Lille tram
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| Basic information | |
| Country | France |
| city | Lille |
| opening | June 7, 1874 |
| operator | Transpole |
| Infrastructure | |
| Route length | 17.5 km |
| Gauge | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) |
| Power system | 750 V DC overhead line |
| Stops | 36 |
| business | |
| Lines | 2 |
| vehicles | 24 Breda VLC |
| statistics | |
| Passengers | 8,000,000 per year (2006) |
The Lille tram ( French Tramway de Lille ) to Roubaix and Tourcoing, called Mongy after Alfred Mongy, the builder of the network, serves the greater Lille - Roubaix - Tourcoing area . The network comprises two lines with a total length of 22 km.
history
There were tram lines in Lille with two different gauges: the horse-drawn trams used the standard gauge , while the electric trams and steam trams used the meter gauge . When the steam trams were electrified, the meter gauge was retained, as was the case with the trams of Lyon , Marseille , Paris , Bordeaux and Rouen . In Lyon, for example, the local network was standard gauge and the suburban network was meter gauge.
With the renaissance of the tram in France since the 1980s, the standard gauge is preferred. In France there are meter-gauge tram networks, apart from Lille, only in Saint-Étienne .
The standard-gauge trams
The Compagnie des tramways du Nord (TDN)
This company was founded in 1874 and operated a network of horse-drawn tram lines in the city, as follows:
- A: Railway station - rue nationale - place d'Isly
- B: Railway station - rue Gambetta - place d'Isly
- C: Train station - Porte d'Arras
- D: Railway station - Porte des Postes
- E: Train station - Porte de Douai
The fleet consisted of around 200 horses and around thirty wagons. The grooved rails for the tram were designed by engineers Léon Francq and Marsillon.
The Compagnie des Tramways Électriques de Lille et sa Banlieue (TELB)
TELB is the new company name of the company TDN since May 20, 1901. TELB built a network of standard-gauge electric trams. This network disappeared in 1966.
The network consisted of 25 lines, which were designated with the letters from A to X. In 1950 only the lines B, C, D, E, F, H, I, J, L, O, V and X remained.
Line H tram at Porte de Tournai, before 1906
Lille station with numerous trams, including those on Line C, power supply via medium-power rail
Tram drives through a destroyed city during the First World War
The Compagnie Générale Industrielle de Transports (CGIT)
At the end of 1955, the CGIT replaced the company TELB, whose license has expired. The CGIT only operates the network. A municipal association, which includes the municipalities served and the city of Lille, is responsible for the administration. The trams were subsequently replaced by buses. On January 29, 1966, line B, the last tram line, disappears.
The meter-gauge trams
The Compagnie des Tramways et Voies Ferrées du Nord
This company, founded by Alfred Mongy in 1900, started the construction of the great boulevard of Lille - Roubaix / Tourcoing to run an electric tram over it. The company intended to create a 380 km long tram network with 13 lines to Douai and Béthune . It received the concessions for most of its lines in 1904.
The Compagnie des tramways de Roubaix et de Tourcoing (TRT)
The TRT company was founded in 1894 by the Compagnie française des voies ferrées économiques by Léon Francq. They created a tram network of ten lines around Roubaix and Tourcoing. It was taken over by the ELRT in 1922.
In 1905 the network comprised the following lines:
- A , Roubaix - Wattrelos
- B , Roubaix - Lannoy
- D , Place de Roubaix - Mouvaux
- E , Roubaix - Tourcoing par les Boulevards
- F , Francs train station - Place de Tourcoing - Croix rouge
- G , Roubaix station - Hospice Barbieux
- H , Roubaix station - Gare du Pile
- I , Place de Tourcoing - Cimetière
- K , Roubaix - Crétinier train station
The Électrique Lille Roubaix Tourcoing (ELRT)
The ELRT was founded in 1905, this company, under the direction of the Lille engineers Alfred Mongy and Léon Francq, built its main network on the boulevards, but its secondary network also extended in other directions:
- from Lille to Roubaix and Tourcoing, (line 1, 22.2 km)
- from Lille to Leers, (line 2, 15.4 km)
- from Leers to Roncq, (line 3, 12.4 km)
- from Roubaix to Hem, (line 4, 5.2 km)
- from Lille to Marquette, (line 5)
- from Roubaix to Leers, (line 6, 4.4 km)
- from Lille to Marcq, (line 7, 5.6 km)
The tram on the great boulevard opened on December 4, 1909. In 1922 the ELRT took over the TRT.
