Fans of rail travel are welcoming a record-breaking tram to Europe’s transport scene, with the inauguration of a new vehicle on the Rhine-Necker Metropolitan network in the southwest of Germany.
Nearly 60 metres end-to-end
Commuters between the three cities of Manheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg could find themselves riding the world’s longest tram, measuring 58.61 metres end-to-end. The Skoda ForCity Smart 38T was first unveiled in Mannheim in September in social media posts by Skoda Group, who confirmed at the time that RNV had signed an order for “34 additional 30-metre ForCity Smart 36T trams for their fleet.”
Essentially acting as a metropolitan train, the world’s biggest tram is capable of carrying 368 passengers, features air conditioning for travel comfort and can reach speeds 80 km per hour. It can also be subdivided into smaller sections thanks to its modular design, making maintenance works easier and allowing for different length trams to be created.
€260-million upgrade
The record-breaking tram’s arrival marks one stage of a €260-million upgrade to the Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr (RNV) line that is set for completion in 2026. In 2017, the EU announced €154million in funding to support the fleet’s renewal as part of a project to boost energy efficiency and reduce noise pollution.
Stakeholders hailed the project at the time as ushering in an era of improved “competitiveness and attractiveness of public transport”. They also anticipated the works would “bring maintenance cost savings and other benefits” without which “the public transport service quality would deteriorate and encourage the use of private cars with the associated negative impacts in terms of noise, energy consumption and associated emissions.”
Making tram history
Rail buffs will know that the RNV line is accustomed to the limelight, thanks to a history which includes a previous record for the longest tram – a 38.55-metre vehicle – during the 1960s. That record had been surpassed but now the last record-holder – a nine-car, 55.9-metre-long tram that has been operating in Budapest since 2016 – has been knocked into second place, giving the RNV line the title once more.
The world’s first passenger tram is said to be the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, in Wales, UK, a horse-drawn service born in 1807, which evolved into a steam service from 1877, and led to, from 1929, 106-seat electric tramcars, until the line’s closure in 1960. Trams, sometimes called streetcars or trolley cars in the USA, developed there before Europe, due to the North American territory’s lack of paved streets.
