Re: Melbourne tram constructors

[Evad Rehtona <davemclAXETHIS@iprolink.co.nz>]

laurence.fagan wrote:
> 
> Can anyone enlighten me as to the role of the French company Transdev in the
> construction of the new Melbourne trams? My local press says this company,
> who built the local trams, are building them for Melbourne as well but that
> the poor state of the rails in Melbourne has caused them to make
> adjustments, not needed on our local on the wonderful tracks in our town


Which French city is your town, Laurence?

There are two orders of new articulated trams for Melbourne, one of 59 
Combinos and one of 31 for the Citadis model which I suspect is the one
to which you refer.

Some of Melbourne's track is shoddy, particularly the outer reserved
track portions of the 59, 57 and 82 routes, but most Melbourne track is
in very good order compared with many other tramways. Melbourne has had
a constant track-reconstruction programme since the 1950s and very
little track of the entire 240km dates before that era. Almost all is in
mass concrete.

Melbourne has more of a problem with its overhead wire. The system has
been converted from trolleypole to pantograph operation in the past few
years but the wires need to remain pole-compatible because four routes
(8, 12, 16 and the City Circle) are required to remain operated by
vintage trams with poles, and pole-operated trams including the
restaurant trams are also supposed to be able to run over almost all the
system. This means that pantographs frequently snag on wires designed
for both kind of current collection.

--
David McLoughlin
Auckland New Zealand