Cargo tram Since the 19th century, goods have been carried on rail vehicles through the streets, often near docks and steelworks, for example the
Weymouth Harbour Tramway in
Weymouth, Dorset. Belgian
vicinal tramway routes were used to haul agricultural produce, timber, and coal from Blégny colliery, and
Porto carried coal by tram. Several of the US interurbans carried freight, and in Australia three different "freight cars" operated in
Melbourne between 1927 and 1977 and the city of
Kislovodsk in Russia had a freight-only tram system consisting of one line which was used exclusively to deliver bottled Narzan mineral water to the railway station. run by
Volkswagen in
Dresden. Trams operated by the service are used to carry freight, as opposed to passengers. Until December 2020, the German city of
Dresden had a regular
CarGoTram service, run by the world's longest tram trainsets (), carrying car parts across the city centre to its
Volkswagen factory. In addition to this, the cities of
Vienna and
Zürich have used trams as mobile recycling depots in the past. At the turn of the 21st century, a new interest has arisen in using urban tramway systems to transport goods. The motivation now is to reduce air pollution, traffic congestion and damage to road surfaces in city centres. One recent proposal to bring cargo tramways back into wider use was the plan by
City Cargo Amsterdam to reintroduce them into the city of
Amsterdam. In the spring of 2007 the city piloted this cargo tram operation, which among its aims aimed to reduce
particulate pollution in the city by 20% by halving the number of
lorries (5,000) unloading in the
inner city during the permitted timeframe from 07:00 till 10:30. The pilot involved two cargo trams, operating from a distribution centre and delivering to a "hub" where special electric trucks delivered the trams' small
containers to their final destination. The trial was successful, releasing an intended investment of €100 million in a
fleet of fifty-two cargo trams distributing from four peripheral "cross docks" to fifteen inner-city hubs by 2012. These specially built vehicles would be long with twelve
axles and a
payload of . On weekdays, trams are planned to make 4 deliveries per hour between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and two per hour between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. With each unloading operation taking on average 10 minutes, this means that each site would be active for 40 minutes out of each hour during the morning rush hour. In early 2009, the scheme was suspended due to the
2008 financial crisis impeding fund-raising.
Restaurant tram Similar to the
buffet car or
dining car on a train, on a restaurant tram, meals can be served in a way of a full-service, sit-down
restaurant. Customers consume the meals while the tram is following a route along an existing network of a tram system or line. Old trams are often used with a rebuilt interior and upholstered seats and tables. Most restaurant trams are equipped with a small kitchen only used to serve meals, while a traditional kitchen in a stationary restaurant is used to do most preparations. A subtype is the
pub restaurant tram, serving drinks and snacks. The unique experiences of restaurant trams are popular in social media posts, which have become more common in the twentieth century. It is in line with a trend where people in their spare time are expecting dining out to become more of an experience. Alternatively, one can dine on a static tube train in London and on a double-decker bus in Singapore. Some of the cities that operate or have operated a restaurant tram are: • Bistro trams with buffets operated for a brief period in 1911 on the tram line. •
The U76/U70 tram line between the German cities of
Düsseldorf and
Krefeld used to offer a
Bistrowagen ("dining car" in German), where passengers could order drinks and snacks. That practice dates back to 1924, when interurban trams conveyed a
dining car. With the introduction of modern tram units in 1981, four trams had a
Bistrowagen that operated every weekday until 2014. A similar service was offered in the region of Karlsruhe. • In 1976 the first full dining restaurant started running in
Bern using a historic tramcar and trailer. s that operated in
Melbourne, Australia • In 1983 the
Colonial Tramcar Restaurant started running in
Melbourne using three historic
W-class trams. All three often run in tandem and there are usually multiple meal sittings. Bookings often close months in advance. The service had to close in 2018 because the trams were seen as too unsafe to operate between other traffic. At that time, trams were temporarily taken off the road after failing a
Yarra Trams' safety assessment due to badly weathered underlying structures. Until the trams again meet safety standards, the trams are offering stationary dining. • Since 2005 in
Milan, two historic tramcars -
