Saint-Etienne tram

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tram
Saint-Etienne tram
image
Stop at Châteaucreux Gare
Basic information
Country France
city Saint-Etienne
opening 4th December 1881
electrification April 17, 1897
operator STAS
Infrastructure
Route length 16.0 km
Gauge 1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system 600 V DC overhead line
Operating mode Furnishing operation
Stops 43
business
Lines 3
Clock in the peak hours 4 min
vehicles 35 Alstom TFS
Top speed 70 km / h
statistics
Passengers 70,000 per day
Network plan
Route map valid until November 2019

The tram Saint-Étienne ( French Tramway de Saint-Étienne ) is a meter-gauge tram network in the French city of Saint-Étienne . The city of Saint-Étienne - along with Lille and Marseille - is one of the three cities in France where trams survived the wave of decommissioning of the post-war period. In operation without interruption since 1881, Saint-Étienne has the oldest tram company in France. With 70,000 passengers a day, the tram provides 49% of the public transport service in the Agglomération Stéphanoise region .

history

Steam tram on Place Badouillère in Saint-Étienne, around 1890
Electric tram in front of the main train station Gare de Chateaucreux , before 1914
Saint-Étienne tram network 1928 (north is on the left)
Track construction site with four-axle (left) and six-axle PCC wagons at Place du Peuple, 1981

The beginnings of the tram go back to December 4, 1881, when the first meter-gauge steam tram was opened on a route of 5.5 kilometers between Terrasse and Bellevue . Another line went into operation in February 1882, from Bellevue to Firminy . A 30 km long line from Saint-Etienne to Rive-de-Gier was opened in November 1882. The "Compagnie des Chemins de Fer à Voie étroite (CFVE)" then took over the network. Since April 17, 1897, the first electric trams ran on the Bellevue ↔ Chateaucreux station and Place Dorian ↔ Rond Point ; these were operated by the "Compagnie des tramways électriques (TE)". By 1914, most of the steam trams were electrified; 26 million passengers per year were carried on the network. In 1930 the tram network covered a line length of 90 kilometers. In the same year the TE went bankrupt, the company was taken over by the CFVE. On July 15, 1931, the last steam-powered railways were shut down due to high operating losses. On April 1, 1932, the first electric tram lines were shut down and replaced by bus lines . In the following years, all overland tram lines, with the exception of the line to Firminy , were converted to bus service.

During the Second World War , the city decided to abolish the tram and replace it with the trolleybus . The first line was switched to trolleybus operation on January 1, 1942. Until 1952 only the busiest line 4 ( Terrasse - Bellevue ) remained, as buses could not meet on this route due to the narrow cross-section of the street. Ultimately, it is thanks to the tram passengers that this important but outdated line was saved. After lengthy persuasion work by a passenger association, which had to struggle with resistance from the press, politics and the car lobby, it finally succeeded in buying new cars.

In 1958, 30 one-way, open-plan PCC cars based on the Brussels model were purchased, followed by five PCC articulated multiple units in 1968. The new wagons were followed by a complete modernization of the route. They created their own routes and redesigned the stops. In the 1960s, the tram carried 22 million passengers. On January 1, 1980, the newly founded Société de Transports de l'Agglomération Stéphanoise took over the management of the entire public transport system in the region, including the tram.

Since the tram no longer reached Châteaucreux main station , a new long-distance train station was opened at the Place Carnot tram stop instead of a new route there in 1980 . From September 28, 1980, the trains on the Lyon - Saint Étienne city connection were extended to Gare de Saint-Étienne Carnot , where passengers found convenient connections to tram line 4. A route to the main train station only went back into operation in 2006.

On November 1, 1982, one-man operation began. On February 17, 1983, when the line was extended by 1.5 kilometers to the south, France's first new line was inaugurated after the end of World War II. In the north, on December 8, 1991, the line was extended by 2.2 km from Terrasse to Hôpital-Nord. At the same time, the new low-floor trams from Alsthom-Vevey went into operation.

Line network

Place du Peuple junction

The route network between 1930 and 2010

The tram network reached its maximum length of 90 km in 1930. From 1932 the first lines with low passenger numbers were switched to trolleybus operations. The main line (line 4) between the Terrasse and Bellevue stops was the only one that remained, because the streets in this area were too narrow for buses. In 1983, line 4 was extended south to the new Solaure terminus , then in 1991 by 2.5 km north to Hôpital Nord . There are now a total of 27 stops on this route.

In October 2006 the third new line from the Place du Peuple to the main train station ( Châteaucreux Gare ) was put into operation. It has six stops. Since then there have been two tram lines in Saint-Étienne. In addition to the existing line 4, line 5 was put into operation, which shared part of the line 4 and ran to the main station in an additional loop.

The route network between 2010 and 2019

View of the Transpôle depot in Saint-Priest-en-Jarez (2012)

On August 30, 2010, line 5 with its loop journey to the main station was split into two lines, each ending at the main station. In addition, the line numbers of the tram lines were preceded by the line identifier T ( tramway ), following the example of other French cities . The line network thus comprised the following lines:

  • The T1 line ran from Hôpital Nord to Solaure and served 27 stops.
  • The T2 line ran from Terrasse to Châteaucreux Gare and served 17 stops.
  • Line T3 ran from Châteaucreux Gare to Bellevue and served 13 stops.

