How many UK towns have trams?

The UK used to be covered in trams, with networks in virtually every city and town, but now just eight (or six, depending on what you include) British metro areas use a light-rail system. Could they be set for a comeback? The popularity of Edinburgh's trams suggest a renaissance in the making.



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The advent of personal motor vehicles and the improvements in motorized buses caused the rapid disappearance of the tram from most western and Asian countries by the end of the 1950s (for example the first major UK city to completely abandon its trams was Manchester by January 1949).

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# The single line, 2.3km long, was the shortest in the world for years. It is located on the shores of Lake Traunsee in Austria, at about 400 meters above sea level, the smallest town in the world to have an urban tram line. It is called Gmunden and has 13,199 inhabitants.

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Today, over 380 cities around the world have purpose-built their tram systems that transport passengers in regular intervals and fixed city lines, enabling the much larger flow of population across large distances without impacting the flow of regular car transport.

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The KeolisAmey Metrolink tram system is the largest of its kind in the UK. It serves 99 stops across eight different lines along almost 103km of track, with a fleet of 120 modern trams catering for more than 34 million journeys a year.

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London had streets that were too narrow, unlike continental cities; London's housing developments were too far away from tram routes; authorities were prejudiced against trams.

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The City of Oxford and District Tramway Company and its successor the City of Oxford Electric Traction Company operated a horse-drawn passenger tramway service in Oxford between 1881 and 1914. The tramway was unusual for having a track gauge of only 4 feet (1.219 m).

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Trams were seen to impede on the freedom of private car owners in the city: the authorities believed that removing the tramways and replacing them with buses would allow for easier transport in and around Glasgow.

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