Class 1500 - from 1928 are in use as a restaurant. • In 2006, one restaurant tram entered a service in
Turin, a second one followed in 2011. The restaurant service was transferred to an external party early 2023. • The Hague's tram restaurant service started in 2014, within ten years it made over 2500 trips through the city. The initiator got his inspiration from the Melbourne example. • Edmonton had a
tram where desserts were served, as part of a crowd-funding campaign in 2016. The restaurant services also operate or used to operate in
Adelaide,
Bendigo in Australia;
Brussels in Belgium, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and
The Hague in the Netherlands;
Kolkata in India,
Christchurch in New Zealand;
Milan,
Rome and
Turin in Italy;
Moscow, Russia;
Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Pub tram Some cities and regions have a pub tram service: • The first pub tram in Germany started operations in
Frankfurt am Main in 1977. Due to its success, the fleet consists of two motorised trams and four trailer cars. • In 2025 a trial started in
Changchun with a café in a
hydrogen powered tram. A total of six tramcars are planned to be in service. File:ATMosfera.jpg|Class-1500 tram in Milan File:Tram Zuerich VBZ Elefant 1330 seite.JPG|Ce 4/4
Elefant type tram in Zurich File:150 jaar HTM (14563161786).jpg|GTL-8 tram in The Hague File:Christchurch Tramway Restaurant Carriage 2016.jpg|Tram 411 in Christchurch File:High Level Streetcar (29673269851).jpg|Tram 33 in Edmonton In Germany, about twenty cities and regions have a pub tram service.
Hearse tram trams in Paris. Trams were used as hearses in the late 19th and early 20th century. Specially appointed
hearse trams, or funeral trolley cars, were used for
funeral processions in many cities in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly cities with large tram systems. The earliest known example in North America was
Mexico City, which was already operating twenty-six funeral cars in 1886. In the United States, funeral cars were often given names. At the turn of the century, "almost every major city [in the US] had one or more" In the mid-1940s at least one special hearse tram was used in Turin, Italy. It was introduced due to the wartime shortage of automotive fuel.
Newcastle, Australia also operated two hearse trams between 1896 and 1948.
Maintenance tram . It uses a rotating brush to push the snow aside from the tracks. Most systems had cars that were converted to specific uses on the system, other than simply the carriage of passengers. As just one example of a system,
Melbourne used or uses the following "technical" cars: a ballast motor, ballast trailers, blow-down cars, breakdown cars, conductors' or drivers' instruction cars, a laboratory testing car, a line marking car, a pantograph testing car, per way locomotives, a rail hardener locomotive, a scrapper car, scrubbers, sleeper carriers, track cleaners, a welding car, and a wheel transport car. Some were built new for specific purposes, including: rail grinders, scrubbers/track cleaners, and a workshops locomotive.
Edmonton,
Alberta, used a streetcar bookmobile from 1941 to 1956.
Nursery tram After World War II, in both
Warsaw and
Wrocław, Poland, so-called "tram-nurseries" were in operation, collecting children from the workplaces of their parents (often tram employees). These mobile nurseries either carried the children around the system or delivered them to the nursery school run by the transport company.
Tourist tram operated by
Tranvía de Sóller. Heritage trams are operated to draw tourists and tram enthusiasts. Many systems have retained historical trams which will often run over parts of the system for tourists and tram enthusiasts. In Melbourne, Australia, several iconic
W class trams run throughout the city in a set route which circles the Central Business District. They are primarily for the use of tourists, although often also used by regular commuters.
Tram-train A
tram-train is a
light-rail public transport system where trams run through from an urban tramway network to main-line
railway lines which are shared with conventional trains. This allows passengers to travel from suburban areas into city-centre destinations without having to change from a train to a tram. Tram-train operation uses vehicles such as the
Flexity Link and Regio-
Alstom Citadis, which are suited for use on urban tram lines and also meet the necessary indication, power, and strength requirements for operation on main-line railways. It has been primarily developed in Germanic countries, in particular Germany and Switzerland.
Karlsruhe is a notable pioneer of the tram-train.
Contractors' mobile office Two former passenger cars from the
Melbourne system were converted and used as mobile offices within the
Preston Workshops between 1969 and 1974, by personnel from
Commonwealth Engineering and
ASEA who were connected with the construction of Melbourne's Z Class cars. == References ==