Double-decker tram

A double-decker tram or double-deck tram is a tram that has two levels or decks. Some double-decker trams have open tops. Double-deck trams were once popular in some European cities, like Berlin and London, throughout the British Empire countries in the early half of the 20th century including Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington in New Zealand; Hobart, Tasmania in Australia, and in parts of Asia. They are still in service or even newly introduced in Blackpool, Hong Kong and Alexandria. In other places, like Oranjestad, Birkenhead, Franschhoek, Auckland and Douglas, are still used as heritage or tourist trams.

The earliest double-deck trams were horse-drawn. The first electric double-deck trams were those built for the Blackpool Tramway in 1885, where conduit tramcar No. 4 is the sole survivor of its class and is preserved at the National Tramway Museum in Crich, UK. They were common in the United Kingdom until the 1950s. London Transport was a heavy user of double-deck trams until the system closed in 1952. Apart from the Blackpool tramway, the Glasgow Corporation Tramways was the last urban British tramway to close, in 1962.

In the United States, double-deck tramcars were used by the Pittsburgh Railways (streetcar / interurban) between 1913 and 1924, a rare use of such tramcars in the country. From 1910 to 1964, double-deck trams were in use in Mumbai, India (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking).

They were also use in Johannesburg, South Africa, where trams were operational from 1906 to 18 March 1961. Some of the oldest trams are at the James Hall Museum of Transport.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, where trams were operational from 1942 to 1952, had a brief episode with double-decker trams of the locally built type CATITA Imperial.

Several tramcars have been preserved at the UK's National Tramway Museum in Crich, Beamish Museum, Black Country Living Museum, East Anglia Transport Museum, Heaton Park Tramway in Manchester, Seaton Tramway, Summerlee Museum and the Wirral Transport Museum, where the cars are still in operation.

Some tramcars have been preserved at New Zealand's Ferrymead Museum in Christchurch and MOTAT Museum in Auckland, which operates restored Wellington double-deck tramcar No. 47, which operated in 1906 and also has Auckland double-deck tramcar No. 17 in storage.

In the USA, some double-decker tramcars from Great Britain and its colonies have been preserved as well. A Liverpool balloon car is preserved at the Seashore Trolley Museum at Kennebunkport, ME, still marked for its final ride as the last tram of Liverpool, as well as an older double-decker tramcar from Glasgow. Both are not operational and not on public display. The Oregon Electric Railway Museum in Brooks, OR, features a double-decker tram from Blackpool (built 1927, operational) and one from Hong Kong (built 1952, display only).