Bern Trams - Driver's Eye View - Part 2 

+Peter M Hi Peter, not only is their public transport good, it is reasonably priced too. In the UK investment has been put into public transport recently, but much of it is spent on re-opening railway lines and city tram systems that should not have been closed in the first place. In London, much noise is made about our low emission diesel buses, I find that embarrassing as I travel and realize that trolley buses are still widely used. I find it interesting that private and public service providers in Switzerland work together in a joined up manner resulting in decisions being made in the interest of the user rather than the share holder to the benefit of both. I watch the debate about high-speed rail in the US with interest, planes are fast, but airports are often quite a distance from the towns they serve.

Isn't Switzerland one of the (if not the) most expensive countries to live in in the world? At least there you get what you pay for.

We used to have trolleys everywhere, that changed in the 50s

Switzerland is a really beautiful place with all kinds of railroads and trams. I'm pleased you enjoyed this ride.

1:32 Wankdorf Center would surely be fun to read in england on a tram.

+ADMIRALSCORNER Thanks for your very kind comment, I really appreciate it .... Tim.

Wow, I haven't seen the snow that deep, maybe I need to visit in mid winter, it must be so beautiful.

I know what you mean, as a young lad I was given a book with pictures of trains in Switzerland, from that moment I knew I had to go there, I had to wait over thirty years to realize my wish, I hope you get to visit one day.

I'm from India. Definitely want to visit Switzerland ❤️

+Bill Mathies Cheers Bill.

Thank you, a Bern-ing desire made me smile, hope you enjoy part 3.

+Tim, glad you liked the pun! The city's name fell perfectly into my "warped" sense of humour! LOL

Hi Neil, I've enjoyed the chat. Easter break is over now, so it's back to work. I took a look at some of your videos, there is some good stuff there. Keep up the good work. Tim.

+Tim, thanks for the comments and the encouragements! While your comments were coming through, I was uploading a video I edited and produced on behalf of my friend, Chris Bentley. Boy, oh boy, the amount of content he shot, talk about epics! I edited a RU-vid-friendly version of his stuff, plus a two-part version for him alone, took me the better part of the week to get it all done. Steamfest, by the way was the weekend before Easter. As for your channel, I'm about to subscribe! Cheers!

Hi Neil, I hope your friend appreciates what you are doing, from experience I know editing videos is very time consuming. Steamfest looked to be a good event and I enjoyed your coverage. I hope you find one or two more videos on my channel to interest you. I will subscribe to your channel so that I am kept informed of any new content you post. Keep them coming. Best wishes. Tim.

Thank you, I'm pleased you enjoyed it.

Thank you, I'm pleased you enjoyed it.

Hi, Bern is a beautiful old town and riding the tram is a wonderful way to see it. There is something romantic about old movies, the way it was always fascinates me, whether it be the fashions, cars, trains or just the way people lived. Thank you, your comment is appreciated.

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

The camera show was useful for those needing a spare memory card. Google Earth is a really handy tool for following routes and picking up additional information and photos, I use it a lot to check place name spellings.

Thank you.

Hi, it is beautiful city, full of history. The person you hear talking was our tour leader 😊😊

Hi Bob, I bet it's warmer where you are than it is here on the not so sunny South Coast of England. Bern is a beautiful old city, with an interesting and extensive tram network. Swiss public transport really works as a realistic alternative to making trips by car. Don't you just love those Russian Dash-cam compilations, apparently Russian insurance companies like dash cams, because it helps to establish who was at fault in an accident. I read this article - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Sydney - Funny how mainland European cities generally kept their tram networks whilst cities like London and Sydney closed them, history is proving London's decision to close the network as a short sighted cost saving measure that is now seriously regretted. Glad you enjoyed the video. Tim.

Sveiki, es esmu gandarīta jums patika video.

+Richard Pryde Thank-you, I'm pleased you enjoyed it.

Obrigado, estou feliz que tenha gostado.

From the reaction of passers by, the steam tram was clearly popular. The tour was not advertised as far as I am aware, but many people were carrying cameras because they were visiting the city as tourists. Most people carry a mobile phone with a built in camera these days, making it easy for them to take a photo of anything interesting or unusual. The noise from the steam tram attracted the attention of passers by who stopped for a moment to watch the strange looking engine sharing the same tracks as modern trams puff it's way through the streets.

Thank you, I'm pleased you liked it.

Hi, we visited the tram depot in October 2015 and it was out of use at the time of our visit. Our visit may well have been the last time a tram entered the depot, most of which was being used to stage an art exhibition.

Aah - that explains the unusual structures in the depot! It's just that I visited Bern(e) a few years ago, but the tram network was severely curtailed due to major road works closing most of Marktgasse. It also affected the trolleybuses, unfortunately.

