Sheffield Supertram TramTrains in Action

About the light rail vehicles known as tramtrains (and sometimes tram-trains) that are used on the Sheffield Supertram system.

The British city of Sheffield has seven of these Stadler Citylink trams. Three of them were bought to enhance existing Supertram services and four were bought for a new service to Rotherham Parkgate which also travels on tracks owned by Network Rail and is still used by main line railway passenger and freight trains.

In the present-era the use of trams on main line railways alongside main line trains was pioneered in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the German city of Karlsruhe.
One service that included a section of main line railway that had been listed for closure saw a 500% increase in passenger numbers .The Karlsruhe Stadtbahn (City Railway) network includes many of the examples of the 'tramtrain benefits' listed further down this page, as well Inter-City local services to Baden Baden which is about 20 miles away.

Until now, the introduction of a new tram / light rail service here in the UK has always displaced heavy rail trains. The Tyne & Wear Metro, Manchester Metrolink and South London / Croydon Tramlink^ all include sections of main line railway that were closed for conversion to light rail. Along with the West Midlands Metro and Nottingham NET these systems also include portions of their networks where there is^ bi-directional single track alongside (or close to) tracks used by main line trains as an alternative to Karlsruhe style track sharing.

^The Tyneside route to South Shields has now been converted to full track sharing. Admittedly Tramlink would not have been able to track share with main line railway routes energised on the electric third rail system

The type of track sharing on the Rotherham route between different types of heavy and light rail vehicles already exists on the Tyne & Wear Metro route to Sunderland, and this film includes a little footage showing this.

Also shown are a few examples of track sharing in London which have been operating for over 100 years. However these are all heavy rail trains and two of the examples shown date back to the steam train era.

One railway station (Rotherham Central) is served by both main line railway passenger trains and Supertram tramtrains. Because the different types of railway vehicles have different height floors the platforms at this station were lengthened with a low-level / kerb-height section of platform. This helps ensure full accessibility as this station.

In the UK the Rotherham Central type of dual-height platform was seen as a 'new innovation' ... the reality is that its only 'new' here because the UK are urban transport laggards - as this film is primarily about Sheffield and the UK I refrained from adding any 1990's video footage showing this being done in Europe.

The potential benefits of widespread use of tramtrains / tram-trains include:

*restoring passenger services on freight-only lines

*where the main railway station is remote from the true city centre then by replacing a need to interchange to an urban service with a seamless a 'one seat' through service all the way to the city centre tramtrains can even help save the railway line from closure (as was found in Karlsruhe)

*unlocking main line routes with spare capacity for newer 'more local' services - perhaps with new stations added closer to desired destinations.

*short deviations away from existing main line routes through city streets, so as to bring the service closer to residential areas, trading estates and other desired destinations

**all whilst existing railway services continue as before

One topic not looked at in the film is power supply voltage. The Supertram Stadler Citylink tramtrains can operate on both tramway 750V dc and main line railway 25,000V ac. However as the main line railway here is energised at tramway voltage I decided that this topic is not important - at present.