Probably the strangest tram in the world

4 Responses to Probably the strangest tram in the world

1. briand75 says:

   May 25, 2016 at 7:27 am

   The strange part for me is the complete lack of humans in the clip

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   • Fred Stiening says:

     May 25, 2016 at 8:44 am

     This is socialist / Communist Italy. The tram line exists to employ union workers. From the angle of the sun and orientation of the route, this was taken just after sunrise – probably around 6 AM

     This was originally built to get people from the city to the railroad station. Railroads are very limited in their grades. Horseshoe curve in Pennsylvania is a 1.8% grade (18 feet per 1000 feet). The top station is 1000 feet higher than the city. So to build the train station at sea level, it would have required 20 miles of track. The section where the tram is pushed up the hill is a 28% grade

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2. briand75 says:

   May 25, 2016 at 11:44 am

   It is definitely cool. I would love the ride. It doesn’t look to be as steep as the inclines in Pittsburgh, but I am like a small child in a toy store when it comes to trains and trolleys and the like.

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   • Fred Stiening says:

     May 25, 2016 at 2:06 pm

     I almost wrote about that, but figured Pittsburgh’s inclines were too esoteric.

     Before the tunnels were built through Mount Washington, getting commuters and freight to the South Hills was very difficult. One of the inclines was about the size of a house, and had provisions to haul an entire streetcar up the hill. It then ran down the mountain on its regular tracks. Since the streetcar wasn’t a counterbalance on the way down, it had to have a big powerhouse to lift the incline. The “back side” incline was torn down in the 1920s after the streetcar tunnel opened, but the incline in the river side lived until the 1960s

     http://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/Inclines.html#knoxville

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