This article is about the first-generation tram system that operated in Rouen from 1877-1953. For Rouen's modern tram network, see Rouen tramway.
Compagnie des Tramways de Rouen ("Rouen Tramways Company")
Network map (drawn in 1994)
Overview
Headquarters
Rouen
Locale
Rouen, Normandy, France
Dates of operation
1877–1953
Successor
Rouen tramway
Technical
Track gauge
1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification
From 2 January 1896
Length
76 km (47 mi) (1915)
There have been two separate generations of trams in Rouen. The first generation tramway was a tram network built in Rouen, Normandy, northern France, that started service in 1877, and finally closed in 1953. There were no trams at all in Rouen between 1953 and 1994, when the modern Rouen tramway opened.
Horse-drawn carriages and omnibuses had started at the end of the 18th century and progressively improved, but were no longer enough to provide urban services in an age of industrial and demographic growth. Local officials therefore adopted the tramway as a new mode of transport. At first they were horse-drawn, and later steam-powered; the tramway was electrified in 1896.
The network spread quickly through various city-centre districts on the right bank of the Seine, to reach the suburbs of the northern plateau, the hills of Bonsecours in the east, skirting around the textile valley of the River Cailly in the west, crossing the river and serving, in the south, the suburbs and industrial districts of the left bank.
At its largest it covered 70 kilometres (43 mi) of route, the longest network in France during the Belle Époque, and contributed to the success of events in the town's history, such as the Colonial Exhibition of 1896 and the Norman Millennium Festival of 1911.
Although the 1920s saw a slight growth in traffic, the network's expansion slowed to a halt. Private motoring had arrived to put an end to its monopoly. The rising power of buses and trolleybuses, the Great Depression in France, and above all the Second World War that ravaged Rouen and Normandy, condemned the tramway to death. The last trams stopped running in 1953, after seventy-six years of service. However, in 1994, a new Rouen tramway came to the Norman capital.
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