Wednesday 4 September 2013

NORRKÖPING Tram

Travelling from Stockholm to Göteborg on 27 Aug 2013, I made a stopover at Norrköping, one of Europe's smallest tramway cities. I was there also in 2007, but with the entire system closed down for track work during the summer, I had to see all routes on a replacement bus! Since then, a fourth and very important leg has been added to the system, resulting in a rather good network for such a small town of less than 100,000 inhabitants. Trams on line 2 run every 10 minutes throughout the day, and on line 3 every 10-12 minutes depending on the time of the day. Trams are well patronised and the fleet has been rejuvenating during recent years, so the future for the Norrköping tram looks bright. During my visit, only new Flexity Classic (like those on Stockholm's Sparväg City and in Frankfurt, Dortmund or Kassel) were in serice, plus several of the refurbished ex-Duisburg Duewag trams, which have an added central low-floor section. I did not get to see any of the three ex-Munich GT6 trams.



The new extension from Ljura to Kvarnberget is well-built like what one would expect of a modern tram line, completely on its own right-of-way, mostly with grass-covered track. Interesting to note that the Flexity Classic are all double-ended, despite the existence of terminal loops and several intermediate loops, too. But this fact allowed three of them to be borrowed to Stockholm for the opening of their Sparväg City (along with three trams from Frankfurt). Due to their design with proper bogies at the end of the vehicle, the Flexity Classic are among the better of the modern trams when it comes to travelling through curves.


Norrköping now only has lines 2 and 3, but it used to have a line 1, too, which was a circular line. And I think that the link between Norr tull and Väster tull should really be rebuilt, as the area it would serve has been redeveloped drastically from an industrial quarter into a cultural centre, but to avoid that the trams get stuck on the existing bridge, some alternative needs to be offered for other traffic, like a new bridge further up the river. Once reinstated, line 2 could share the central trunk route with line 3 as now it takes a long detour around the eastern edge of the city centre, where I did not observe many passengers.

Travelling on the tram in Norrköping is rather cheap, you can explore the system with a day pass for just 50 SEK (some 6.50 €).

LINKS




1 comment:

Tell us your experience of this transport system!