[Melb] Citadis: Seat Layout

[Wolfgang Auer <Wolfgang_Auer_9912@gmx.net>]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Well, that the unfortunate European tendency of a permanently worsening
ratio of seated vs. standee places in trams has reached Melbourne in
form of the Combino tram has caused quite a stir in aus.rail, and I'm
absolutely amazed that my name now is occurring in some postings of
aus.rail threads that I was not even involved into :-)

Anyway, you may be interested that the most recent edition of the German
Stadtverkehr magazine features another article about the latest low
floor tram developments, including the Yarra Trams Citadis.

There is a blueprint of this tram, similar to the quoted Combino
counterpart. The length of the tram pales again in comparison to what we
have been used to in Europe recently -- just 22.693m in length, about
half the length of the longest trams here (let alone multiple unit
operation with trains that are up to 100m in length). The width, just
2.65m  appears to be another victim of European standards, where 2.65m
often is the maximum of what the local regulations allow -- the Combino
isn't wider either...

The seat layout is as follows: There are 16 seats in both outer sections
resp. (in 2+2 layout), and 8 regular seats in the middle section. The
middle section also sees two longitudinal folding banks for two patrons
each, where I assume the wheelchair and pram bays to be located as well.
That sums up to 32+8=40 seats plus the 4 on the folding banks, i. e. 44
seats -- a lot more than the Bambino, pardon, Combino, but still rather
poor in Australian standards. Here is an ASCII diagram of the basic
layout (floor plan):

  --|  |--------#-|  |--------|  |-#--------|  |--
 /'''    ][ ][  #      [ ][ ]      #  ][ ][    '''\
/''''    ][ ][  #      [ ][ ]      #  ][ ][    ''''\
|''''           #                  #           ''''|
\''''    ][ ][  #                  #  ][ ][    ''''/
 \'''    ][ ][  #      ==  ==      #  ][ ][    '''/
  --|  |--------#-|  |--------|  |-#--------|  |--

[, ] seat (the vertical bar is indicating the back)
=    longitudinal folding bank
#    articulation
|  | door
'    driver's compartment

Moreover, there are certain technical specs described in a long
paragraph. Although my command of English has improved a little during
the last years, it is far from what would be needed to translate it;
terms like "Megifeder", "Zentralanlenkung" und "Wankstütze" are even
beyond my technical German somehow... If anybody is interested to
translate the article anyway, please tell me so. And if anybody is
interested in a scan of the blueprint, please email me privately! Mike
and David, your xerocopies should arrive within the next few weeks :-)

By the way, I should congratulate both Melbourne tram companies on
ordering the Combino and Citadis types -- both are among those that I
have heard mostly good things about! But never having been to Melbourne
(yet ;-), I don't even dare to give too smartalecky comments...

Best regards from Wien (Vienna, Austria),
city of the not-too-fortunate Ulf tram type
Wolfgang