Trams in Germany

Tramways served as the primary means of urban transport in Germany until the early 1960s when they were systematically replaced by buses.

Tramways were a highly visible manifestation of commodity culture and people projected onto them not just travel destinations but more broadly their desires, ideas and beliefs.

By the 1980s, virtually all cities had abolished these plans due to the high costs involved with converting the tramways to U-Bahn systems.

From 1956 on, Duewag manufactured large numbers of articulated tram cars for operators in Germany and abroad to replace old pre-war models.

In their first versions, the new Stuttgart double-wagon consisted of two four-axle single-wagons without a transition, and their bogies were much further apart than with classic streetcar trucks.

In order to avoid problems with low-floor technology, there are also new designs that are not completely low-floor, such as the Flexity Swift, developed for Cologne since 1995, whose axle distribution with four wheels is firmly developed underneath a short middle segment from a conventional articulated carriage type of the Zurich tram, the middle segment of which, however, has an exterior door.

Two different models of these have been deployed: The GT4, developed by Maschinenfabrik Esslingen in 1959 for the Stuttgart tramways' steep lines connects the two bogies with a girder.

Further cars were in use in Freiburg im Breisgau, Reutlingen, Neunkirchen as well as Ulm and Augsburg (which bought them used from Stuttgart), after German reunification used GT4 vehicles were also used in Nordhausen, Halberstadt and Halle.

The Hansa Waggonbau [de] GT4 cars, designed and built for Bremer Straßenbahn AG, rest on the individual carbody's bogie only.

The Czechoslovak company ČKD Tatra developed the KT4D tram car based on the same joint and bogie concept and delivered it in large numbers to the GDR from 1976.

MAN and Adtranz delivered these vehicles to Bremen, Berlin, Munich and Nuremberg; Duewag built a series of 40 for Frankfurt am Main (Type R).