German tram gets stuck in melted asphalt

[Densha]

[katoftw]

That is one for the weird books.

[kvp]

No, this is completly normal if you have badly laid tracks that sink below the road surface. The tram tracks are embedded in a rubber conduit and if the road surface rises above or the tracks sink below the surface the wider track brakes will scrape the road sufrace off. In this case the road was hot and soft enough to gum up the bogies. Common solution is to use concrete panelling, which ensures that the nearest road surface is at least a dozen centimeters away from the rails. In Hungary many trams have small life saver bars mounted before the wheels that also take care of any stray road surface or anything above rail head level before it get under the wheels. One older type had a strict no track brakes in sharp curves rule, since the brake pads tended to get stuck and ripped off when hitting only the paved surface instead of landing at least partially on the rail head.

 

An example of what happens when the asphalt is harder: http://www.blikk.hu/data/cikk/2/5/23/29/cikk_2052329/6_o_villamos_20110512_13385_PZ_1.jpg