Trams in Almaty
Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, has a small tram network. It is one of the four tramways of Kazakhstan, which is running continuously from its opening date. The network is continuously declining with closing most routes like most other CIS capitals.
History
Like other Kazakh towns and cities, Almaty's tram system was also opened directly as an electric tram. It never ran horse or steam tram. Many changes of rolling stocks were occurred, and recently new modern low floor tram were introduced. The first tram ran here on 1 December 1937.
Electric tram started operating with four routes, which included one ring line, in 1937. The tram network reached at peak, with ten routes, in 1990. A bad patch started in 2000, 8 routes were closed step by step till 2010.
Tram routes
Once there was 10 tram routes, but like most Asian cities, most routes were closed. Currently there are 2 tram routes.
Fleet
Currently most tramcars using Tatra made model. Older models used bow collector, but newer models use panto-graph.
Depots and termini
Alignment and Interchanges
Both tram routes are on unreserved tracks and middle of the roads.
Criticism
Trams in Almaty are not an important means of transport. Most tram routes has been closed during 1991 to 2010 due to construction and opening of metro network, but metro line 1 opened only in 2011. So it is clear that closure of tram routes were done by simply pressure from automobile industry. However, remaining two routes recently got new fresh rolling stocks for a speedy service.
See also
- Almaty Metro
- Almaty suburban train
- Temirtau tram
- Oskemen tram
- Pavlodar tram