i love trams so much. helsinki’s trams are incredibly punctual, very well laid out, by and large pretty clean and good value monthly travel (aswell as a century of history). well, i’m really looking forward to seeing the new tram system that is being built in dublin at the moment. i’ll get a chance to see it when im home in six weeks.

trams are one of those things that will take years and years to get ingrained into the city properly (dublin had trams before but got rid of them in the 50’s i think). one of the dublins lines is mostly finished i think, and is running an almost full service on a portion of the line without any passengers in order to collect safety certificates and to get the car drivers used to trams. anyway, i read this quote on a message board earlier today:

news reports yesterday stated vandals have already struck a luas carriage before it enters service, apparantly some carriages were doing test runs in tallaght when they were attatcked by youths throwing bricks – smashing windows and denting panels. i now hear that there are plans to visit schools in the area to highlight how important the luas service is to the community. really, it says a lot when the luas is attatcked before it even carries its first passenger – lets hope this is not a sign of things to come…

and then this as a reply:

presently there is much scope for hit`n run attacks from either side of the tracks. dont be too surprised if items are dragged across the tracks at the m50 bend to slow or stop the tram and allow a full attack from both sides.

going from past experience where some dublin bus drivers refuse to go into some estates after 6 or 7pm because of safety concerns, the whole thing isnt surprising at all.