The ELRT thus had an extensive network, consisting of:
- a local network that came from the takeover of the lines of the TRT and extended over the municipalities of Roubaix and Tourcoing.
- a suburban network made up of their own lines.
The ELRT tried to develop the entire network and to modernize the vehicle fleet of the old TRT.
- In 1937, with the delivery of 16 type 200 railcars from Brissonneau et Lotz, the era of the most modern tram vehicles in France began.
- The lines of the boulevards were equipped with the 28 new type 500 railcars built by Brissonneau et Lotz in 1950.
The ELRT had to give up the local networks of Roubaix and Tourcoing and kept only three lines.
- Lille - Roubaix
- Lille - Tourcoing
- Lille - Marcq-en-Barœul
The ELRT license ended in 1968 and the SNELRT (société nouvelle ELRT) became the new license holder.
In 1972 the branch to Marcq-en-Barœul was closed, and only two lines remained:
- R , Lille - Roubaix
- T , Lille - Tourcoing
The connection to Belgium
Under the German occupation, the ELRT built a short line from Toufflers to Festingue in Belgium in 1915 to provide a connection with the Tournai tram . The aim of this connection was to transport disabled people. The cross-border section was closed in 1918 but reopened in 1926 and electrified in 1933. There were no direct connections across the border, changing trains had to be made in Toufflers. The Belgian line was closed on April 26, 1952 for passenger traffic and on March 25, 1954 for goods traffic.
The Chemins de fer économiques du Nord (CEN)
The CEN company operated meter-gauge steam trams in the region:
- Armentières - Halluin
- Lille - Saint-Amand-les-Eaux
The 1980s
The companies SNELRT and CGIT (Lille bus and subway) merged at the end of 1981 to form a new company: Cotrali (Compagnie des Transports de la Communauté Urbaine de Lille), which operates under the TCC brand.
Various changes have been made to the grid: the end loop to the theater in Lille was replaced by an underground route in 1983, which over the Lille Europe station to Lille-Flandres leads (with Stumpfendstelle). These two stops also allow you to change to the subway . The end loops in Tourcoing (on March 12, 1982) and Roubaix were also replaced by double-track stump ends .
On the joint section to Tourcoing and Roubaix, the Saint-Maur and Clemenceau - Hippodrome stops have been moved underground to avoid crossing the intersections at the same level. In order to renew the fleet and replace the 500 series railcars, German DUEWAG trams were bought used. Cotrali acquired and modernized these railways from Mönchengladbach , from Bochum's BOGESTRA and - from March 1982 - from Recklinghausen . They were painted red. In 1994 the vehicles were parked and scrapped by the end of the 1990s. Only the railcar 380 was rescued on the initiative of a private person, but after being presented in the Emschertal Museum in Herne-Wanne-Eickel, it has since been scrapped.
Railcar of the ELRT, series 500, in the turning loop around the theater in Lille, 1982
Duewag articulated multiple unit 390 in the underground terminal in Lille Flandres
Terminal at Rue Carnot in Tourcoing with railcars from Brissonneau et Lotz , 1982
The situation at the end of the 1990s
The extension of line 2 of the metro from Fort-de-Mons to Tourcoing-Center raised the question of the future of the Mongy. Some criticized the parallel traffic to the subway, saying that the old tram had an old-fashioned image given the new automatic subway. Ultimately, it was decided to keep the Mongy and equip it with modern low-floor vehicles.
The current situation
The line network
The network consists of two lines with a shared route on the Lille-facing side: they connect Lille to Roubaix on the one hand and Tourcoing on the other. It is operated by the Transpole company. The tram transports eight million passengers a year, which is 6% of all public transport passengers in the Lille area. The tram network is 22 km long and includes 36 stops, both of which have side and central platforms. In the center of Lille, the shared route includes a short underground section south of the Romarin stop. The Gare Lille Europe station located there is not covered, only the terminus Gare Lille Flandres is actually underground, like the Saint-Maur and Clemenceau-Hippodrome stops (under road crossings).
The routes are double-tracked throughout, only a single-track section exists between the Victoire and Tourcoing-Center stations. After the Croisé Laroche station, the trunk line from Lille Flandres station splits into branches to Roubaix and Tourcoing. There is a turning loop at this junction. The depot is in the suburb of Marcq-en-Barœul . The track there branches off to the northeast of the Buisson stop from the main line, the entrances on both sides cross, secured by a barrier, the eastern lane of the Avenue de la République.
