Coimbra tram

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Tram under the "Arcos do Jardim" of Coimbra 1979
Reinstalling a dropped pantograph in Coimbra 1979

The tram in Coimbra was meter gauge and operated between 1874 and 1980.

From 1874 to 1883, from 1902 to 1903 and from 1908 to 1910, trams pulled by mules drove in the Portuguese city ​​of Coimbra ; they ran on the left .

On January 1, 1911, the Carris de Ferro de Coimbra company opened the first electric tram line between the Estação Velha (old train station) and Rua da Alegria, where the depot was located. This made Coimbra the fourth city in Portugal with an electric tram. A second line soon followed between the Estação Nova (New Station) and the university , which crossed under the “ Arcos do Jardim ” aqueduct , and a third line from the New Station to Santo António dos Olivais .

In 1926, the electrical company was taken over by the municipal service company SMC (Serviço Municipal de Coimbra), which had operated the mule trains ("Americanos") since 1908. In 1947 the city of Coimbra decided to replace the trams in the city center with trolleybuses , outside with diesel buses. The Coimbra trolleybus went into operation that same year , but the tram continued to shape urban transport in Coimbra for more than three decades. The urban transport company, now called SMTUC (Serviços Municipalizados de Transportes Urbanos de Coimbra), operated all three modes of transport. Towards the end of the 1970s, all tram lines were shut down within a short period of time, the last in February 1980.

The tram fleet consisted of two-axle railcars. Most of them were from the first generation from 1910. They were built by the American manufacturer J. G. Brill Company and had a scissor bar on the entrances. Some cars with entry doors were added in the late 1920s. At the beginning of the 1960s, the SMTUC had 20 trolley cars, 27 trolleybuses and 30 diesel buses; when the tram operation was discontinued, there were twelve tram cars, 27 trolleybuses and 70 diesel buses.

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