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Never mind Vancouver – whole countries have changed “handedness” in road-use.
Austria some time in the 1920’s & Sweden on 3/9/1967
Meanwhile, ÖBB still “keep left” ( links-fahren )
@Greg Tingey: As do the SNCF and NMBS…..
@Greg
The point is that Vancouver changed the handedness of its streetcars and the trackage ‘overnight’, requiring creating doors on the opposite sides of the entire fleet of streetcars.
@Greg
“Links fahren on OeBB”
Not on the lines I’ve travelled on. SNCF ” suive la gauche” though.
The Dutch should build offices above central railway stations, not flats. Better to have workers living in spacious suburban homes and commuting to offices in the central business district, rather than living in noisy cramped flats and commuting out to suburban office parks.
Not that the UK is any better. Many exurban stations have shuttle buses parked outside, driving commuters the last few miles to poorly-connected office parks. Meanwhile, thanks to recent changes to planning laws, urban office blocks are being converted to tiny flats without planning permission.
@Andrew M – living in well-insulated flats in central locations means people can walk or cycle to work, and shops, reducing stress on crowding trains, or failing that, will be commuting against the main flows of passengers. Better than adding yet more exurbs-to-centre passengers to railways which are already at capacity.
Poorly-connected office parks is a separate problem, but there is increasing demand for urban living, hence the conversions to flats.
The article on Berlin`s public transit claims electric buses running costs are higher than diesel, this is incorrect, battery buses have at least half the maintenance expense of diesel and charging the batteries with electricity is cheaper than buying diesel fuel.
When the first two Chinese BYD single decker buses were introduced in London in 2013 the payback period over diesel was 12 yrs, however the price of batteries has dropped a lot in 6 yrs. Only the purchase price due to the expensive batteries is higher than diesel buses, I think the prices are £200,000 diesel and £350,000 battery double decker buses, this is why Proterra US electric bus manufacturer has launched a $200 million battery leasing scheme Proterra also makes the batteries and other parts for electric Alexander Dennis Limited double decker buses used in the US and Canada and made in Idaho, USA, BYD manufactures ADL`s batteries for ev buses built in Scotland,the diesel buses running in Mexico City are also built in Scotland which the Mexicans call London buses not double deckers.
Austria was historically a mix of right-hand and left-hand running on its railways, with left-hand mostly in the east. There was been a programme of conversion to right-hand for some time. The last *principal* route with left-hand running is Wien to Graz, where conversion is currently under way. The section from Payerbach-Reichenau to Bruck an der Mur is due to change in December this year.
France is left hand running, except in Alsace-Lorraine, a legacy of that area having been part of Germany from 1871 until 1919.
Other European countries with left hand running are Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia and Portugal. Spain is right-hand in the south and east, but left-hand in the north and west.
Wikipedia states that Austria’s roads switched over a number of years, with the last segment in 1938.
Intriguingly, Vienna’s tram system has an underground triangular junction at Matzleinsdorfer Platz, where the platforms appear to be laid out for left hand running rather than right i.e. the platforms are on the side of the junction that would permit all cars to the same destination to leave from the same platform, if they were in left hand running mode. Instead, passengers have to guess from which of two quite separate platforms the next tram to their destination will leave.
I had rather assumed that the reason for this may have been that it has been planned pre-war, but not opened until much later – although the actual date of 1969 seems too much later.
. There’s a video that shows the arrangements quite clearly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJx5yTwCXqE
LBM, Timbeau – you can’t generalise on this.
France drives on the left, except where it was part of Germany, which means Alsace and Lorraine, a hang-over from more than a century ago.
Austria is a mixture, and you need a Schweers & Wall rail atlas of Austria to see which lines are right-hand running, and which left-hand. I think that where Austria has through running from Germany, mainly the Westbahn, they drive on the right. Certain lines are being converted to right-hand running.
John MF
Well … Jenbach in 1966 was left-hand running, which is why I made the original comment ( On the main electified line,) the two separate STEAM narrow-gauge lines were another matter & much more interesting, except when a “crocodile” went through on a freight, of course!
I was in Gothenburg when the change from left to right hand running occurred in 1967. About half the trams had been rebuilt for right hand running and, before the change, were run in multiple with the left hand cars but backwards. At the change the right hand cars led the pair. A very simple solution but it must had cost a lot. I managed to ride the system completely before and after the change. Sad really!
To note – the Ghanaian Minister of Transport in c1970 when asked whether the change in the rule of the road wouldn’t cause chaos, replied that the “changeover would be gradual”. More to the point, Mrs T, when asked about her preferred option of a channel bridge, believed that the rule of the road would change mid-Channel.
Coincidentally, this year’s London Topographical Society publication, delivered this morning, is a history of the buildings of London Bridge, and draws attention to the introduction of “drive on the right” in 1675, changing to left hand running in 1722 because of the proportionate increase in coach traffic. The general drive on the left rule was introduced by the Highways Act 1835. Obviously, the L&M, which was laid out for two way running preceded that, so railways – at least in the UK – had established a rule of the road somewhat earlier.
