• Trams on Praça da Liberdade in Porto

    Trams on Praça da Liberdade in Porto

    Praça da Liberdade, until 1910 Praça Dom Pedro IV, is the heart of the city of Porto. When the first mule trams arrived here in 1875, the Northern side was still occupied by the old city-hall. Most mule trams did not have their terminus on Praça, but continued to another destination. There were only single…

  • The Porto Mule (horse) Trams

    The Porto Mule (horse) Trams

    Porto, like many other cities, developed a horse tram system in the last decades of the 19th century, although instead of horses mainly mules were used to haul the vehicles. This page tells the history of these first trams of Porto. There is a separate page about the oldest tram vehicles.

  • The Oldest Porto Tramcars

    The Oldest Porto Tramcars

    The history of the oldest Porto tramcars is very complicated, but partly also obscure. They were hauled by both mules and steam locomotives. Later part of them were transformed into electric trams while the others continued as trailers of the electric trams. The majority was disposed of during the second decade of the twentieth century,…

  • The Porto Steam Trams

    The Porto Steam Trams

    In Porto, like in most cities before electric trams were introduced, horse trams provided the urban public transport, although in Porto more often mules were used. Steam trams were used in many cities too, most on busy suburban routes. Porto was one of the cities in Europe using steam locomotives for trams. This page is…

  • Merryweather and Sons, steam tram locomotive builders

    Merryweather and Sons, steam tram locomotive builders

    Actually the title of this page is wrong. The major activity of the Merryweather company was always making fire fight equipment. As such it was founded in 1692, although originally with a different name. Over the next 144 years the name changed several times with new owners and associates joining or leaving the firm. Fire…

  • Ponte Luís I

    Ponte Luís I

    The Ponte Luís I, often called the Ponte Dom Luís, connects the central parts of Porto and VN de Gaia. It had and has a major role in the public transport of Porto and is one of the most important landmarks of the city. This bridge with two decks was built in the 1880’s as…

  • The Lisboa cable trams

    The Lisboa cable trams

    Lisboa is built on hills. Mule or horse trams could only go up the steep gradients with the use of extra animals. As the animals were the largest cost of the whole tram operations, it was a too costly affair to have many or long steep inclines within the network. In 1873 in San Francisco…

  • The funiculars of Lisboa

    The funiculars of Lisboa

    The Lisboa funiculars, in Portugal called ascensor or elevador, are part of the urban public transport system. All three were first operated by the NCAML, the same company that also operated the Estrela and Graça cable tramlines. The funiculars are now operated by the CCFL. As the funiculars are in public streets, the cable is…

  • Changing the rule of the road from left to right

    Changing the rule of the road from left to right

    Question: I know that Portugal shifted from driving left to right in 1928. I could imagine, that the trams had only left doors when shifting. How did Portugal cope with this? Did the trams continue in the left side for some time, or was it properly planned as in Sweden, where public transportation introduced double…

  • Trams on the steep slopes of Lisbon

    Trams on the steep slopes of Lisbon

    Question: I have just visted Lisbon and did a tourist tram ride. I have spent the last couple of days trying to find details of how the trams manage the very steep hills as the slopes are much steeper than I would expect. Can you signpost any internet sights for me. Answer: I’m not sure…

  • Larmanjat

    Larmanjat

    The Larmanjat was a monorail system invented by the french engineer Jean Larmanjat (1826-1895). The system was made of a central vignola type iron rail and at both sides longitudinal wooden sleepers about 60 cm from the central rail. This system was adopted by “The Lisbon Steam Tramways Company ltd“. Locally the system was called “Companhia de…

  • Coimbra trams

    Coimbra trams

    Coimbra was one of the five places in Portugal that had an electric tram system. The city is situated about 200 km north of Lisboa and 120 km south of Porto and dates from the Roman period. The oldest part of the city “Alta” or “Almedina” occupies an irregularly-shaped hill overlooking the Rio Mondego. Already…

  • Old black & white photos and how they show the colours

    Old black & white photos and how they show the colours

    Because we are used to panchromatic black & white these days, not everyone realises that old photos are often of a different kind of black & white. E.g. a tram on an old photo looking dark, could have been yellow.

  • Braga trams

    Braga trams

    Braga was one of the five places in Portugal that had an electric tram system. This very old city, with its roots in the pre-historic period, is situated about 55 km north-east from Porto. Apart from the many monuments in the city itself, one of the most important destinations for visitors is the Santuário do…

  • Sintra trams

    Sintra trams

    In 1904 an 11.7 km long metre gauge electric tramline was opened from Sintra (station) to Praia das Maças (Applebeach). An 1.0 km long urban line connected the station in Sintra-Estefânia with Sintra-Vila. Some freight transport existed, mainly between Banzão and the railway station. In the small Banzão depot is still a weigh bridge and…

  • Portugal tram systems

    Portugal tram systems

    This is an overview of the tram systems that exist or existed in Portugal.

  • Contact me

    Contact me

    To avoid my email address being spammed, I do not publish it on my site. If you want to contact me, leave a reaction here. I will get your message, but it will not be published automatically. If the content is of interest for others, I can decide to use it in my Questions and…