Earlier this month, the fortunate folk of Frankfurt were entertained by the 11th annual tram-drivers competition, with entries from 26 teams representing 20 countries across Europe. This is as crazy as it sounds, a kind of Olympiad for trams. How do trams compete, given they are not exactly flexible in terms of where they can go and cannot spin round Le Mans-type racetracks?
Well, the devisers of this contest have created a series of challenges for the teams of three – two tram drivers, one male and one female, and an assistant. The obvious tests included coming to a halt within a centimetre of a stop along a 300-metre track and rushing out, fire extinguisher in hand, to put out a lineside fire. But then there were more obscure challenges, such as tram bowling, which involves hitting a plastic ball to knock over skittles, or, most strangely, tram billiards, whereby a cue affixed to the front of the tram knocks a ball on a table, with points allocated according to where it comes to a rest. The most delicate contest was described by a New York Times reporter as ‘tram dressage’, requiring drivers to carry bowls of water so carefully they did not spill over.
All this madcap activity has a purpose: to promote trams and to encourage driver recruitment. Trams have had a chequered history. First introduced as horse-drawn vehicles in the mid 19th century, they flourished once electric power was introduced and had become ubiquitous by the start of the first world war. Between the wars, there were more than 100 systems across the UK, even in small towns such as Accrington and Colchester. Their heyday, however, was short, as cars began to proliferate and their cumbersome tracks were regarded as getting in the way and causing congestion.
Consequently, after the second world war, all the systems, apart from the line running along the coast in Blackpool, were closed down. London, which had a staggering 328 miles of track on the creation of London Transport in 1933, operated its last service in 1952, a quite astonishing rate of closure representing a major shift in transport use. Today, however, trams are enjoying an unexpected renaissance, with more than 400 towns and cities across the world boasting light rail systems. That change is the result of the recognition that cramming cars into urban spaces designed long before their invention is unsustainable. For a time in the last century, the planners’ solution was to carve new highways through towns and cities but this has become politically impossible in the face of angry residents. Trams, therefore, are now being offered up as a solution. On the continent, many cities had retained their systems and new ones are popping up even in relatively small towns.
In the UK, local authorities have struggled to fund schemes. Britain has a paltry total of just nine light rail systems despite a promise in 1999 by then deputy prime minister John Prescott that 20 new systems would be brought in by 2010. In the event only one, Nottingham, saw the light of day and Edinburgh is the only other recently opened system. Partly that has been about money but above all, it is politics that have stymied the growth of the networks. There is little Prescott-style ambition in these Keir Starmer straitened times.
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