Alstom and its subsidiary NTL have opened the final section of the T6 tramway in Paris.
The underground section of the line between Viroflay-Rive Droite and Viroflay-Rive Gauche stations opened on June 11, completing the final portion of the T6 line.
T6 opened between Châtillon and Robert Wagner station in 2014. The final section of the line includes a 1.6-kilometre tunnel with a 10 per cent gradient – a “big technical challenge”, says Alstom, for the rubber-tyred Translohr trams.
More than 70,000 passengers are predicted to use the line each day – a 50 per cent increase on the number currently using the first section of the route.
As well as the 28 trams operating on line T6, Translohr trams run on line T5 – the first rubber-tyred tram system to be built in Île-de-France – between Saint-Denis and Garges-Sarcelles.
The cost of T6 has been put at €384 million. Ile-de-France has financed half of the project, with the remaining funding coming from the
Department of Hauts-de-Seine, the French government, the Yvelines department and RATP. The rolling stock has been entirely funded by STIF.
How can they call this a tram line? It is a bus line with rubber tires on pavement. I may be electric and giddied, but it is still a bus. Even with the 10 percent grade when will it be upgrade to a true tram, steel wheels on steel rails? Only in France with the efforts of Michelin would they build a rubber tired “tram” in place of a true tram.
I thought these unirail guided buses were too problematic to be practical? Plus its a proprietary system, which locks RATP into Translohr trams, so will be hostage to price gouging. Not good long term. Plus rubber tyres greatly increase the rolling resistance. There’s nothing wrong with steel wheels on steel rail – KISS principle – keep it simple stoopit.