{"id":3272,"date":"2023-10-18T01:35:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T01:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/is-it-a-tram-or-light-rail\/"},"modified":"2023-10-18T01:35:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T01:35:17","slug":"is-it-a-tram-or-light-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/is-it-a-tram-or-light-rail\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It A Tram OR Light Rail?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Helsinki Line 15 Opens On Saturday<\/span><\/p>\n

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The PR for the launch is impressive!<\/div>\n
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They call it a Carnival!<\/p>\n

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Half fare …<\/span><\/div>\n\n
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… a day of frolic and fun …<\/p>\n\n

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… with special information points at main stops.<\/div>\n
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That is what fbb calls a launch!<\/p>\n

What is more remarkable is that this line does NOT serve the main areas of the city of Helsinki – it is an orbital route between busy suburbs.,<\/p>\n

In the video that follows, your ride will start from Keilaniemi<\/span> …<\/p>\n

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(map, lower left) and orbit the city area remaining in Zone B …<\/div>\n
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… until arriving at Itakescus<\/span> (above map upper right).<\/div>\n\n

From the above maps, you can see that there are connections with Helsinki’s Metro at both ends of the “Light Rail” and at Otaniemi<\/span>. There are also links with suburban rail at three stations en route.<\/p>\n

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These are at Leppavarra<\/span>, Huopalahti<\/span> and Viikin Tiesespuisto<\/span>.<\/div>\n\n

And what is Raide-Jokeri<\/span>\u00a0as in the heading of the above map? fbb cannot tell you because he is parlously ignorant of the Finnish lingo AND Google Translate doesn’t translate; well, it offers “track joker”.<\/p>\n

Before enjoying about 5 min of spectacular speeded up video, we can look at the two termini. Streetview is far from up-to-date, so pictures are not easy to interpret. At Keilaniemi we just have an aerial view …<\/p>\n

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… and a picture of the shiny new Metro station.<\/div>\n
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The video starts quite abruptly at the terminus stop.<\/div>\n
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At the other terminus we see, again, an aerial view, the tram\/light rail stop and the metro.<\/div>\n
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The metro stop is underground …<\/div>\n
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… well hidden beneath a block of flats and the co-op!<\/div>\n
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Of course there is a substantial bus station!<\/div>\n
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This is how public transport\u00a0should<\/span> be.<\/div>\n
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Here is the video, obviously recorder before opening and under test – hence the lack of passengers.\n
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Well; is it a tram or a light rail route? Is it really a “new mode of travel”?<\/p><\/div>\n

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fbb reckons it’s a tram ; but how different is it from “normal” Helsinki trams?\u00a0 See tomorrow’s blog.<\/div>\n
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Possibly the view of Helsinkihat is most well known.\n
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Helsinki Cathedral is the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran cathedral of the Diocese of Helsinki. The church was originally built from 1830 to 1852 as a tribute to the Grand Duke of Finland, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. It was also known as St Nicholas’s Church until the independence of Finland in 1917. It is a major landmark of the city, and possibly the most famous structure in Finland as a whole when viewed globally.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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But not served by Tram\/Light Rail 15.<\/div>\n
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Snippet<\/span><\/div>\n
It look a bit like, after months (years?) of speculation …\n
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… Deutsche Bahn is about to sell its Arriva business.\n
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The reports are probably right as the Financial Times agrees …\n
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… but seems to think that Arriva only has buses in London.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The feeling from the financial gurus is that this may take some time as Arriva needs to be unknitted from Deutsche Bahn and this process may be “complicated”.\n
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Therefore yet another UK bus group is in the hands of an Investment Company – i.e. very much NOT in the hands of a transport group of any kind<\/span>.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Customers and employees should be worried!<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Next Helsinki blog : Thursday 19th October\u00a0<\/div>\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Helsinki Line 15 Opens On Saturday The PR for the launch is impressive! They call it a Carnival! Half fare … … a day of frolic and fun … … with special information points at main stops. That is what fbb calls a launch! What is more remarkable is that this line does NOT serve the main areas of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}