Full speed ahead for Edinburgh’s trams

The Reporter braved the cold this morning to meet up with the Transport Minister,Keith Brown MSP and Edinburgh Council Transport convener Councillor Lesley Hinds to witness one of Edinburgh’s trams being tested at full speed. First of all it crept past us a couple of times to get warmed up and then hurtled past at full speed of just over 40 mph as you can see in our video.

The test took place out at Gogar on the section of the tram route which has been electrified. The tram runs and system tests are the final part the development of this section of the route. The 2.8km stretch will be handed over by contractors to the Council in March following testing and commissioning. It has to be said that the tram was fairly quiet as it passed us by.

The contractors are now taking a break from the end of this week until 7 January 2013. Over Christmas and New Year there are plans to reduce the congestion from road works. Access at the West End has been changed and crossing points for pedestrians improved. The site fencing is being moved so that pedestrians have as much room on the pavement to pass by as they can.

The council say that the tram project remains in line with the revised budget (£776m) approved by the Council in September 2011, with work either ahead of schedule or in line with the revised timescale reported in December 2011.

Passenger services are expected to run by summer 2014 and it is anticipated that full route tram testing will take place from Edinburgh Airport to York Place in late Spring 2014.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFeafS-7akE&w=560&h=315]