
The Moscow tram is 110 years old
This year will be celebrated the 110th anniversary of the Moscow tram. For this date in June the tram review is planned. It will be open with the famous horse-drawn tram with imperial (tram of 2 floors) – it hasn’t appeared in the streets of the city for about 90 years, and it will be closed with the actual carriage, what the inhabitants of the capital take each morning to go for the work. In total there will be 10 carriages that will take part in this review.
According to RIA “Novosti” on the press-conference devoted to this date the general director of GUP “Mostrans” Pyotr Ivanov told about the itinerary, what will follow the procession. The review will start with the railway station “Turgenevskaya”, will go through Pokrovskye Vorota, the Bridge Bolshoy Ustinskii, by the railway station “Novokuznetskaya”, will cross the Circle Sadovoye, will go by the cloister Danilovsky and will go to the street Shabolovska, after what the review will be over in the most ancient Moscow functional depot of Apakov.
On this conference Mr. Ivanov told about plans of the development of tram transport. The government of Moscow accepted the 3 years program of the reconstruction and modernization of 160 km of tram railways of the 416 existing. The program must have been executed in 2009, but due to the financial crisis the procedure will take more time.
New railway will be installed according to the last technical elaborations in this field. They will be quieter and ecologically harmless. For the experiment in the region of the Volokolamskoye highway between the railway lawns will be created as in Europe.
The other plan of GUP “Mosgortrans” – installation of the first tram railway line outside MKAD, in the settlement Severny.
Taking Europe as example, Mr. Ivanov signed that London and Paris having once refused tram transport, now return to this transport means. “Moscow won’t make the mistakes of others – the tram won’t disappear from the streets of the capital. The tram transport has nearly the same transportation capacity, but is much cheaper in the construction than the metropolitan” – told Pyotr Ivanov.
The first tram in the world was a horse-drawn tram that appeared in 1828 in Baltimore, Maryland. It possessed the same qualities and defects as the horse-drawn vehicle. For one carriage 10 horses were required, that became tired, ate and required carry.
In Russia a horse-drawn tram appeared in 1881. And the first electronic railway was installed in 1892 in Kiev. In Moscow the electronic tram appeared after 7 years only. At that time there were also pneumatic, diesel and petrol driving trams.