Stockholms Spårvägar
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| AB Stockholms Spårvägar | |
|---|---|
| Type | Aktiebolag |
| Founded | 1st 1915, renamed in 1967 2nd 1987 |
| Headquarters | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Products | Public transport |
| Website | www.ss.se |
AB Stockholms Spårvägar (SS) (literally Stockholm Tramways), was a company founded in 1915 and owned by the City of Stockholm to coordinate and operate public transportation within the City. In 1967 the public transport in the entire Stockholm County was coordinated and the company changed its name to Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) and its ownership was transferred to the Stockholm County Council.
Traffic with Horse drawn trams began in 1877 with the privately owned Stockholms Nya Spårvägsaktiebolag (literally Stockholm's New Tramway Company) (SNS) and it gained a concession to operate trams on the streets of Stockholm for 40 years. Largely due to geographic factors, its traffic never extended south of Slussen, although they had the option to do so. Another company, Stockholms Södra Spårvägsaktiebolag (literally Stockholm's Southern Tramway Company) (SSB) was started to provide tramway traffic on Södermalm.
The city-owned AB Stockholms Spårvägar was created in 1915 with the aim to coordinate and making the two separate networks more efficient. The SNS network was taken over in 1917 and SSB would follow in 1918. Although the two networks had merged they would not be connected until 1922.
The opening of Västerbron in 1935 caused a major rework of the tram and bus lines when passage through Gamla Stan no longer was mandatory when travelling from Södermalm to Kungsholmen. The first underground parts of the Stockholm Metro opened in 1933 on the stretch from Skanstull to Slussen, although it would be trafficked by suburban trams gaining electricity from overhead wires until special metro vehicles was introduced in 1950 that collected its power from a third rail.
In addition to trams, motorbuses and the metro, SS once operated a large trolleybus system from 1941 until 1964. The Stockholm City Council decided in 1957 to suspend the tramway and the last four lines (4, 6, 7 and 8) that remained in the City Centre was closed in conjunction with the switch to right-hand side traffic in September 1967. Line 12, which had been separated from City Centre system in 1952 with the opening of the western metro line, remained and continues to run in revenue service to this day alongside with the all-new light rail line 22, opened in 2000.
[edit] The new SS
In 1987 a new company with the name Stockholms Spårvägar was created by members of the Swedish Tramway Society to take care of the traffic on the then forthcoming Djurgården line. Since its 1991 opening the company runs the partially re-opened line to the island of Djurgården in central Stockholm. The majority of the personnel consist of voluntary enthusiasts receiving no pay, but there are a handful of employees for technical maintenance and administration.
