Tram Museum

C- , D- and F - railcars in the West Hall of the Transport Museum in Schwanheim

A tram museum is a transport museum dedicated to the subject of tram history. In addition to rail vehicles and tram technical equipment, the exhibits include mostly themed objects of all kinds such as maps of the route network, tickets, course books and other historical documents as well as uniforms and models.

In the museums there are collections of trams, railcars and sidecars and other exhibits that are not always open to the public and that are also displayed without their own exhibition - e.g. B. as part of a museum or as part of the vehicle collection of a museum tram .

Almost all tram companies have museum cars, only the larger or formerly large companies have more extensive collections with several vehicles that document different epochs of transport history.

In Germany , the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe BVG has the largest and richest regional collection, with which the history of the tram in Berlin from the first horse-drawn tram (1865) to the large number of individual, formerly independent trams in Greater Berlin and the different developments in the divided city to the 1990s can be shown. In Austria , the collection of the Vienna public transport company is comparable. It includes vehicles from horse-drawn trams to steam trams , the Viennese electric light rail and articulated vehicles from the 1960s, supplemented by trolleybuses and omnibuses . The Tyrol area , both in terms of today's North and South Tyrol and parts of Trentino, is covered by the collections of the Tiroler MuseumsBahnen in Innsbruck . In their vehicle and photo collections and plan archives, these railways, some of which were created in the old Austrian Austro-Hungarian past, are documented.

Most of these are locally or regionally oriented collections. The only national museum collection in Germany is maintained by the Hanover Tram Museum and shows the development of trams from the horse-drawn tram to the open-plan and articulated trams of the 1970s. In addition, there are also individual trams from other European countries. a. from Austria and the Netherlands.

Tram museums

As museums, tram museums present parts of their collection - vehicles and / or other exhibits on tram history - in permanent exhibitions . The spectrum ranges from small exhibition rooms - as in Mannheim - to separate areas in depots that are still in use - such as in Bremen - to independent smaller and larger museum halls in former depots - e.g. B. in Chemnitz , Dresden , Frankfurt , Leipzig , Stuttgart , Cologne , Nuremberg or Innsbruck . According to the company, the largest museum of its kind is the Transport Museum Remise in Vienna .

Almost all museums with their own vehicles also offer museum driving . A minority has so far presented an exclusively stationary exhibition of historical vehicles. The processing of individual museum exhibits is planned. The Frankfurt Transport Museum in Schwanheim offers scheduled operation with operational historical vehicles for one-off or regular events such as the German Gymnastics Festival 2009 , the Night of the Museums or the Day of Transport History.

Part of such exhibitions are sometimes model-making systems from the earlier company, some of which are modular.

Development in Germany

Since the 1960s

The museums in Viernheim and Kassel were closed by the transport companies that needed or sold the space elsewhere. The most spectacular was the bankruptcy of the German Tram Museum in 1986 with a collection of over 300 vehicles plus buses, trolleybuses and municipal vehicles - the largest tram collection in the world. In 1987 the Hannoversches Straßenbahn-Museum eV in Wehmingen (southeast of Hanover) took over the vehicles. Since then, a national tram museum has been created from the formerly almost scrap-ripe fleet, supplemented after 1990 with vehicles from the GDR.

The current situation in Germany

The existing museums and collections seem to be secure for the foreseeable future, but in the long term the cost pressure affecting transport companies will endanger some museum cars and some museums. Another tram museum is being prepared in Munich , but further new projects are hardly conceivable. Various transport companies, such as the Heidelberg tram , want to part with some of their museum cars. Some of the clubs suffer from a lack of young talent. The mergers in the transport market and the opening up to European competition at least raise doubts as to whether there will be as many museum cars in Germany as there are today.

List of tram museums

Europe

Germany

Bremen

Bremen , Bremen Tram Museum

Hesse

Lower Saxony

near Hanover, Sehnde - Wehmingen , Hannoversches Straßenbahn-Museum , In addition, there is a modular system / model tram , the origins of which can be found in Hamburg .

North Rhine-Westphalia

Dortmund , local transport museum
Cologne , Thielenbruch Tram Museum
Wuppertal - Kohlfurth , Bergisches Straßenbahnmuseum , Elektro Straßenbahn Kohlfurth-Cronenberg eV, the BMB operate a 3.2 km long museum tram on part of the former Wuppertal tram line 5 (Elberfeld-Solingen). The vehicle collection consists of meter gauge trams from the Rhine-Ruhr-Wupper region.

Saxony

Chemnitz-Kappel , Chemnitz Tram Museum
Döbeln , German Horse Railway Museum
Dresden , depot Trachenberge , tram museum in Dresden
Leipzig , historical tram station Wittenberger Strasse, tram museum Leipzig

Saxony-Anhalt

Tram Museum Halle

Schleswig-Holstein

Kiel - Schönberg , Tram Museum Kiel , Schönberger Strand,
The Association of Traffic Amateurs and Museum Railways (VVM) operates a small railway museum in Aumühle near Hamburg and maintains a museum railway and a museum tram in Schönberg north of Kiel. The tram collection consists of vehicles from Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, and the standard gauge and 1100 mm gauge are used

Austria

Graz , Tramway Museum Graz
Innsbruck , Tiroler MuseumsBahnen - Localbahnmuseum Innsbruck
Klagenfurt , Lendcanaltramway
Vienna , Remise Transport Museum
Museum tramway Mariazell – Erlaufsee

Switzerland

Bern , Tram Museum Bern

Zurich , Zurich Tram Museum
Chamby , Blonay – Chamby museum railway

Belgium

Brussels Capital Region

Woluwe-Saint-Pierre : Brussels Tram Museum ( Museum voor het Stedelijk Vervoer te Brussel ) opened in 1982, managed by the Brussels Transport Authority (STIB / MIVB).

Flanders

Dilbeek - Schepdaal , Schepdaal Tram Museum
Berchem (Antwerp) -Groenenhoek, Vlaams Tram- en Autobusmuseum

Wallonia

Liège , Transport Museum Liège , opened 1985, (also with vehicles from Aachen)
Thuin , Thuin Tram Museum

Denmark

Ringsted - Jystrup , Sporvejsmuseet Skjoldenæsholm , Danish tram museum with vehicles from all previous Danish companies and some foreign vehicles; Driving on standard and meter gauge. The museum is the fifth largest in the world and it is the longest-stretched museum in Denmark.