Travelling from Stockholm to Göteborg
on 27 Aug 2013, I made a stopover at Norrköping, one of Europe's
smallest tramway cities. I was there also in 2007, but with the
entire system closed down for track work during the summer, I had to
see all routes on a replacement bus! Since then, a fourth and very
important leg has been added to the system, resulting in a rather
good network for such a small town of less than 100,000 inhabitants.
Trams on line 2 run every 10 minutes throughout the day, and on line
3 every 10-12 minutes depending on the time of the day. Trams are
well patronised and the fleet has been rejuvenating during recent
years, so the future for the Norrköping tram looks bright. During my
visit, only new Flexity Classic (like those on Stockholm's Sparväg
City and in Frankfurt, Dortmund or Kassel) were in serice, plus
several of the refurbished ex-Duisburg Duewag trams, which have an
added central low-floor section. I did not get to see any of the
three ex-Munich GT6 trams.
The new extension from Ljura to
Kvarnberget is well-built like what one would expect of a modern tram
line, completely on its own right-of-way, mostly with grass-covered
track. Interesting to note that the Flexity Classic are all
double-ended, despite the existence of terminal loops and several
intermediate loops, too. But this fact allowed three of them to be
borrowed to Stockholm for the opening of their Sparväg City (along
with three trams from Frankfurt). Due to their design with proper
bogies at the end of the vehicle, the Flexity Classic are among the
better of the modern trams when it comes to travelling through
curves.
Norrköping now only has lines 2 and 3,
but it used to have a line 1, too, which was a circular line. And I
think that the link between Norr tull and Väster tull should really
be rebuilt, as the area it would serve has been redeveloped
drastically from an industrial quarter into a cultural centre, but to
avoid that the trams get stuck on the existing bridge, some
alternative needs to be offered for other traffic, like a new bridge
further up the river. Once reinstated, line 2 could share the central
trunk route with line 3 as now it takes a long detour around the
eastern edge of the city centre, where I did not observe many
passengers.
Travelling on the tram in Norrköping
is rather cheap, you can explore the system with a day pass for just
50 SEK (some 6.50 €).
LINKS
In 1957 to 1966 there was also a route nr 4.
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