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A tram, tramcar, trolley, trolley car, or streetcar is a railborne vehicle
Railroad car

A railroad car or railway carriage is a vehicle on a rail transport that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotive....
, of lighter weight and construction than a train
Train

A train is a connected series of vehicles that move along a track to rail transport from one place to another. The track usually consists of two rail tracks, but might also be a monorail or magnetic levitation train guideway....
, designed for the transport of passengers (and, very occasionally, freight) within, close to, or between villages, towns and/or cities, on tracks running primarily on streets. Certain types of cable car
Cable car

A cable car is any of a variety of transportation systems relying on Wire rope to pull vehicles along or lower them at a steady rate, or a vehicle on these systems....
 are also known as trams.

Melbourne
Melbourne

Melbourne is the more common name for the geographic region and Census in Australia of the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area. It is the second List of cities in Australia by population in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million and serves as the List of Australian capital cities of Victoria ....
, Australia, currently has the world's largest tram network
Trams in Melbourne

Trams were introduced into Melbourne, Australia in 1885 and it is now home to the largest tram network in the world. The network consists of of track, 500 trams, 28 routes, and 1,813 tram stops ....
 which is a distinctive feature of the city.

As the rubber tires on a trolleybus
Trolleybus

A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from a network of charged overhead wires using spring loaded trolley poles. Two poles are needed, so that one can draw down the live current to power the motor and the other can complete the circuit by carrying the neutral current back to the network....
 do not conduct electricity, the neutral current cannot pass directly to the ground via the wheels, whereas an electric tram makes use of its steel wheels to take the current to ground via the tramway rail.

Tramways or street railways were common throughout the industrialised world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but they disappeared from most British and U.S.






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Encyclopedia


A tram, tramcar, trolley, trolley car, or streetcar is a railborne vehicle
Railroad car

A railroad car or railway carriage is a vehicle on a rail transport that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotive....
, of lighter weight and construction than a train
Train

A train is a connected series of vehicles that move along a track to rail transport from one place to another. The track usually consists of two rail tracks, but might also be a monorail or magnetic levitation train guideway....
, designed for the transport of passengers (and, very occasionally, freight) within, close to, or between villages, towns and/or cities, on tracks running primarily on streets. Certain types of cable car
Cable car

A cable car is any of a variety of transportation systems relying on Wire rope to pull vehicles along or lower them at a steady rate, or a vehicle on these systems....
 are also known as trams.

Melbourne
Melbourne

Melbourne is the more common name for the geographic region and Census in Australia of the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area. It is the second List of cities in Australia by population in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million and serves as the List of Australian capital cities of Victoria ....
, Australia, currently has the world's largest tram network
Trams in Melbourne

Trams were introduced into Melbourne, Australia in 1885 and it is now home to the largest tram network in the world. The network consists of of track, 500 trams, 28 routes, and 1,813 tram stops ....
 which is a distinctive feature of the city.

As the rubber tires on a trolleybus
Trolleybus

A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from a network of charged overhead wires using spring loaded trolley poles. Two poles are needed, so that one can draw down the live current to power the motor and the other can complete the circuit by carrying the neutral current back to the network....
 do not conduct electricity, the neutral current cannot pass directly to the ground via the wheels, whereas an electric tram makes use of its steel wheels to take the current to ground via the tramway rail.

Tramways or street railways were common throughout the industrialised world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but they disappeared from most British and U.S. cities in the mid-20th century. By contrast, trams in continental Europe
Trams in Europe

Europe, particularly Finland, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain, has an extensive number of tramway networks....
 continued to be widely used. In recent years, they have made a comeback both in many U.S. cities and throughout the world. Many newer light rail
Light rail

Light rail or light rail transit is a form of urban rail transit public transportation that generally has a lower capacity and lower speed than Passenger_rail_terminology#Heavy_rail and rapid transit systems, but higher capacity and higher speed than street-running tram systems....
 systems share features with trams, although a distinction may be drawn between the two, with the term light rail preferred if there is significant off-street running or if there are more than three cars.

Etymology and terminology