Carris: The Trams Of Lisbon’s Municipal Transport System In The 1980s

Companhia Carris de Ferro de Lisboa, known as Carris, introduced the first electric trams at the turn of the twentieth century and Lisbon’s tram system gradually expanded over the following decades, reaching its zenith in 1959–63. At this time the fleet comprised 344 four-wheel trams, sixty-one bogie trams and 100 trailers (non-powered) which served 27 main routes. Carris constructed their own trams. Between 1947 and 1963 ten new bogie cars and around 80 four-wheel cars were built at the Santo Amaro workshops. By the mid-1960s the route network started to shrink and by 1980 it had been reduced to 18 routes which required 199 four-wheel cars, 59 bogie cars and just 30 trailers. Only two of the bogie cars had succumbed to fatigue but the type was usually employed on the busy coastal services. With fascinating images, Mike Rhodes documents Carris trams during the1980s.