SYDNEY 14 DECEMBER 2019 - Owen Brison

The new City and South East tram line opened for public service on Sat 14 Dec. The trams run in coupled pairs. They have pantographs but, in addition, pick up from a third rail from the Town Hall stop down to Circular Quay. The third rail is only meant to be alive when a car is over it.  

Attached are some pics from the first morning:

1074: 3 (double) trams at the Circular Quay terminus. 

1154: a northbound tram in George St. near the Queen Victoria Building on the third rail section. The QVB used to be a market but these days is a shopping centre. 

1181: a northbound tram in George St. approaching Town Hall where it will lower pantos and start on the third rail section. 

CHRISTMAS TRAMS IN LISBON 2019 - LUIS vIEIRA

LISBON CHRISTMAS - Luis Vieira

I would like to wish all my blog readers a Happy Chrismas and Good 2020 with the usual Lisbon Christmas cars.

WEST MIDLANDS METRO UPDATE - Frank Bagshaw

West Midlands Metro tram 17 enters the Library terminus operating in service on battery power before returning to Wolverhampton. Frank Bagshaw rode on this service on December 16th.

BUDAPEST, BRATISLAVA AND VIENNA DECEMBER 2019

Bratislava with it's beautiful selection of Baroque buildings was rather cold and wet with evidence of snow fall.

BUDAPEST, BRATISLAVA AND VIENNA DECEMBER 2019

Vienna was a fine, cold day and after the morning walking the centre with our guide we managed to get around on our own and visit the Remise Tram Museum.

Type ULF - unique to Vienna

Xmas old timer

Complete with Xmas tree

Snow globe poster in the street

REMISE MUSEUM - horse tram and steam engine

Horse tram trailer

4225 gone home? no its 4208

244 early electric car

Poster of Vienna Doub le decker which ran from 1913 to 1930

Rail profile display

Service fleet

BUDAPEST, BRATISLAVA AND VIENNA DECEMBER 2019

On 5 December we embarked on a 6 day river cruise of the Danube, as a trial to see if we liked that type of holiday. We chose a 5 night cruise of the Christmas Markets which covered visits to Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. Luckily we really enjoyed the cruise and will probably  do one again. Didn't have a lot of time for tram photos, but here's a few.

BUDAPEST

At one stage the trams were short turning and running wrong line on the Margaret Bridge. By the time we had walked half way across the bridge whatever the problem was had been resolved

On Buda side under Margaret bridge

Departure about to go under bridger

Interlaced track under bridge

Evening at Kelenfold

WEST MIDLANDS METRO 3 DECEMBER 2019 - Martin Miller

Took advantage of a rare sunny day to have a look at progress on the West Midlands Metro extension training and testing. I had thought the plan was to extend the service trams from Grand Central to the new terminus without carrying passengers but it proved not to be the case. Instead Tram 18 was the only visitor to the new line although trialling of battery power was in evidence as will be seen in the video. Nonetheless it was good to see movement at last! 

West Midlands Metro Extension Testing