The current route network since November 16, 2019

Since November 16, 2019, an extension of the T3 line has been connecting the Châteaucreux Gare station with the G. Guichard stop . It runs through the Quartier du Soleil and the Zone d'Activités du Technopôle business park and also connects to the Geoffroy-Guichard sports stadium. Test drives on the new section took place for the first time on July 15, 2019.

Since the clasp was completed, the lines have been running as follows:

  • T1 from Hôpital Nord to Solaure
  • T2 from Cité du Design to Châteaucreux Gare
  • T3 from Hôpital Nord via Châteaucreux Gare to Bellevue

At the Cité du Design station , a third track was built for turning the trains, which is why only two-way CAF cars can be used on the T2 line since then.

vehicles

PCC four-axle 527 before modernization in Rue Charles de Gaulle, 1981
PCC articulated multiple unit 554 in the 1970s
Modern train with pantographs at the Jean Jaurès stop, 1992
Doorless side of a TFS type Saint-Étienne
CAF Urbos in test operation near the Terrasse stop

In the late 1950s, the Saint-Etienne tram began to renew its fleet of vehicles. Like Belgian companies in particular , the PCC concept, which had been developed in the USA at the end of the 1920s, was used there. It contained well-sprung four-axle railcars in a self-supporting lightweight construction, which allowed higher speeds, accelerated well and still showed satisfactory braking behavior. Externally, however, the European licensed buildings soon deviated significantly from the American original. 30 such one-way vehicles with a car body width of just 2.02 m and pantographs were built in 1958/59 under license from the Ateliers de Strasbourg . They were numbered 501 to 530, were modernized in 1982 and retired in 1998.

After La Brugeoise et Nivelles (BN) first presented a six-axle articulated car in PCC design for the Brussels tram in 1962, Saint-Etienne also acquired five such railcars in 1967/68 (numbers 551 to 555). Car 551 was modernized in 1982 and was given the new number 001. All PCC articulated cars were parked in 1998, but are still available in 2019.

New rolling stock - in the form of trams similar to type TFS ( Tramway français standard ) - was delivered from July 30, 1991. The low-floor trams, derived from the Bern Be 4/8 , gradually replaced the old PCC cars that had ensured the survival of the trams in the city. Under the leadership of GEC Alsthom , the companies Vevey (car body), Duewag (articulation, bogies) and Faiveley (folding doors) were involved in the development and construction of the vehicles. The low-floor trams are 23.2 m long and 2.1 m wide, the entry height is 36 cm. Like the existing PCC cars, they were given a pedal switch. Each vehicle has four doors and seats 204 passengers, including 43 seats.

The first series was delivered in 1991 and comprised 15 lanes, numbered 901 to 915. They were put into operation from December 1991 together with the extension of line 4 from Terrasse to Hôpital Nord , on which the test drives had already taken place. Since the old PCC trains were still in service at that time, the new trains were equipped with pantographs with sliding shoes. When the last PCC vehicle was taken out of service on July 4, 1998, the pantographs of the Alsthom wagons were replaced by single-arm pantographs during the summer vacation of that year .

In 1998 the second series of 20 trains was delivered, numbered from 916 to 935. They were equipped with single-arm pantographs from the start and reach a top speed of 70 km / h. In total, the Saint-Étienne tram fleet now comprises 35 low-floor trams. These are one-way vehicles. The locomotives have been kept at the Saint-Priest-en-Jarez depot (near the Escale stop ) since 1993 . The Dépôt was previously located south of the Bellevue stop .

In September 2013, the renewal of 20 trams was put out to tender. The company Société Albigeoise de Fabrication et Réparation Automobile from Albi was awarded the contract.

An order for 16 new trams from the Urbos product family was placed in 2014 by the Spanish company CAF . The first train was delivered on July 1, 2016. The 5-part trains are 33 m long and 2.15 m wide. The vehicles are bidirectional and have six doors on each side, including four double doors. The trains are nine meters longer than the previous ones and offer 30% more capacity. The first trains from this tranche have been in use since May 6, 2017.

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 .

Web links

Commons : Saint-Étienne tram  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Saint-Étienne - 130 ans de tram sans interruption in: Ville, Rail & Transports, No. 527, September 21, 2011 (in French)
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Jean Tricoire: Le tramway en France . La Vie du Rail, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-915034-73-8 , p. 127-131 .
  3. ^ Short messages in: Der Stadtverkehr 2/1981, p. 92.
  4. ↑ a b Blickpunkt Tram 6/2017, p. 143.
  5. ↑ Mobilicites of November 11, 2015: Saint-Étienne: Egis remporte la maîtrise d'œuvre complète du prolongement du T3 (French), accessed on July 9, 2016
  6. ↑ Blickpunkt Tram 5/2019, p. 135.
  7. ↑ PCC car for the old world in: Straßenbahn Magazin 9/2019, p. 48 ff.
  8. ↑ a b c Stadtverkehr aktuell France in: Stadtverkehr 10/1991, p. 50.
  9. ^ Farewell to the PCC in Saint-Étienne in: Tram Magazine 5/1998, p. 8.
  10. ↑ Saint-Etienne va aussi rénover ses tramways on mobilicites.com, accessed on October 25, 2013
  11. ↑ Mobilicites of July 4, 2016: CAF livre sa première rame à Saint-Étienne (French) accessed on July 9, 2016
  12. ↑ [1] mobilicies.com of May 9, 2017 (French), accessed on May 9, 2017