City of Edinburgh Council bosses have revealed that they are to allow various products to be released with the Edinburgh Trams image on as they try to raise extra money during this time of budget constraints. It is not just the trams which be used on products such as mugs and t-shirts but landmarks such as the Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens will also be used.
A spokeswoman for the Council commented: “We’re currently investigating high-quality merchandising opportunities to help us promote the Capital and its assets. Themes could include trams and cultural attractions, such as key landmarks and monuments like Greyfriars Bobby and the Scott Monument. It’s too early to specify what kind of products we’ll commission but we want to ensure that whatever merchandise we go for is appealing and high quality.”
It has also been suggested that tram models may also be made available.
Although the plans have been met with criticism from the usual quarters we here at British Trams Online are looking forward to seeing just what tram related products may be released!
I would think any revenue gained from this enterprise will be “peanuts” in relation to the tram debt.
As Transport For Edinburgh only have three customer outlets, it will be interesting to see how they market this new venture. To date, their enterprise with marketing open top bus souvenirs has been low key and gone almost unnoticed.
This ism not strictly connected with the news item above, but please would anyone reading this and able to, tell me why the new trams make such a meal of rounding sharp curves? It really spoils the otherwise splendid smoothness of their progress. I think especially of the – to me – ridiculously sharp curve near the depot, and also not far beyond near the next station, where a pair a very sharp reverse curves have been built in to the line – surely unnecessarily.
I referred point made about “squealing” trams; Edinburgh Trams’ reply is repeated:
“There are a lot of other tramways with low floor vehicles which have squealing issues around curves. This is a top of rail noise caused by the wheel thread and rail head rubbing against each other when the tram navigates unusually tight curves. There are a few specific areas where wheel squeal is notable along the line, however this is most noticeable under certain weather conditions.
The noise is constantly being monitored and flange lubrication adjusted to reduce the impact of noise where deemed appropriate, unfortunately the squealing is rarely removed entirely by flange lubrication as the flange lubrication goes onto the side of the rail/wheel and not the top for obvious reasons.
There are a lot of companies selling products to assist in the reduction of wheel squeal noise, which in itself indicates that this is not a problem faced only by Edinburgh Trams.”
This is definitely not confined to Edinburgh! Manchester city centre is notorious for it on the sharp curves and it feels like the wheels are trying to climb out of the groove. Also at points in the delta junction at Piccadilly there is a horrendous noise as the wheelsets go over them, sounds like someone being run over!