Bilbao Tram

The first Bilbao tram system began operating on September 10, 1876. The cars were driven by mules. Twenty years later, on February 16, 1896, an electric tram began operating in Bilbao, the first in Spain. Starting from the forties and fifties, the Bilbao tram began to decline. The last day of the work of the first tram Bilbao was November 30, 1964. Since 1940, trams in Bilbao were gradually replaced by trolleybuses , however, the trolleybus system was short-lived. In 1978, it also ceased to exist.

The first Bilbao tram system had a meter gauge .

The decision to build a new tram system in the city was made in 1998. The tram line was to connect the Guggenheim Museum with the railway station. Construction work began in 1999.

At the end of 2001, the public was presented with a full-size model of the head part of the future tram. For contrast, the tram belonging to the old tram system (tail number 4), which was preserved in the museum, was shown next to the layout.

The presentation of new low-floor trams for Bilbao took place in May 2002.

The opening of the first section of the line, 2.1 km long (from Atxuri Station to the Uribitarte stop), took place on December 18, 2002. After that, the line was extended three times: to the Guggenheim Museum (a section of several hundred meters, traffic on it was opened on April 30), to a stop near the San Mamés football stadium (traffic on the site was opened on July 24, 2003) and to Basurto bus station (traffic along the site was opened on July 22, 2004). After extension to the bus station, the length of the line reached 4.4 km.

As of 2006, the Bilbao tram network consists of a single line with a length of 4.4 km. Track gauge - 1000 mm . There are twelve stops on the line:

Atxuri (train station) - Ribera - Arriaga - Abando - Pío Baroja - Uribitarte - Guggenheim (Guggenheim Museum) - Abandoibarra - Euskalduna - Sabino Arana - San Mamés - Ospitalea / Hospital - Basurto - La Casilla (bus station)

Travel time on the line is about fifteen minutes.

The line runs along the Nervion River. For most of the line, the paths are laid on the lawn, but part of the line runs along a combined street track, closer to the curb. In combined areas, over about two kilometers, the tram track is single track.

In the future, it is planned to extend the current line in such a way that it will become a ring covering the city center. More distant plans include the construction of new lines.

Bilbao uses articulated (three sections) low-floor trams. Trams are low-floor by 70%, that is, seven tenths of the length of the trams have a low floor.

The tram manufacturer is CAF from the Basque Country. These trams are a further development of trams issued by CAF for the Valencia tram system, but trams for Bilbao have a specific design, so they do not look like their predecessors. The trams use electric equipment manufactured by Siemens .

Initially, CAF delivered seven trams in Bilbao with numbers 401–407. Later, the eighth tram was delivered, which differs from the others in design features.

The length of each tram is 25 meters. The passenger capacity of each tram is 192 seats, of which 50 are seated. Trams have four doors on each side. The trams have an audio system for stopping. On stages, the system plays music.

• BA Schenk, MR Van den Toorn, Trams 2002. Uitgeverij Alk bv (Netherlands). ISBN 90-6013-419-2
• BA Schenk, MR Van den Toorn, Trams 2003. Uitgeverij Alk bv (Netherlands). ISBN 90-6013-428-1
• BA Schenk, MR Van den Toorn, Trams 2004. Uitgeverij Alk bv (Netherlands). ISBN 90-6013-436-2
• BA Schenk, MR Van den Toorn, Trams 2005. Uitgeverij Alk bv (Netherlands). ISBN 90-6013-446-X
• BA Schenk, MR Van den Toorn, Trams 2006. Uitgeverij Alk bv (Netherlands). ISBN 90-6013-456-7

• Official website (in Spanish, Basque, English and French)