Re: [melb] new trams and seating

[Wolfgang Auer <wauer@qspr03.tuwien.ac.at>]

Dear aus.rail, Dear m.t.u-t!

Thank you all for the recent articles on the Combino order in Melbourne
-- I already thought that this fact wasn't published in Australia, as
initially, the Combino order has made more news in German-speaking
newsgroups and mailing lists than in the local counterparts :-) But this
seems to change now... By the way, the purchase of the short version of
the Combino, only 19m in length, has been pretty a surprise here to say
the least -- only Nordhausen, Germany, has ordered the same type yet,
which has a small, cute, nice and well-maintained tram system, but, of
course, is in no way comparable to Melbourne. However, the short
Combino, nicknamed Bambino :-), appears to be the shortest modern
low-floor tram type so far, now that tram cars that are 40m or more in
length have become a common sight. Not that I would consider a short
tram car a bad idea, au contraire (better a short tram every 5 minutes
than a long one every 10 minutes), but it gives a strange impression
anyway.

Evad Rehtona <davemclAXETHIS@iprolink.co.nz> wrote:

>Does anyone know the seating configuration of the Melbourne Combinos?

It is unfortunate, to say the least.

The short Combino features 20 seated places in standard 2+2
configuration, 2 2+0(!) seated places, four single seats and in addition
6 longitudinal seats, somehow in a bench arrangement. Even given the
length of just 19m of the short Combino, these 32 seated places are not
many at all, taking former Melbourne standards into consideration, but
the unfortunate European tendency to shift the ratio of seated vs.
standee places to the latter ones seems to finally have reached
Australia :-(

The seating configuration of the longer Combino is, ummm, diversified
(to avoid the term "weird"): 20 seats in a 2+2 configuration, 6 2+1, 10
2+0(!) and 16 1+1. This sums up to only 52 seated places in a tram car
that is 28.9m in length, probably longer than any Australian tram ever
before -- just compare this to the B-class trams: 76 seats, but only a
length of about 23½m!

By the way, the Combinos are only 2.65m in width, so the formerly very
spacious design, which Melbourne's uniquely wide 2.77m B-class cars had
provided, has been given up -- obviously a standardization-related
sacrifice (as far as I know, there are no tram cars wider than 2.65m
operating in Europe, and hardly ever have done so to a significant
extent).

Best regards from Wien (Vienna, Austria), Wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang Auer --------------------------------- ohne AUTO doppelt MOBIL
http://qspr03.tuwien.ac.at/~wauer/ --- mailto:wauer@qspr03.tuwien.ac.at