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Cities with Trams but without a mainline Railway station

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itfcfan

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I noticed recently that Antalya (Turkey) has a tram system (or rather two systems - one modern and one heritage, which do not have a railed connection). However, Antalya does not have a mainline railway station (and as far as I know, has never been connected to a mainline railway).

I think this situation is pretty rare. Does anyone know of other examples of cities that have a tram system but have never had a mainline railway station? I'm aware there were/are some interurban tram systems where it could be claimed a village along the route had a tram connection, but not a mainline railway but that's not the cases I'm suggesting. I'm considering only cities which are the focus of the tram network not having a mainline railway station.
 
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edwin_m

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Etihad Rail is carrying freight traffic elsewhere in the Emirates and at some stage will provide a passenger service to Dubai. Dubai itself has several Metro lines but the tram covers only a smallish area around the Marina district.
 

Tim R-T-C

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Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Will be getting a high speed line, at some point but nothing at present.

Has a Metro line, which is also of special interest as it is only used for 7 days a year.
 

Ianno87

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Cleveleys in Lancashire (a town according to Wikipedia) could lay some claim. Served by Blackpool trams, but only formerly by Thornton-Cleveleys railway station, actually located in Thornton.
 

itfcfan

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I don't think Dubai has ever had a mainline railway
That's a good one. I'd forgotten Dubai has a small tram network in addition to the metro. It looks like a mainline railway reaching Jebel Ali (edge of Dubai) is still a little way off.

Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Will be getting a high speed line, at some point but nothing at present.

Has a Metro line, which is also of special interest as it is only used for 7 days a year.
The highspeed line to Mecca opened a couple of weeks ago on 25th September. I think Mecca has a short metro line, not a tram.

Cleveleys in Lancashire (a town according to Wikipedia) could lay some claim. Served by Blackpool trams, but only formerly by Thornton-Cleveleys railway station, actually located in Thornton.
I mentioned interurban trams - I think it's hard to draw the line with them. I'd take Blackpool as the centre of that tram network, ruling that out.

Interesting - thanks for highlighting Tenerife!

Hong Kong Island
While the island doesn't have a mainline station, its only a part of the city of Hong Kong, which has a very long history of a railway.
 

edwin_m

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Phoenix and Calgary. There may be other places in North America with light rail but no Amtrak/VIA or commuter rail.
 

Shimbleshanks

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A tricky one if you apply the strict criteria. I suppose you could make a case for Valletta on Malta, as I think it had urban trams at one stage but otherwise the only railway it had was the short steam-worked line to the centre of the island, which was hardly a main line. I suppose you could probably say the same about any city on an island that has or has had trams.

A place that I suppose has come into the same situation relatively recently is San Francisco which has plenty of trams and the BART rapid transit system but no long distance services calling in the city itself, though they do serve Oakland just across the water. But it would have had long haul services at one time.
 

edwin_m

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A place that I suppose has come into the same situation relatively recently is San Francisco which has plenty of trams and the BART rapid transit system but no long distance services calling in the city itself, though they do serve Oakland just across the water. But it would have had long haul services at one time.
San Francisco has the Caltrains service to San Jose, 50 miles to the south and therefore entering the city itself without having to cross the Bay which isolates San Francisco to the north and east. This is "commuter rail", a main line service using similar equipment to Amtrak but running over a shorter distance - in the UK it would be an outer suburban I guess. I don't know if any long haul services ever used this route - Amtrak only serves Oakland because only one of their trains goes southwards and that runs through to/from the north.
 

Shimbleshanks

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San Francisco has the Caltrains service to San Jose, 50 miles to the south and therefore entering the city itself without having to cross the Bay which isolates San Francisco to the north and east. This is "commuter rail", a main line service using similar equipment to Amtrak but running over a shorter distance - in the UK it would be an outer suburban I guess. I don't know if any long haul services ever used this route - Amtrak only serves Oakland because only one of their trains goes southwards and that runs through to/from the north.
Ah yes, then I suppose San Francisco's only distinction is that it is a major city without its own direct long-distance rail services; probably not unheard of elsewhere in the US of A...

A wonder, would there have been any cities or towns on Cyprus that would have had trams but were not on the island's 'main line' rail system, which I believe was pretty sketchy even at its fullest extent?
 

Adlington

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George Town, Penang, Malaysia - had electric trams 1905 till 1961 (and horse drawn ones ever earlier), but no proper railway.
 

gord

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If you include large towns, there are a few on the outer edges of tram systems in this country, for example, West Bromwich or Wednesbury.

But the thread title says cities. I was thinking Cincinnati, but I'm pretty sure an Amtrak still visits at least once a week.

Dayton, Ohio has trolley buses and Columbus, Ohio has been toying with the idea of trams for some time now...not sure how far they've got. Neither has a mainline station. (although both have come agonisingly close to regaining one in recent times with the Ohio 3C proposal)
 
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There is an isolated tramway east of Malaga linking Torre del Mar with Velez-Malaga. Unfortunately although only opened in 2006 it closed in 2012 and I'm not sure if there are any plans to reopen it. The infrastructure was still in place when I visited a couple of years ago.

The rail connection from Malaga to those two towns closed in 1968 and part of the alignment was used for the tramway.

http://www.andalucia.com/province/malaga/velez/tranvia.htm

Near Madrid the town of Parla has a tramway and its only connection to the rail network is an interchange with the C4 Cercanias(suburban railway) line.

http://www.viaparla.com/
 

Teflon Lettuce

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Does Douglas on the Isle of Man count? it has horse trams and the mountain railway {in effect a tram made to look like a train} but no heavy rail
 

bussnapperwm

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As the uk's second largest town, Dudley could use some city status for this one

As a resident of the borough of Dudley, I hardly think Dudley deserves city status.

There again I'm a bit biased as I live near the delightful town of Stourbridge.
 

Calthrop

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A possible but, I feel, fairly far-fetched contender: the small Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao has never had public railways, but had between 1886 and 1920, tram routes of a sort -- initially animal-powered, later worked by internal-combustion trams -- serving its capital Willemstad. Whether that community could be called by any stretch of the imagination, a "city", is open to question.
 

Dr Hoo

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St David’s in Wales is a city, never had a station and has a funicular at the lifeboat station that has been used to convey rescuees so I suggest that that meets the criteria.
 
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