On Dec 20, 9:57*am, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:

I've sometimes wondered why modern tramcar makers don't make double deckers.
Yes, modern artics swallow lots of people quickly but they also take up a
lot of space. * A double deck artic (with connections at both levels) could
take the same number of people, maybe more, than a single decker in less
length.

I'm guessing there are 2 reasons the main one being that double deckers have
always been a bit of a British oddity.

Partly because normal height clearances on roads (where trams run)
tend to be higher in the UK than other European countries, and most
trams are off-the-shelf European designs.

Berlin does double-decker buses (albeit lower ones than usual for the
UK, if I recall), but they are not common elsewhere in Europe for the
same reason.

OTOH, because the height clearance issue is the opposite way around
for rail, the UK doesn't do double-deckers on rail (the 4-DD excepted)
but they are very common in mainland Europe. Were the UK the main
supplier of trains to Europe, I expect the situation would be similar
to trams.

Neil