Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 30, 2012

The Old Rouen Tramway was a tramway built in Rouen, Normandy, northern France. It started service in 1877 and closed in 1953.Horse-drawn carriages and omnibuses had started at the end of the 18th century and progressively improved, but were no longer enough to provide urban services in an age of industrial and demographic growth. Local officials therefore adopted a new mode of transportation: the tramway. At first horse-drawn and then steam-powered, the tramway was electrified in 1896. The network quickly spread; at its largest it covered 70 km of route, the longest network in France during the Belle Époque, and contributed to the success of events in the town's history, such as the Colonial Exhibition of 1896 and the Norman Millennium Festival of 1911. Although the 1920s saw a slight growth in traffic, the network grew no more. Private motoring had arrived to put an end to its monopoly. The rising power of buses and trolleybuses, the Great Depression in France, and above all the Second World War that ravaged Rouen and Normandy, condemned the tramway to death. The last trams stopped running in 1953, after seventy-six years of service. However in 1994, a new Rouen tramway came to the Norman capital.