Establishment Trondheim got its first horse coach service in 1893, operated by
Trondhjems Omnibus Aktieselskab. The horses trotted between
Buran and
Ila via the
city center until 1901, and transported more than 400,000 passengers in the peak year. Unlike
Oslo and
Bergen, Trondheim never had
horsecars. In 1900, the city council decided to establish a municipally owned power and tramway company, Trondhjems Elektricitetsværk og Sporvei. It took over the concession for the Ila–Lademoen route, and opened the
Ila Line and
Lademoen Line on 2 December 1901. The coach company went bankrupt the year after, failing to make money on a route to
Øya. While initial plans had called for
standard gauge, NOK 10 000 could be saved if
metre gauge was used, resulting in the narrower gauge being chosen. To begin with, the whole line was single track, with passing loops in Wessels gate, Bakkegaten, Kjøpmannsgaten, Nordre gate, Torvet, Tordenskjolds gate and Skansen. The
Hospitalløkkan Depot on the Ila Line had space for sixteen trams. Eleven
Class 1 trams were delivered by
Siemens, with another delivered in 1903. The line opened with a six-minute headway, but this was soon reduced to five minutes, and four minutes in 1908. Four trailers were delivered in 1904. In the first full year, 1.6 million passengers took the tram, and by 1913 it had reached 4.3 million per year.
Expansion In 1909 the city council decided to upgrade the network. Completed in 1913, the city rebuilt the line to
double track, supplementing it with the new
Elgeseter Line between
Elgeseter and
the railway station. The Lademoen line was extended from to
Voldsminde, where was built. The four
Class 2 trams were delivered to meet the increased total route length, while older trams were put into service on the Elgeseter Line. Ridership continued to grow, especially after World War I started, and there was more money around. In 1915, five additional Class 2 trams were bought. In 1919, the company had 13.9 million passengers. In 1918, eight used horse-cars were bought from
Oslo Sporveier and rebuilt to electric trailers and to metre gauge. Ten new trams of
Class 3 were delivered in 1922. To create enough overnight space for all the new trams, a third depot was built at
Dalsenget, and the Elgeseter Line extended there in 1923. New turning loops were also built at
Ilevolden and
Voldsminde in 1921. The passing loops at the railway station was built in 1928, and at Dalsenget in 1949. was rebuilt in 1928 so the last part of the Lademoen Line had double track. After a study trip to the United States in 1916, Director
Fredrik Kleven made the observation that wider vehicles were in use there. He brought the idea back to Trondheim, and the company made a policy to increase the distance between the tracks of a double line to allow wider cars to be put into service. This would allow four-abreast seating, and much higher capacity than with the existing stock. Five new
Class 4 wide trams were delivered in 1930, after the Ila and Lademoen Lines had been rebuilt. Graakalbanen had taken trams of this width into use in 1924 along the Ila Line. By 1927 a new
Singsaker Line was constructed, leaving the Elgeseter Line at
Studentersamfundet and heading to
Ankers Gate in
Singsaker. A further expansion to
Asbjørnsens Gate was completed in 1935. The last stretch was financed through a separate company, A/S Ugla-Lian, that built the line and received 5
øre per rider on the line. The peak of Gråkallbanen was during
World War II when the line had 2 million passenger annually - the trams were the only transport system operational during the war. After the war new investments were made, including loops in the city (1946) and at Lian (1947), double track from Breidablikk to Nordre Hoem (1948) and a new depot and workshop at Munkvoll in 1953. A/S Graakallbanen was bought by the city in 1966.
Steady growth The depression caused a reduction in ridership, but during the 1930s it started increasing again. In 1936, the Voldsminde Loop was built at the end of the Lademoen Line. In 1937, four
Class 5 trams were put into service. During
World War II the passenger numbers peaked at 35.5 million annually. During the war, all trams and trailers which had been put aside were taken back into service. Five trailers were delivered in 1942, but the following year the German occupation forces confiscated three trams with trailers, and transferred them to the
Mannheim Tramway in Germany. After the war ended, the trams were bought back from Mannheim. Ten
Class 6 trams were delivered in 1948–49, while an additional, slightly different vehicles were delivered in 1955. Between 1949 and 1955, all the Class 2 and 3 trams were retired — Trondheim became one of the first cities in Europe to completely abandon two-axle trams, though the older trailers remained in service. In 1955, three second-hand trailers were bought from Belgium. In 1949, a new bridge was built between Søndre gate and the railway station, and for a short period line 2 and 3 terminated at . The
Elgeseter Bridge on the Elgeseter Line was rebuilt to six road lanes in 1951. The Singsaker Line was extended in 1955 with the Rosenborg Loop, that ran to
Rosenborg. Three years later, in 1958, the
Lade Line was built from Lademoen to Lade. The second half of this stretch was the only part of the tramway system built as single track and to be not located in the street.
