On Thu, 7 Oct 2004, Piccadilly Pilot wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 5 Oct 2004, Piccadilly Pilot wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 4 Oct 2004, John Rowland wrote:

Anyone wondering how Tramlink will bridge the vertical gap between
Crystal Palace station and Crystal Palace Parade, might be
interested in the German solution... I think TfL should suggest
this to the safety bods just to get their reaction !

http://home.arcor.de/guenter.kretzsc...ack_carr_.html

That's genius.

Gets me thinking about other ways you could move trams, though.
Could you fit one on a (specially-built) flatbed in a tube tunnel?
How about a subsurface tunnel?

Been done, Kingsway Tram Subway

That's not what i meant - i meant loading a whole tram onto a flatbed
wagon, then sending that through a normal tube tunnel. Just like the
way cars use the Channel Tunnel. You could use it to provide
high-speed single-seat journeys between different suburban tram
networks (eg Croydon Tramlink to Cross-River Transit via the Northern
Line ...). A backbone for a tram internet, if you will.

What would be the point? Why not simply run it on its own wheels or
build a normal underground railway?

The point is that the tubes are already there, so you don't need to build
a new tunnel for the tram. Since tube trains are a bit big for on-street
running, bringing them up is a non-starter, so you have to send the trams
down. As for running on its own wheels - that could well be a better
solution; the only drawback is that trams are fairly slow, whereas a tube
train is fairly fast. You could always build faster trams, or attatch an
extra loco for the tube run, i suppose.

I have to confess that this is not an _entirely_ serious suggestion. But
then, i wouldn't have thought the tram-on-funicular was, either!

tom

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