Friday 30 March 2012

Theres A New Kid On The Block!





Trams have come to Tom London Bus Blog! And also the Stadler Variobahn has immigrated to England. Today saw one of 6 new Stadler Variobahn trams go into limited passenger use. They have been in use between East Croydon and Wimbledon. They are actually for new Route 4 which will run between Therapia Lane and Elmers End. Although they are for Route 4, they are permitted to run on other parts of the network. I also had a small chat with Nicola Redman, Tramlink's Head of Projects, and she was saying about how they are air conditoned, unlike the existing CR4000 fleet, she also continued to say that the existing fleet will be getting a midlife refurbishment, despite being lightly refurbished 3 - 4 years ago. These are also Stadler's first ever Variobahn trams in the UK and have had to have fog lights installed, whereas in Norway, they don't need them. Although Stadler is a Swiss company, they have been built in Germany. I hope to do more post about the ongoing devlopment of Tramlink, and hope you enjoy reading this post.