World's longest trams begin revenue operation in Budapest

[bikkuri bahn]

[kvp]

They are running on the 3rd ring around the city center, also known as the outer boulvards. The new CAF trams will replace the old 3 car Tatra PCC sets also visible on the video which will be cascaded to outer interurban lines. Radial lines are mostly served by metros and heavy suburban railways. The previous record holders, the Siemens combinos run on the 2nd ring, known as grand boulvard lines (it was the first street running electric tram line on the continent). The shorter new CAF variants mostly went to the newly interconnected inner city lines on the Buda side of the city and some of them are on the 5th (suburban) ring, that runs near the S bahn ring railway and acts as a feeder/distributor line.

[brill27mcb]

Wow! Nine sections long, and running with 2 pantographs up, perhaps for adequate current capacity. I like them. They are a train in themselves, though. I also like the generally lightly-built overhead, unlike American practice.

 

Rich K.