A party from Nottingham’s twin city of Karlsruhe joined the first group of people to cross onto the Karlsruhe Friendship Bridge over Nottingham Station recently.
The Oberbürgermeister of Karlsruhe, Dr Frank Mentrup, travelled by tram from the current Station Street terminus over the new bridge to the new tram stop at the station’s southern concourse.
Nottingham has been twinned with Karlsruhe since 1969. In recognition of this, one of the new Alstom-built trams was named after Jim Taylor who died earlier this year and was a key figure in the city’s links with Karlsruhe and in bringing trams to Nottingham.
Testing of the new route continues at night as far as the turnback at Wilford Lane. Track should be complete to Clifton, as well as the other route ‘leg’ to Toton, by the end of the year with services expected to start in the first half of 2015.
Featured in the upcoming November edition of the rail engineer
