Over the past few months there have been four UK tram systems receiving deliveries of new vehicles but that number will now drop to three as all six of the Variotrams for London Tramlink have now arrived at the Therapia Lane Depot. 2559 – the last of the Stadler built trams – arrived at Therapia Lane at 2130 on Thursday 7th June, just short
of five months since the first of the vehicles was delivered.
2559 was delivered in the standard Tramlink fleet livery but it is expected that it will shortly be receiving a vinyl wrap livery although what this will be for is not yet known. The tram will also receive full commissioning before it can enter service in the near future. Of its other Variotram sisters 2554 remains out of service as its broken window has yet to repaired because it is not thought there are any spares in Croydon as yet!
As we have reported extensively on British Trams Online – and you are probably bored with us saying it by now! – the Variotrams, built by Stadler in Germany, have been ordered by Transport for London to provide a much needed increase in capacity across the London Tramlink network with a new Line 4 between Therapia Lane and Elmers End to be introduced.
It had originally been expected that Line 4 would start operation from Monday 18th June but it now appears that the start date has had to be put back slightly with the latest reports suggesting Monday 25th June as the start date for the extra service. It is planned that Line 4 will run from Therapia Lane to Elmers End between 0700 and 1900 on weekdays with a slightly later start and earlier finish on a Saturday. It will not be in operation on a Sunday.
Whereas at the moment trams operating between Elmers End and central Croydon and Beckenham Junction and central Croydon interwork (i.e. a tram will run Elmers End-West
Croydon-Beckenham Junction-West Croydon-Elmers End etc.) the new service pattern will see a change with the Beckenham Junction service becoming stand alone. This means that lines 1 (Elmers End-West Croydon) and 4 (Elmers End-Therapia Lane) will now interwork with trams planned to operate Therapia Lane-Elmers End-West Croydon-Elmers End-Therapia Lane etc. Obviously at times when line 4 is not operating the standard practice of Beckenham Junction and Elmers End services interworking will continue.
For the record the delivery dates for the Variotrams have been:
2554 – Monday 9th January 2012
2555 – Monday 29th February 2012
2556 – Friday 23rd March 2012
2557 – Wednesday 25th April 2012
2558 – Friday 18th May 2012
2559 – Thursday 7th June 2012
With the deliveries of the Variotrams now completed it leaves just three UK systems
receiving new trams: Blackpool (also approaching completion), Edinburgh and Manchester. But the coming years will also see new trams being delivered to Midland Metro (CAF trams in 2014), Nottingham Express Transit (Alstom Citadis trams in 2014) and Stagecoach Supertram (Vossoloh vehicles for the tram-train pilot due in 2015 which will probably be extended to include the extra capacity for Supertram). All in all it will have been an exciting few years for the modern light rail systems in the UK!
Just a quick pointer regarding line 2 Beckenham Junction to West Croydon services, this is a return to the original routing (Beckenham Junction-Town Centre Loop-Benckenham Junction) which was changed to accomodate the Beckenham to Elmers service via the Town Centre Loop service. I am not sure when the change was but must be well over 6 years ago now.
With regard to there being no line 4 service on a Sunday, I find this surprising and somewhat short sited. When I used to drive the Croydon Trams, many moons ago, the service from Elmers End to Wimbledon and then later from New Addington to Wimbledon (after the route changes) were always full from Croydon to Ampere Way for Ikea, especially on a Sunday! Indeed the 15 minute service on that line on a Sunday was never enough.
With those points in mind i do think that having a new route, new trams and the doubling of the tramway through Mitcham are all great and will be a great benefit to the tramway. It is just a shame that there are no definite proposals for extensions to Crystal Palace, Sutton and Streatham yet.