahn, trams in Amsterdam, Zaragoza or Milan retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from or the London Underground and you will see these systems are the great social leveller. the copyright owner. Multiple copying of the contents of the People use them because they are the ‘only’ way to travel and are now the obvious choice. magazine without prior written approval is not permitted. The issues of congestion and pollution are too big for us to be partisan. We all want COVER: T8 is the latest addition to the increasingly people out of their cars, but how do we best acheive this? Simon Johnston, Editor comprehensive tram coverage in Paris. N. Pulling www.tautonline.com . www.lrta.org JANUARY 2016 / 3 News Massive investment plans in Brussels Metro, tram and bus plans feature in EUR5.2bn programme to delivered over the next decade UR5.2bn will be spent on A further 235 new buses will be the Belgian capital’s rail required, possibly electric, with Terrorist menace disrupts Brussels networks over the period double-articulated buses for line 2017-24, including 71 (which until recently was to Ereplacement of metro signalling be converted to a tramway). Fares by automatic train operation, the will not be increased in 2016 and conversion of the north-south the price of a student’s season tram subway to metro operation ticket will be reduced from with extension to Bordet, and 43 EUR120 to EUR50 to make public new metro trains plus a new depot transport the mode of choice for at Erasme. Metro line 6 will be travel to school and college. extended from Roi Baudoin to the On the SNCB commuter rail new Eurostadium as part of the suburban network, 13 December city’s bid for the 2020 European saw the opening of the new Football Championships, while tunnel link between Schuman Trams on lines 39 and 44 using the surface tracks rather than the subway metro interchange; articulated PCC 7816 awaits departure.