Tram with Jacobs bogie

Tramcar with two Jacobs bogies

In its shortest form, a tram with a Jacobs bogie consists of two car sections on three bogies. Each car sections has a bogie at one end and shares a Jacobs bogie with the other: this bogie supports the articulation. This allows the two (or, in the case of longer trams, multiple) car sections to articulate completely independently. The first newly built tram with Jacobs-bogies were in service on the Duisburg tram network.

History

Harkort tramcar from Duisburg

As early as the 1920s, a set of four-axle trams were combined into one six-axle unit with Jacobs-bogies, for example Chicago car 4000. Until the construction of the Boeing LRV, trams with Jacobs bogies were rare in the United States.

Europe

The first tram with a Jacobs bogie in Europe was the the Harkort tramcar, it was put into service in Duisburg in 1926. The NZH followed in 1932 with ten units (series A600) for the Haarlem–Leiden line. The rolling stock had to be articulated because the municipality of Haarlem did not permit trams with trailers.

The articulation itself remained problematic for both previous tram types until Urbinati (director of the tram company STEFER in Rome) developed a solution. An upright split cylinder was placed at the articulation point, in curves it was controlled by rods. This created a wide passage along the entire length of the tram, including at the articulation. In 1939, test cars 401 and 402 were delivered, and because they were well received, a series of ten units followed, plus a slightly modified follow-up series (501-508) in 1953. A series of 50 similar six-axle trams were produced for the city tram company ATAC from 1947 onwards. Several Italian cities with trams followed.

Consists

Amsterdam tram with two Jacobs bogies

To create more capacity, six-axle trams with one Jacobs bogie were expanded to eight-axle trams with two Jacobs bogies. Düsseldorf was the first to receive this type in 1957, followed by Amsterdam in 1958. In the 1960s, even four twelve-axle trams were built for the network in Mannheim/Ludwigshafen. Later, ten-axle trams also operated in Linz and Duisburg.

Low-floor trams

Because an articulation with a Jacobs bogie is complicated, expensive, and especially bulky, Jacobs bogies in low-floor trams weren't used until 2009. The Škoda ForCity Alfa combines the smooth driving characteristics of Jacobs bogies with the integral accessibility of low-floor trams.

Gallery

• 
  Original Urbinati tram
• 
  Brussels tram with two Jacobs bogies
• 
  Linz tram with three Jacobs bogies
• 
  Interurban tram with four Jacobs bogies
• 
  Low-floor tram with Jacobs bogies

See also

• Articulated tram