@LBM
Is there no Y shaped junction where they could just reverse the running direction of old sets?
I presume all units are double ended.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a green goat.
@Man of Kent
The Matzleinsdorferplatz layout appears to be designed the way it is so that trams waiting for a path through the complex can do so at a platform. A similar idea is seen at several converging junctions on the Underground, see Camden Town (pre 1924, before connection to the City branch), Baker Street (Bakerloo) in its 1938-1978 configuration, or the arrangement at South Kensington (Piccadilly) with its two westbound platform tunnels built in anticipation of the Deep Level District. In the latter two cases only one platform was built in the diverging direction.
@Graham H
Actually the DfT documents at the time when a bridge was being considered, said that drivers would change to the opposite side of the road when leaving the bridge. So from England to France you would drive on the left but from France to England you would drive on the right. I think changing mid-channel would have been preferable.
@quinlet – indeed – I was, however, reporting not the DfT documentation, but the then PM’s reactions.
The channel bridge discussions are good for a quick chuckle. But if such a bridge is ever built (before the UK has got round to changing over), there is little likelihood of carriageways for the two directions crossing on the level (at any chosen point). The discussion then drifts much less interestingly into which lanes are the slow lane, and which lanes are for overtaking, and where this happens. Splitting the lanes individually and plaiting them over each other might be too extravagant, but since everyone seems to want to drive in the middle lane (or lane 3 of 4) these days, it will probably be no big deal.
@Malcolm – more likely that the authorities would wish to separate goods vehicles, coaches and private cars, as happens now for the ferries and the tunnel, and route them through their own immigration and customs channels. Not difficult to imagine your “plaiting” taking place at low speed as part of that layout.
@JOHNMF 19 July 2019 at 22:40
“Austria is a mixture, and you need a Schweers & Wall rail atlas of Austria to see which lines are right-hand running, and which left-hand. I think that where Austria has through running from Germany, mainly the Westbahn, they drive on the right. Certain lines are being converted to right-hand running.”
In Austria, the switch-over to right hand traffic on the roads began in the 1920s and was complete, nationwide, just in time for the Nazi Anschluss in 1938. The left hand running Bundesbahn Österreich (BBÖ) became part of Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) at the Anschluss, and fully adopted German standards for major new work, including right hand running wherever significant enhancements requiring new signalling equipment took place. Unsurprisingly, main lines in the north were first to be upgraded and converted, as they had a fair amount of through traffic to and from Germany. Staff and traction could thus work through more easily. I remember on family hols in the 70s, parts of the Sudbahn further south were definitely left hand.
Slovenija (ex Austria-Hungary, then partly ex-Italy and partly then fully ex-Yugoslavia) still generally runs on the left on the former Sudbahn. However Km posts now take Belgrade as their starting point for zero rather than Vienna (‘Dunaj’ in Slovenijan). Mileages would have needed altering after the WW2 destruction of the Borovnica viaduct and its post-war replacement with a longer deviation.
Have just returned from holiday in Austria and travelled extensively on both the Westbahn and the Sudbahn.
From the wiki enthusiasts guide to the railways of Europe section I quote:-
“The Wien to Graz line still operates with left-hand running south of Payerbach-Reichenau, but Payerbach-Reichenau – Mürzzuschlag – Bruck a d Mur will convert to right-hand running in December 2019. ÖBB intends to convert Bruck an der Mur – Graz by the time the Koralmbahn
(which is being constructed at the moment to link Graz and Klagenfurt including the 33 km Koralm tunnel) opens in full. The only other line with left-hand running is Wien FJB – Tulln – Absdorf-Hippersdorf, an isolated section of double track which will probably be left.”
Jonathan Roberts wrote “Km posts now take Belgrade as their starting point ”
I remember taking the Paris-Prague sleeper in the mid 1990s (having connected from my first ever Eurostar trip). I woke up early and stared out, wondering where the km posts in the Czech Republic were based on. Vienna, I realised — nearly 80 years after Czechoslovak independence.
Countries and empires come and go. But London Underground distances will forever Look Back in Ongar.
Hugh.S – thanks.
Just one other minor piece to add to this thread. Rail traffic between Italy and Austria has to change from left-hand (Italy) to right-hand (Austria). At present, that change takes place at Brenner. After the opening of the Brenner base tunnel, the change point will move to just outside Innsbruck. The base tunnel will have left-hand running, but, just outside Innsbruck, and all in tunnel, the tunnels roll over so that traffic emerges into Innsbruck or into the existing (right-hand) Innsbruck by-pass tunnel, both running right-hand.
@JohnMF
These northern Italian lines are also ex-Austro-Hungarian in part, eg in the South Tyrol and the Trieste salient. The Sudbahn and Brenner networks as a whole were also built to access Venice (and onwards), in the period until 1866 when A-H still controlled that region.
On a trivial point, I’m unsure whether Hitler’s or Mussolini’s train had to switch tracks when they had their Autumn 1937 meeting at the Brenner! A UK delegation attended from the British Road Federation, they were on a visit to the new Reichsautobahnen….