Heritage Trams
The system exists in happy symbiosis with an active heritage operation based at the Woluwe depot, and privately hired trams have free access to the tracks. Very old trams, which still collect their current through trolley poles rather than pantographs, are normally restricted to the scenic line from Cinquantenaire park via Woluwe to Tervuren, which is run with the help of volunteers from the preservation society MTUB (Museum of Brussels Urban Transport). This service runs at weekends from April to October; occasionally, such as on the Belgian national holiday July 21, these trams appear in the city centre, where the line in the "Koningsstraat/Rue Royale" is trolleypole-enabled.
Over the years, several Brussels trams have been sent to the United States. Brussels tram 7037 is in San Francisco operating on line F, surreally repainted in the blue-and-white livery of Zürich. Brussels tram 1504 is at the Trolley Museum of New York and 1511 is at Old Pueblo Trolley. An ex-Brussels 4-axle PCC is also awaiting restoration at the Ontario St shed of Vancouver's Downtown Historic Railway.
Read more about this topic: Brussels Trams
Famous quotes containing the word heritage:
“Flowers ... that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their colouring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of childrenhonoured as the jewellery of God only by themwhen suddenly the voice of Christianity, counter-signing the voice of infancy, raised them to a grandeur transcending the Hebrew throne, although founded by God himself, and pronounced Solomon in all his glory not to be arrayed like one of these.”
—Thomas De Quincey (17851859)