Starting this week the location for our “Around the World in Trams” series is Rome in Italy and firstly it’s a bit of a “Picture in Time” vibe as we are going back to 1964.
Trams first ran in Rome in 1877 with the first horse line operating between Piazzale Flaminio to Ponte Milvio (a line which is now line 2 of the current network). 1895 saw the first electric trams run and by 1904 the last of the horse cars had been withdrawn and electric operation was in full swing with 17 trams lines utilising 144 trams. The system reached its maximum size in 1929 with over 140km of track and 59 different lines. After that the history of the tramway matches that of many other cities across the world with closures following, although more recently new lines have opened which includes the return of trams closer to the city centre having been banned by Mussolini in the late 1930s.
The photo below was taken in July 1964 and shows 7011 at Porta Maggiore. This car was built in 1948 by the Stanga company of Padua as one of a fleet of 50 trams. Although this photo was taken nearly 60 years ago the tram remains active today (having undergone modernisation work in the 1980s).
Photograph by Bob Hodges, July 1964