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The history of trams, streetcars, or trolleys began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. [2] Eventually the so-called US "street railways" were deemed advantageous auxiliaries of the new elevated and/or tunneled metropolitan steam railways. [3] [4]
With over 14,000 units, Tatra T3 is the most widely produced type in history. [1]A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way.
In North America (especially the United States), trams are generally known as streetcars or trolleys; a "tram" is a tourist trolley, an aerial tramway or a people mover. Streetcar lines were largely torn up during the mid-20th century for a variety of financial, technological and social reasons, and comparably few exist today.
The Toronto Transit Commission maintains the most extensive system in the Americas (in terms of total track length, number of cars, and ridership).. Streetcars or trolley(car)s (American English for the European word tram) were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns.
Articulated trams are made up of multiple body sections, connected by flexible joints, as seen in Toronto.. Articulated trams, invented and first used by the Boston Elevated Railway in 1912–13 [1] at a total length of about twelve meters long (40 ft) for each pioneering example of twin-section articulated tram car, have two or more body sections, connected by flexible joints and a round ...
- Quadracycle invented. 1859 - First model railway for Napoléon, Prince Imperial. 1859 - Gaston Planté invented the lead–acid battery, the first-ever battery that could be recharged by passing a reverse current through it. 1860 - first urban horse railway line (a predecessor of trams), opened in Saint Petersburg. [24]
The Swansea and Mumbles Railway ran the world's first passenger tram service in 1807. The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public rail transport, which developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s [citation needed], using the newly improved iron or steel rail or 'tramway'.
Estonian-built electric trams were also used, with some gas-powered trams having been used in the 1920s and 1930s. The last part of the system to be electrified was the spur to Kopli in 1951, which was also converted to double track at the time, and was connected to the rest of the network in 1953. From 1955 to 1988, German-built trams were used.