Trondheim Tramway

The Trondheim Tramway in Trondheim, Norway, is the world's most northerly tramway system, following the closure and dismantling of the Arkhangelsk tramways in Russia. It consists of one 8.8 km-long (5.5 mi) line, the Gråkallen Line, running from St. Olav's Gate in the city centre through Byåsen to Lian Station in Bymarka.

Numbered Line 9, it is operated by Boreal Bane, a subsidiary of Boreal Norge and is often simply called the Gråkallen Line (Gråkallbanen). Gråkallbanen operates six tram cars, out of a total rolling stock of seven articulated tram cars built by Linke-Hofmann-Busch in 1984. In addition heritage cars from the Trondheim Tramway Museum are available for chartered tours.

The tram operates at 15 minute headway in the daytime on weekdays, and partly on Saturdays, otherwise at 30 minutes headway. The line has 20 stations remaining in use. The tram service is integrated into the city bus system with free transfers. The overall responsibility for public transport in Trondheim is managed by Sør-Trøndelag county municipality, who subsidize the operations.

Previously there were three lines in Trondheim, including Ladelinjen to Lade and Singsakerlinjen to Singsaker in addition to tracks to Ila, Elgeseter, Trondheim Central Station and Lademoen. The line to Singsaker was closed in 1968 while the rest of the network was closed in 1983 and 1988, though the line to Lian was reopened in 1990.

Since 2004, the tramway has been the most northern in the world, following the closure of the Arkhangelsk tram system on 21 July 2004. Trondheim is also unique in that it is one of two rail lines in Norway built to metre gauge 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) (along with the heritage railway Thamshavnbanen), and since the closure of the Cairo tramways in 2019 is the only tramway in the world to use 2.6 m-wide (8 ft 6 in) cars in combination with metre gauge.

Trondheim got its first horse coach service in 1893, operated by Trondhjems Omnibus Aktieselskab. The horses trotted between Buran and Ila via the city center until 1901, and transported more than 400,000 passengers in the peak year. Unlike Oslo and Bergen, Trondheim never had horsecars. In 1900, the city council decided to establish a municipally owned power and tramway company, Trondhjems Elektricitetsværk og Sporvei. It took over the concession for the Ila–Lademoen route, and opened the 3.5 km (2.2 mi) Ila Line and Lademoen Line on 2 December 1901. The coach company went bankrupt the year after, failing to make money on a route to Øya.

While initial plans had called for standard gauge, NOK 10 000 could be saved if metre gauge was used, resulting in the narrower gauge being chosen. To begin with, the whole line was single track, with passing loops in Wessels gate, Bakkegaten, Kjøpmannsgaten, Nordre gate, Torvet, Tordenskjolds gate and Skansen. The Hospitalløkkan Depot on the Ila Line had space for sixteen trams. Eleven Class 1 trams were delivered by Siemens, with another delivered in 1903. The line opened with a six-minute headway, but this was soon reduced to five minutes, and four minutes in 1908. Four trailers were delivered in 1904. In the first full year, 1.6 million passengers took the tram, and by 1913 it had reached 4.3 million per year.

In 1909 the city council decided to upgrade the network. Completed in 1913, the city rebuilt the line to double track, supplementing it with the new 2.5 km (1.6 mi) Elgeseter Line between Elgeseter and the railway station. The Lademoen line was extended 400 m (1,300 ft) from Buran [no] to Voldsminde, where a new depot [no] was built. The four Class 2 trams were delivered to meet the increased total route length, while older trams were put into service on the Elgeseter Line.