Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Venice

Martin Miller has sent me these pictures taken in Mestre near Venice.



 Martin asks is it a tram, a trolleybus or not in this world? So I checked with Google and the answer is 'Tram di Mestre'. It opened as recently as 20th December 2010 and looks to be very similar to the system in Caen, northern France.

Graham Feakins has emailed:
Regarding your latest item about the Mestre ‘tram’, the system is more properly described as an electrically-powered, guided bus.  See here: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Translohr  

Thanks Graham - no doubt you remember Martin.

Coincidentaly this is post number 1297 on this blog.

3 comments:

  1. The classification of this system, the "Translohr" made by Lohr Industrie in Straßburg, France, is difficult. Since it can not operate without the guiding rail I regard this to be a tram on rubber wheels, not a bus which would be steerable. The French call it "tramway sur pneus".

    Regards

    Christoph

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  2. Do others share my view that this is an invention that didn't need to be invented? If you are going to have to erect OLE and lay a single rail, why not lay two and do the job properly? I am interested to hear that these Translohr vehicles cannot operate away from the rail; in my naïvety, I had assumed that this was their Unique Selling Point. Without this capability, what advantage do they offer over conventional light rail?

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  3. Dear friends,
    During these last days, we wrote a post over monorails pulled by horses.
    On looking for more information about them we found a peculiar system named Monometal-tramway wich ran in Canvey Island on 1902.
    The guided system, remembered me this Venice's tram.
    In case of put a new name for these system, I suggest to use its old name: "Monometal tramway".
    I invite You to my Blog where you can see all the picturesI ,that I found found from this system.
    railsiferradures.
    http://railsiferradures.blogspot.com/2011/08/un-monorrail-ras-de-suelo-un-precedente.html

    ReplyDelete