Transport Tuesday

While Melbourne has the largest tram system in the Southern Hemisphere, it is a comparatively slow system, hampered by most of lines running along roads and so mixing with motor car traffic. Our terrible exploding population growth sees the number of cars increasing all the time and the traffic becomes more and more congested and so then the trams can't move freely. This is not so in many European cities where public transport is taken seriously by governments.

Poland has 14 cities with trams, ranging from small systems to large systems, the largest by far being in Katowice.

It is then arguable, depending how it is measured, whether Warsaw or Lodz has the next largest system in Poland.

If you look at most tram systems around the world, you see very little beauty in their operation or layouts, which I suppose is fair up to a point. Their first purpose is to function well. But why can't there be beauty within public transport. I suggest there is at St Pancras Station in London. I like what they have done at Kings Cross and Paddington Stations. Who has not seen photos of the beauty of some of Russia's train stations and in New York?

Trams are often seen as the poor cousins of trains, but not in Lodz with this absolute beauty of a tram station. I just hope it protects passengers well from the weather but with a good tram system, no one should be waiting there for very long. Images all by Shutterstock.