Merano tram

Coordinates: 46 ° 40 ′ 14 "  N , 11 ° 9 ′ 34"  E

Merano tram
Route length:	6.70 (plus operating tracks) km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	750 volts  =
Maximum slope :	77  ‰
Minimum radius :	20 m
Opening:	May 9, 1908
Attitude:	May 24, 1956
Deepest point:	300  m slm cemetery and Remise Viehmarktstraße
The highest point:	371  m slm Brunnenplatz and forest
Legend 3.73 Forest   371  m slm 3.30 Etsch 348  m slm 3.20 Lagundo dodge 343  m slm 2.40 Lion host   321  m slm 2.30 Evasion 320  m slm 0.000 0.00   307  m slm 1.60 Lacknerhof   307  m slm 0.90 Sanatorium bypass 302  m slm 0.60 Hans-von-Vintler-Strasse   302  m slm 0.30 Vinschgau Gate   306  m slm Vinschgau Gate 0.10 Kornplatz Ausweiche 308  m slm Vinschgau Railway from Malles 0.640 0.000 0.00 graveyard   300  m slm 0.77 0 0.00 0.000 0.00 railway station   302  m slm Remise Viehmarktstrasse 300  m slm 0.330 0.000 0.00 0.000 0.000 0.00   302  m slm Railway line to Bolzano 0.300 0.00 Mazzini Square   302  m slm 0.600 0.00 Andreas-Hofer-Strasse   308  m slm 0.9 000.00 Theater square   310  m slm Local train to Lana 1.000 0.00 Marktgasse   312  m slm 1.200 0.00 Clay court beginning of double lane 315  m slm 1.300 0.00 Post bridge over the Passer 314  m slm 1.41 0 0.00 0.000 0.00 Post bridge property line, end of double lane 317  m slm 0.200 0.00 Valerie Street   326  m slm 0.400 0.00 Winkelweg turnout 336  m slm 0.920 0.00 Obermais Brunnenplatz  371  m slm

A Forster Line carriage drives through the Vinschgauer Tor, around 1925

The Merano tram opened up the city of Merano and the suburb of Obermais, which was incorporated in 1924, from 1908 to 1956 .

history

On May 9, 1908, two meter-gauge lines were opened at the same time in the then much-visited spa town , touching the Theaterplatz junction . From there, on August 12, 1906, the meter-gauge local railway Lana – Meran began operating to the market town of Lana .

The 3.73 kilometer long line 1 ran as a radial line from Theaterplatz via Kornplatz and the Vinschgauer Landstrasse in a western direction to Lagundo and from there on over the Adige to Forst . The 2.33 km long line was two as diameter line designed and ran from 1906 newly built railway station about today's Piazza Mazzini (Habsburgerplatz) and the Theater Square (Ruffiniplatz) at the Kurhaus over to the clay court. It was not until October 10, 1908 that it could be extended over the Post Bridge (Reichsbrücke) up to Brunnenplatz (Dr. Karl-Ludwig-Platz) in the still independent municipality of Obermais. However, the line numbers were only used internally and were not written on the vehicles.

At Mazziniplatz, an approximately 500-meter-long operating line branched off through Sankt-Josef-Strasse and Viehmarktstrasse to the remise west of the train station , which today serves as the city's bus depot. From this operating route, at the confluence of Viehmarktstrasse with Sankt-Josef-Strasse, another route branched off to the main entrance of the municipal cemetery , although this 310-meter-long connection was only used as scheduled in All Saints' Day traffic on November 1st. There was also a second operating line from the train station to the Lacknerhof on the line to Forst. Overall, apart from the turnouts , the continuous single-track network was 6.70 kilometers long plus operating tracks of around one kilometer in length.

At the beginning there was a six-minute cycle on line 2 , but after the beginning of the First World War the tram had problems due to the low utilization. Ultimately, she fell victim to the growing bus and individual traffic. It was transferred from the city to the company Società Anonima Esercizi Riuniti ( SAER ), a subsidiary of the Breda vehicle group , on January 1, 1936 . May 24, 1956 was the last day of operation. Apart from the former coach house, no traces of the railway are visible in the city today. In the run-up to municipal elections or after driving bans in connection with pollution by fine dust , consideration was given to reintroducing a tram in Merano.

vehicles

The car park originally consisted of a total of twelve railcars with the numbers 1-8 and 101-104 and four sidecars with the numbers 51B to 54B, all of which came from the Grazer Waggonfabrik . Due to the low utilization of the railway, the railcars 3 and 5 as well as the trailer cars 51 and 52 were sold to the Bolzano tram in 1916 . The other two sidecars 53 and 54 went to Lokalbahn Lana – Meran in the same year, from where they were passed on to the Innsbruck tram as early as 1917 , which they added to their inventory under the new numbers 146 and 147. The latter two have been preserved in museums to this day, number 53 on the Lendcanaltramway of the nostalgic railways in Carinthia and number 54 on the Tyrolean museum railways .

literature

• Werner Duschk, Walter Pramstaller (among others): Local and trams in old Tyrol . Self-published by Tiroler Museumsbahnen , Innsbruck 2008.
• Dirk v. Harlem, Hans Lehnhart: The Merano tram . In: Tram magazine . No. February 31 , 1979, ISSN  0340-7071 , p. 15-22 .
• Trade, industry, transport and agriculture. Electric trams in Merano and surroundings. In:  Wiener Zeitung , February 7, 1905, p. 12 center. (Online at ANNO ).
• 1906–2006: 100 years of the Lana-Meran-Bahn - South Tyrol's first electric tram. The Lananer Bahn, the local railway Oberlana - Lana-Burgstall, the Merano tram, the Vigiljochbahn, the Bozen-Meran-Bahn, Luis Zuegg. Published by the Eisenbahnarchiv Tirol on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first electric tram in South Tyrol from Lana to Meran 1906–2006 . Special publications on railway technology, Volume 4. Eisenbahnarchiv Tirol, Innsbruck 2006.
• Walter Kreutz: The Merano tram . In: Railway . No. 11 , 1957, ISSN  0013-2756 , pp. 190–191 (part of the series of electric local and trams of Austrian origin in South Tyrol ).

Web links

Commons : Tram Merano  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Tyrolean Museum Railways : The Merano tram. Retrieved October 24, 2011 . 
• Preserved rail vehicles. Retrieved October 24, 2011 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Traffic opening of the Obermaiser Tram . In: Meraner Zeitung , October 11, 1908 (No. 123/1908, 42nd year), ZDB -ID 2430311-2 , p. 3.