Haven't been on this side of Edinburgh for a year, but excellent progress being made (at long last) on the tram system heading out of town.
It looks like they are currently working on the electrics heading North West, paralell to the M8/Falkirk railway.
Following the successful test runs of the Edinburgh Tram between The Gyle Centre and The Airport, the full system is now into test. Trams are now running through the City Centre to allow pedestrians and drivers to become familiar with them prior to brining the system into service.
While visiting Edinburgh yesterday to get some photo’s of the new Stagecoach 43, I was fortunate to notice the trams in the City Centre and I managed to get a selection of photos. Prior to uploading to Flickr I have added a couple of shots below one of 267 running between York Place and St Andrew Square and the other of 266 at York Place (terminus) where the driver has just changed direction of travel.
(07 Mar 2014, 10:56 am)GuyParkRoyal wrote [ -> ]Following the successful test runs of the Edinburgh Tram between The Gyle Centre and The Airport, the full system is now into test. Trams are now running through the City Centre to allow pedestrians and drivers to become familiar with them prior to brining the system into service.
While visiting Edinburgh yesterday to get some photo’s of the new Stagecoach 43, I was fortunate to notice the trams in the City Centre and I managed to get a selection of photos. Prior to uploading to Flickr I have added a couple of shots below one of 267 running between York Place and St Andrew Square and the other of 266 at York Place (terminus) where the driver has just changed direction of travel.
How do they look/sound?
Have used the trams in Dublin and Nottingham (unfortunately, never in the other towns/cities that have them - apart from several European cities) so it would be good to compare.
(07 Mar 2014, 11:12 am)Andreos Constantopolous wrote [ -> ]How do they look/sound?
Have used the trams in Dublin and Nottingham (unfortunately, never in the other towns/cities that have them - apart from several European cities) so it would be good to compare.
Very quiet and smooth running which appears to be due to the quality of the tram lines as well as the actual trams. The trams appeared to cope really well with uphill sections as noted on the short steep climb from York Place to St Andrew Square. I also observed a long gradual climb before the Gyle Centre and the tram took that at a nice pace and again it was almost silent.
The inside of the cars looked good with plenty of leg rooms between the seats. I am unable to comment on the door system as the trams were running with no passengers.
My only negative comment is that some of the destination displays were showing distorted or missing characters particularly when displaying “Airport”.
The project seems to have been long running as I recall some of the Civil Engineering work back in 2006 but the end result looks promising. Everything looks good for the planned service start date of Q2 in 2014.
First day of the trams in operation is reported to be 31st May.
(14 May 2014, 9:21 pm)tyresmoke wrote [ -> ]I wonder if Edinburgh Airport charge huge fees? I caught the 747 Stagecoach service from there to Inverkeithing today, a half hour trip which was £5.20 single!!
There could be the old 'county boundary' excuse, plus the Forth Road bridge to get over too.
No idea how much, or if any impact those two things would make on the fare.
£5.20 is almost getting into GNE 78 territory :p
The FPF just hope it doesn't rub off onto the 71!
Huge PR blunder. They should have waited before announcing the fares in the first place.
Edinburgh Evening News ran an article last night comparing the Tram against the Airlink 100 bus. They looked at price, speed, wifi, luggage space and overall quality.
Two reporters then entered in to a race from The Airport to The City to test The Tram against The 100 Bus. Details below:
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/vi...6992488001