The conventional wheeled Vienna tram with enclosed bogies and DC electric traction drive.
It's always good to see British inventions in foreign lands and hats off to Christopher Cockerill the inventor of the hovercraft: The latest Vienna tram known as the ULF permits a flat and very low curb height floor and easy boarding for push chairs and prams by using the hovercraft principles.
The ULF (Unter- Luft- Fahrt) tram relies on a directional cushion of high pressure air for traction and levitation provided by vertically mounted air compressors.
There is something scatologically pleasurable about any service that calls itself 'fahrt'! But I have a (silly) question: why are modern trams so damn big? Their width, height, length...why? Look at how compact the older one is - like the trams in Hong Kong, Melbourne, even Koln (iirc). But these modern things are just horrible crawling leviathans. As we (try to) protect the architecture of these historic cities, so we allow them to be ruined by these giant road trains....
ReplyDeleteRant over - have a good Easter!
I thought electro-magnetic levitation was the way forward these days.
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