Fire At night on 10 October 1956, the
Dalsenget Depot caught fire, destroying almost all of the modern tram fleet. 26 trams, 16 trailers and one working tram were destroyed, and three cleaners lost their lives. It was the then-largest fire in Trondheim after World War II. One tram and trailer survived from within the fire-proof paint shop. Trondheim Sporvei had never discarded its old trams - they were stored at Voldsminde Depot - and eleven old trams were in service within the day. In addition, eight buses were borrowed from Oslo within the week. Damage was at NOK 9 million, of which 8 million was for the rolling stock. A proposal to replace the tramway with trolleybuses was discarded by the city council. The depot was rebuilt, and 28 new
Class 7 trams were ordered, in addition to 15 trailers. The bogies and motors were salvaged, and reused in the new trams. The new stock was delivered in 1957 and 1958.
Closing and reopening Between 1958 and 1968 the tram network of Trondheim was at its peak, and had four lines: • Line 1:
Ilevolden –
Torvet –
Lademoen • Line 2:
Elgeseter – Torvet –
Lade • Line 3:
Singsaker – Torvet –
Jernbanen • Graakalbanen:
Lian –
St. Olavs Gate In 1968, the Singsaker Line and the branch line from Søndre Gate to Trondheim Central Station, was closed and replaced by buses (Line 63). The main argument at the time was that a tram required both a driver and a conductor, while a bus only required a driver, thus lowering the operational costs. This development was partially driven by the removal of regulations on car ownership in Norway in 1960, resulting in an explosion in the use of cars in Trondheim and thus falling passenger numbers on the trams. The tracks were simply paved over, and still exist under the streets. At the time of the closure Line 3 was operating at a 5-minute headway with 2.3 million passengers. One year after the buses had taken over the passenger numbers had dropped 30%, and the consequence was fewer and fewer bus departures resulting in fewer passengers. In the end the headway was reduced to 45 minutes. In 1974 the three public transport companies in Trondheim, all three owned by the city, were
merged to create
Trondheim Trafikkselskap (now
Team Trafikk, part of
Nettbuss). But the most troubled era for the tram service in Trondheim was in the 1980s, when the future of the tram was one of the hottest political issues in Trondheim, resulting in several
mayors having to leave office. The debate about the future of the trams had been going on through the late 1970s, in general with the left side of the city council supporting the tram while the right side wanted to close it down. After the
city council election in 1979 the
Progress Party got its first representative in the city council, Hildur Karstensen, who was a tram driver for TT. Though the
Conservative mayor,
Axel Buch, was expected to be re-elected, Kristiansen chose to support the
Labour candidate
Olav Gjærevoll, in the hope that a socialist majority would ensure the future of the trams, and thus making Gjærevoll mayor. on
Gråkallbanen Two years later though, the Labour Party had definitively changed its side in the tram debate, and chose an alliance with the Conservatives, creating a Labour-Conservative alliance with
Anne-Kath. Parow (Labour) as mayor and Axel Bush as vice-mayor. In 1982, the future of the tram line was again taken up in the city council, and this time the
Socialist Left Party (SV) chose to support closure of the tram lines. The first time the decision was taken in the council, SV chose to support the closure, preventing two of its members from voting against. But then the tram's future was the subject of a second vote, and the two disagreeing members of SV chose to vote against the closure of the tram line, and thus the city council voted to keep the trams, with 44 vs. 41 votes. The city council decided at the same time to build a new depot at Munkvoll and purchase 11 new trams, at a cost of
NOK 100 million. The opposition claimed that it would be cheaper to operate the line with
diesel buses. But the compromise also meant that the least robust part of the tramway was to be discontinued, thus the only line to survive was Lian-Lade. The line to Elgeseter was closed in 1983. In 2005 the company was bought by
Veolia Transport Norge. ==Future expansion==