Trams in Asia

Tramway Systems in the Asian region were well established at the start of the 20th century, but started to decline in use in the 1930s. By the 1960s the majority of systems had been closed down. Extensive Tramways still exist in Japan and Hong Kong. Recently, more modern systems have been built in Korea and the Philippines.

Japan

The first tramway in Japan, the Kyoto electric railroad, was built in 1895. By 1932, it had 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with 1,479km of track. Like other parts of the world, many Japanese cities had extensive tram systems until 1960s, when the motorization made those networks disappear. Tokyo, for instance, had 41 routes in 1962, while only one route still survives today. There are still some cities with relatively well-kept networks. However, not many of them enjoy high riderships. Current tram systems include Sapporo Street Car (Sapporo) and Hakodate City Tram (Hakodate) in Hokkaidō; Tokyo Toden (Tokyo), Enoden (Kamakura), Toyohashi Railroad(Toyohashi),Toyama Light Rail (Toyama), Randen (Kyoto), Hankai Tramway (Osaka), Okaden (Okayama), and Hiroden (Hiroshima) on Honshū; Iyotetsu (Matsuyama) and Tosaden (Kochi) on Shikoku; and Nagasaki Electric Tramway (Nagasaki), Kumamoto City Tram (Kumamoto), and Kagoshima City Tram (Kagoshima) on Kyūshū. Some extend into neighboring communities.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong still possesses the Hong Kong Tramway, a traditional British Isles-style double-decker tramway with street running, along the north shore of Hong Kong Island. More recently the MTR Light Rail system has opened in the north west New Territories. Despite its name, the Peak Tram is actually a funicular railway.

China

The only cities in mainland China with a conventional tram network are the seaside resort of Dalian in Liaoning province, which as of 2003 had three working lines and Changchun in Jilin province. The city of Anshan, in Liaoning, had a single tram line from 1956 till the late 1990s and The track was dug up in 2006. The last trams ran in Shanghai in the mid-1960s. The central city of Wuhan, Hubei as well as the major tourist centre of Suzhou in Jiangsu have new light rail systems under construction.

Philippines

The Philippines once had a tram network in Manila, but it was destroyed during World War II. The system has been replaced with the LRT and MRT.

India

In India, Kolkata (Calcutta) has a tram network. Chennai (Madras), Kanpur and Mumbai (Bombay) were the other three which had a network but were dismantled.

Korea

Seoul, Korea had trams up into the 1960s. Some of their cars were acquired second-hand from the Los Angeles system. The trams were very useful in the Korean War where half of the trams broke down

Pyongyang, North Korea has an extensive tram system that first opened in 1991. It is now 50km in length running mainly ČKD/Tatra vehicles with some other trams originally from Zürich.

Vietnam

In Vietnam, tram networks were once running in Hanoi and Saigon.While in Saigon trams stopped running in 1954, the system in Hanoi survived until the first months of 1990.

Thailand

Bangkok trams were also dismantled after WW2.

Malaysia

In Malaysia, trams were introduced in Penang in 1906. Thirty years later, in 1936, trams were replaced by bus and the tram lines were dismantled.

ee also

*Trams