A new modern tram depot, also shown in this video has replaced the old one. I believe the old depot is to be demolished to make way for flats. It was unfortunate that some of the tram and trolley bus routes were closed at the time of your visit. I have tried to visit Brussels tram museum twice now, it was closed on both occasions so I understand how you must have felt.

+Larry Caldwell Hi Larry, I would love to have left all the sound in, but people did not realize the camera recorded sound as well, in fact I think they had forgotten it was there. Most of the time they were enjoying a few jokes and generally enjoying themselves. When people are speaking English I can make a decision on whether what they are saying is likely to cause embarrassment of offence, but most of the time they were speaking German and my grasp of the language is not good enough, so I opted for music. Sorry .... Tim.

+Larry, that was not narration you heard, rather it was chit-chat between Tim and the tram(Strassbahnwagen) driver, in English.

Our forefathers came up with some ingenious solutions, this little tram engine being an example of their inventiveness. It is wonderful to see this engine still doing what it was designed for, more than 100 years later. Incredible.

When public transport really works, the results are stunning, traffic free city centres. When you check into a city centre hotel, you are given a ticket allowing you to use the city transport for free, if you want to use the hotel car-park, it will cost almost as much as the hotel room. The Swiss like it that way, but foreign tourists can get quite irate when they discover the cost of parking.

Hi, it's good to know the sun is shinning on Scotland, it's really warm down here on England's South Coast today. Edinburgh cyclists don't hang around :-) I'm pleased you enjoyed the ride.

@@Timsvideochannel1 I have been enjoying your videos as a retired railway man of twenty seven years,its very interesting to see how the railways are run in other countries and I'm a fan of trams and trolley buses too.

@@wallydug2256 Hi, I should have said Bern cyclists, although I'm sure those in Edinburgh regularly overtake trams as well. Different countries operate to slightly different rule books, although all put safety high on the agenda, my daughter is a signaller at Exeter, when I showed her the level crossings on the lightly used lines in Central and Eastern Europe where the gates and lights ceased working many years ago, she did raise any brow and say "what if a car comes" to which I replied "they work on the chances are a car won't come theory". In reality they slow down to a speed that allows them time to react. I love to study the overhead wires above level crossings where trolley busses, trams and trains all use overhead power, the wires are a work of art.

@@Timsvideochannel1 I was a relief signalman at Dumbarton and covered, Dumbarton Bowling Westerton and Milngavie boxes,it was the best job getting paid to do what you love and I'm sure that your daughter loves her job too.

@@wallydug2256 I can understand why you enjoyed your job. My daughter trained and rode horses until 5 or 6 years ago when she realised she wasn't going to be able to do it for much longer, all her skills and qualifications were linked to her job with horses, there was no logical next step. We talked about the jobs she could do, I suggested she applied to be a guard as she was confident and not easily intimidated, I'm not sure how, but she started working for the railways as a crossing keeper in Kent, going on to various signal boxes including Crediton on the rural line to Barnstable, before taking up her current role at Exmouth Junction. She enjoys photography, often taking pictures from her box of anything unusual to forward it to me. A few nights ago a rail-grinder worked past her box, she took a video, it looked like a mobile firework display. It must be great to get paid for a job you love. I bet you miss working on the railways.

Olá, fico feliz que tenha gostado da parte 2

Thank you, this was a special tour and the driver was happy for me to place a small GoPro camera at the front.

amazing

Hi, I found your comment interesting, most European cities kept their tram networks, whereas in the UK and USA nearly all were ripped up, in the UK only the Blackpool system survived. In the USA and UK new networks have been established recently in a few towns, such as Croydon and Manchester in the UK, often using the track-bed of existing heavy rail lines. It is good to see trams making a come back, but unfortunately the cost is prohibitive these days. We are paying a high price for short sighted cost cutting in the past, big cities are clogged up with cars often carrying only the driver. Many rail routes into cities still exist apart from short sections where supermarkets have been built on the formation. It would be nice if our politicians had the same passion for putting right their mistakes as they had for making them in the first place.

Yes, if you want trouble, malfeasance, financial mismanagement on a vast scale, look no farther than the politicians. Silly, short-sighted decisions in the 50s and 60s that have had far-reaching implications for the future. USA cities are once again interested in these things, but now they will cost 1,000 times what they had in the first place.

I sometimes wonder who the politicians represent and what their purpose is.

Their purpose is to obfuscate the truth, fool the sheeple into thinking that they or their opinions matter. The don't matter. But the sheep out there think that someone cares about them. They don't. Enormous salaries are what they are interested in.

Os europeus não precisam de veículos 4X4 off-road tanto quanto em outras partes do mundo porque as estradas são boas, velocidade e conforto são mais importantes. Tenho um Nissan Xtrail 4X4 e minha esposa tem um pequeno Peugeot 107. Não preciso de um 4X4 porque não dirijo fora de estrada, embora às vezes carregue ferramentas pesadas para o meu trabalho. Cuidar. Tim.