Gare Lille Europe station, train going to Gare Lille Flandres
The railcar coming from the depot drives onto the main line in Marcq-en-Barœul
Route separation at the Croisé Laroche station
Tourcoing-Center final stop
Final stop at Roubaix Eurotéleport
The vehicles
The vehicle fleet consists of 24 low-floor railcars in bidirectional design, only the areas above the bogies at the ends of the vehicle with the driver's cabs are high-floor. They were delivered in 1994 by the Italian manufacturer Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie as part of the renovation of the Lille tram . The vehicles have been renewed at Bombardier since 2013 and are given a different paintwork.
- Length: 29.6 m
- Width: 2.4 m
- Height: 3.425 m
- Empty weight: 40 t
- Capacity: 200 people (50 seats and 150 standing places)
- Top speed: 80 km / h
- Pantograph: Faiveley single-arm pantograph
- Gauge: meter gauge
Planning
For several years there has been discussion of building a network of tram trains based on the Karlsruhe model . This would have the advantage of offering a transport connection without having to change from the suburbs to the heart of the city. It would also reduce the load on Lille Flandres station, which is now approaching its capacity limit. The Lille Metropole master plan, approved on December 6, 2002, considered 6 axes for the 2008 planning horizon, but only a preliminary study has been carried out to date.
On April 17, 2009, the LMCU council decided on the mobility framework plan that confirmed the Tram-Train project, this time only on two lines (Comines - Seclin and Don Sainghin - Baisieux) with a staggered start-up between 2016 and 2018.
This means that the Mongy will not be affected by this new project, on the one hand because it is not included in the relevant axles, and on the other hand because its gauge is incompatible with that of a tram train (standard gauge to be used on the RFF network to be able to operate). Projects to link the Mongy beyond Lille Flandres are sometimes mentioned, but only as a very long-term perspective.
On June 27, 2019, the city parliament unanimously passed the transport plan for 2020 to 2035. It provides for the construction of tram routes with a length of 50 km. This includes extensions of the two existing lines: from Tourcoing Center to Tourcoing station and from Roubaix via Wattrelos to Herseaux.
Web links
- http://www.tramway.at/lille/ Website of the author of The Future of Cities
- Transpole , the operator (French)
- History of the Lille tram (French)
- The Mongy: Bibliography (French)
See also
- Transpole : operator of trams and local transport in the cities of Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing
- Lille Metro: Metro system with VAL technology
literature
- Christoph Groneck: French planning models for tram systems compared to Germany . Dissertation, University of Wuppertal 2007 ( PDF ).
- Harald A. Jahn: The future of cities . Phoibos Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85161-039-0 .
- A. Sampité: Les chemins de fer à faible trafic en France. Lines of secondaires des grands réseaux, chemins de fer d'intérêt local et tramways à vapeur - établissement et exploitation. Baudry et cie, 1888, reprinted 2010 by BiblioLife ISBN 978-1-145-90434-7 , online:
- Claude Gay: Au fil des trams . AMITRAM Association (Lille), 1984
- René Courant: Le Temps des tramways . Édition du Cabri, Menton, 1982, ISBN 978-2-903310-22-6
- Gérard Blondeau: Le Mongy, Tramway du Nord . Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing. La Regordane, 1995, ISBN 978-2-906984-20-2
Individual evidence
- ↑ CLARK - Daniel Kinnear, Tramways, construction et exploitation, page 122 ( Memento of the original of February 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ CLARK - Daniel Kinnear, Tramways, construction et exploitation, page 346 ( memento of the original from February 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Opening of the new tram lines on Grand Boulevard Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing on December 5, 1909 (French)
- ↑ histoire du Mongy
- ↑ Stefan Justen, Dick van der Spek: Rail Atlas vicinal. Rail Memories, 1992. (French)
- ↑ a b short messages in: Stadtverkehr 4/1982, p. 182.
- ↑ Official website of the operator Transpole ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Official website of the operator Transpole ( Memento of the original from June 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Trams de France 2007 , in: Revue Connaissances du Rail, October-November 2007
- ↑ Inauguration du 1er Tramway lillois rénové (French) at newsbombardierfrance.com, accessed on October 22, 2014
- ↑ http://www.nord.equipement-agriculture.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/4_cle67e113.pdf ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Page 152
- ↑ http://www.lillemetropole.fr/gallery_files/site/91/157603.PDF ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (see p. 7)
- ↑ Blickpunkt Tram 5/2019, p. 135.
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