Left-side Traffic / Right-side Traffic

[brill27mcb]

I thought this article might be of interest here, especially for those of us with the streetcar/tram bug:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/02/business/why-americans-drive-on-the-right-and-the-british-on-the-left/index.html

 

It covers the U.S., Europe and Britain, although not the Japanese history specifically. In the U.S., the article credits the Conestoga wagon (a horsedrawn freight wagon) for leading to right-side driving rules; and in Continental Europe the French Revolution and Napoleanic period. It also raises the interesting history in Sweden, which had a tram subplot. Prior to when Sweden switched from left-side to right-side driving in 1967, in Stockholm the tram system was using single-car, left-side single-direction trams. In preparation for the changeover, it ordered a "mirror image" fleet of trams (single-car, right-side single-direction) and coupled them back-to-back with the existing trams to form 2-car trains. It revamped its service based on the higher-capacity of the 2-car trains. When the day came to switch, they started operating the 2-car trains from the other end.

 

I also found it interesting that the article mentions that today 30% of countries follow the practice of left-side traffic, while 70% follow right-side traffic.

 

Rich K.

[bill937ca]

Large parts of Europe drove on the left until the arrival of the Nazis circa 1938.  This affected Vienna and Austria, and Prague and Czechoslovakia or the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire.  Not sure if Switzerland ever had left hand drive traffic.

 

British Columbia drove on the left until the early 1920s.

 

I believe there have been recent back to back trams in one of the smaller Czech cities, but I can't find the video.

 

Trams in Brno are reverse wired. So fi you buy large numbers of T6A5s from Prague as they did you have to rewire the whole tram.  🚋  😀

 

Since the start of electric operation in 1900, the operating voltage was 550 V DC, in 1939 it was increased to 600 V DC. [65] The negative pole is in the trolley (collector), positive in the rails. This change compared to other tram operations (e.g. Prague or Liberec ) minimized the effects of stray (creeping) currents in the vicinity of transformers, which would destroy metal objects (pipes and the rails themselves) stored in the ground. Another tram operation in the Czech Republic with this polarity is in Ostrava .

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramvajová_doprava_v_Brně

Edited March 3 by bill937ca

[chadbag]

Interesting is that Samoa changed from driving on the right to driving on the left back in 2009.  One of the few changes from right to left in "recent" times, most changes being from left to right in the last century.   The reason was that since Japan, Australia, and New Zealand are all closer and the US is not, getting left hand drive (right side of the road) cars is more expensive than importing right hand drive (left side of the road) cars.

 

[bill937ca]

Zurich trams run left handed in a tunnel to allow unidirectional trams to use a center platform. Before and after the tunnel there crossovers to get the trams lined up.

 

Diagram on this blog.

https://www.eurogunzel.com/2022/10/zigzagging-left-right-hand-running-tram-zurich-tunnel/