Longest (historic) Tram/ Light Rail services and Shortest (current) Tram/ Light Rail services - anything excluding London Underground

[Roger1973]

On London tram routes (all fairly rough measurements on Google Maps which won't route via the original route as road layouts have changed and there are one-way systems that weren't in place then) -

Kingsway Subway service 35 (Archway - Forest Hill) comes out close to 15 miles (and appears to be the longest daily route.)

I make Embankment - Purley (service 16 / 18) about 14 miles, Embankment - Abbey Wood (service 36 / 38) slightly shorter.

Smithfield - Waltham Cross (service 79), Shepherds Bush - Uxbridge (service 7) and Tooting Junction - Wembley (service 30, peak hours) all come out around 13 miles (trolleybus 630 became London's longest trolleybus route as it absorbed the Mitcham - Croydon section which had been a South Met tram route.)

Technically, the Embankment services were about double this distance, as (for example) a single journey of service 36 was Abbey Wood - Embankment - Abbey Wood (the 36 did this one way round the Embankment, the 38 the other way) but this is possibly cheating.

Service 38 briefly ran through to Bexleyheath via Welling on summer Sundays in 1914 - 15, which is about 16 miles from Embankment. (Had any of the Abbey Wood routes extended through on to the Erith system, they might have been longer, but the LCC showed no interest in running on to Erith's track or letting Erith cars run on to their network.)

Before the London United started converting to trolleybus operation, LCC service 2 / 4 was extended on Summer Sundays to run Embankment - Hampton Court, which comes out at just short of 18 miles.

And the pre-1939 Sunday version of the Kingsway Subway 31 was extended at both ends to run Leyton (Bakers Arms) to Tooting Junction which is also about 18 miles.

Of first generation electric tramways, Lincoln's only tram route was 1.84 miles long, not quite as short as Taunton's route.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I think many piers had very short tramway systems.

e.g. the Ryde Pier Tramway less than 1/2 mile (closed 1969), parallell with the railway

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The Central Tramway in Scarborough is quite short (I know some will argue at this being included but the vehicles are called trams, not lifts or funicular cars etc, thereby it's a tramway).

Likewise the Shipley Glen Tramway (near Saltaire) has that name despite being a cable-hauled funicular. Total length is 400 metres.

 

[Ken H]

I'm sure there were countless examples of through running were tracks of different boroughs / corporations were connected to each other - London and Greater Manchester for one.

Wakefield-leeds. Current Arriva 110 bus.

 

[Ken H]

Likewise the Shipley Glen Tramway (near Saltaire) has that name despite being a cable-hauled funicular. Total length is 400 metres.

If you are having that then the cliff railways at Folkestone, Lynton, Bridgenorth etc must count too.

 

[Eloise]

Tenerife Line 2 is a mere 2.6km with some joint running over Line 1

 

[61653 HTAFC]

If you are having that then the cliff railways at Folkestone, Lynton, Bridgenorth etc must count too.

Only if they're officially called tramways, as that was the point @Smokey Joe and myself were making.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

What about the Pwllheli tramway? According to Wiki, it was barely half a mile long:

Pwllheli Corporation Tramways - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Stretching the definition of metro slightly (though it is very much part of the Southampton city transport network) the Hythe Pier line, which is still in operation.

 

[Dr_Paul]

The tram from Richmond, Surrey, to Kew Green couldn't have been more than two miles long. It was horse-drawn. There were plans to extend it at Kew Green over Kew Bridge to connect with the Hammersmith to Twickenham/Hounslow tram route, and at Richmond over Richmond Bridge to connect with the branch that came up to the bridge approach from Twickenham, and electrify it, but this was never done. The tram depot was in Kew Road; it later became the fire station and is now a posh school for boys.

 

[londontransit]

The longest single route in the world, 76km or about 42 miles, although worked in two halves - change at Ostend
For the shortest route, I suggest Lisbon route 12, 4km in length, as a contender

Not quite a tram, but this is near enough and it can beat the Belgian coast tramway - the longest continuous electric on street public transport system in the world is that between Simferopol and Yalta - the Crimea Trolleybus. The route even climbs a mountain range and the total length is 86km (53 miles). There's a museum dedicated to its history.

Wikipedia.

(A handful of videos can be found on Youtube.)

Google Street View showing the mountains with the trolleybus system visible at left.