Not usual in the city but the more farming the more you will see them.

I can,t be sure, but I think the tram was coal fired - for more information on steam trams in Europe - www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trams/steamtram05.htm

Very good, thanks

По швейцарским меркам он относительно плоский, хотя есть глубокое ущелье реки, разделяющее город. Google translate - By Swiss standards it is relatively flat, although there is a deep river gorge dividing the city.

Was it the W******f Center or the cars on the wrong side of the road? I'm not an Aussie, but I am from the UK.

@@Timsvideochannel1 Oh, definitely the former and not the latter. It's nice that you can appreciate the joke along with me. Languages can be fun, but of course I wouldn't mention this particular detail to a German while in Germany. It would be rude and just plain disrespectful to the host country.

@@melkiorwiseman5234 :-)

@@Timsvideochannel1 It's been over a year and I came back and looked at my previous comment and suddenly thought to myself "wait a minute... this video was taken in Switzerland, yet I'm referring to the text on the tram as German... how did I know it was German?" And the answer is... I dunno! It might be Swiss for all I know. O.O It just... looks German to me. o.O

@@melkiorwiseman5234 Switzerland's languages are fascinating because it borders on so many countries, most Swiss are multi lingual, yet nearly all speak English as a sort of universal language, yet England has no border with Switzerland. German is widely spoken in Europe, especially in Austria, Switzerland and the former Yugoslavian countries. The German language is instantly recognizable, it is the main language spoken in Bern.

I Googled "Basel steam trams" and nothing showed up, so I guess there are no Basel steam trams.

This is in Bern, not Basel!

Hi, Bern is in Switzerland.

If it runs on rails, I'll video it, trains and trams fascinate me.

+AndreiTupolev Hi Andrei, I can't get that vision of Angela Merkel drinking a beer out of my head now, there was bar near by , I think it was called the "Tram Shed" with it's own micro brewery serving excellent beer. If she is a woman of good taste, she may well have popped in for a beer. We crossed two beautiful bridges, the view from which I will show in a yet to be finished video giving the passenger's view of Bern, rather than the driver's view. The Expo building did seem a little out of place in town so full of beautiful buildings.

Cheers Jerry, I get into a lot of trouble over using music. I'm currently editing a video where I am consciously trying to leave as much of the original sound in as possible, wind noise and all. I have also invested in new cameras and separate microphones to reduce wind noise, hopefully I won't need to use as much music in future, although from time to time the mic is still sure to pick up the odd embarrassing or politically incorrect conversation. Thanks for the feedback. Tim.

There is no such thing as a PI conversation.Political correctness is just orwellian!

Oh dear, I'll have to consider paying more attention to the sounds the camera is likely to pick up. The trouble is, if I make people aware that the camera records sound, they are less likely to give permission for me to use it in some of the places I do.

From what I could hear, they were talking in English but the conversation was a bit muffled.

The tour participants were mainly English, but our hosts were Swiss, where the English was audible I could make a decision to leave it in, I don't speak German, so the safe option was to use music. Maybe next time I'll just leave the speech in and hope no one is saying anything that may cause embarrassment or offence.

+MrPeerum Hi, this was a wonderful little tram with good acceleration and a respectable top speed.

yes,whe have one steam tram to on 143½ track in Hoorn the Netherlands,the name from the tram is"BELLO" with 1.1 milion kilometers on the klok.

+MrPeerum Is Bello in working order?

Bello is now in the riding museum stil riding. see Stoomtram Hoorn-Medemblik on google.

www.museums stoomtram.nl for Bello.

Har du köra gamla spårvagnar som den i den här videon? Jag hoppas att ni njuter av er pensionering.

@@Timsvideochannel1 Tyvärr inte. Tack för ditt intresse. några gamla vagnar kör en musée linje ute på Djurgården här i Stockholm. Lev gott min vän.

@@JanErikWeijnblad djurgardslinjen.se/en/ Hej, jag tittade på spårvagn Museum upp, det ser intressant. Varmaste lyckönskningar. Tim.

Tack min vän. Lev gott. @@Timsvideochannel1

You didn't miss much 😉, apart from the odd unfortunate name I hope you enjoyed it.

@@Timsvideochannel1 I enjoyed the unfortunate names too. shame they didn't route the steam tram through their shiny new depot, and set off all the fire alarms.

@@arch9enius Gosh, you've got a wicked sense of humour :-)

Thank you 😊

I hadn't noticed before, but now you've pointed it out, I agree with your conclusion, he's up to no good.

The tram routes are reasonably flat, but the river has eroded a sizeable valley through the city.

I try to use less music these days.