Finnish Trams - Helsinki
Helsinki is the
capital city of Finland, situated on a peninsula in the Gulf of Finland. The tramway (‘raitiotie’ in Finnish) began in
1891 and covers the city centre and the inner suburbs to the north of it. Starting with horse-drawn trams, the system
was electrified in 1900 and by 1930 it had reached its maximum expansion and
was privately operated. In 1945 a new
municipal transport operator was formed, HKL
(Helsingin kaupungin liikennelaitos),
that still runs the trams in 2017. At
the time of our filming in May 2017, the fleet was made up of some 40
high-floor trams manufactured by the Finnish company Valmet, (Nr I type) and
42 similar vehicles of the Valmet Nr II
type. These trams have a low-floor
section added. In the late 1990s, 40
low-floor Variotram vehicles arrived
made by Adtranz, later to become Bombardier. The newer trams are Transtech Artics and are
made by the Finnish company Transtech,
the successor of the Valmet
company. Further newer trams are manufactured
by Skoda but to the same design as
the Transtech cars.
This film is made in the course of a day,
starting in the morning and ending late at night in this land of the midnight
sun! Our morning filming begins onboard
tram 99 a Valmet NrII tram that takes
us to Ooppera on the long Mannerheimintie thoroughfare. A good deal of filming is done on
Mannerheimintie as this road makes its way through the city with plenty of good
vantage points to see the trams (and buses) in action. We see the latest fully electric bus built by
Linkker on route 23 at the railway
station. There are four in service, which are operated by Helsinki City
Transport (HKL), having entered traffic
in January 2017. We also see the trams
running past the delightful architecture of the railway station. In order to view the tramway system to its
best advantage we take a number of tram rides on different types of tram on
various routes. From the city centre we
board tram 120 on route 10 to Pikku Huopalahti and return on tram 108 to Töölön
halli in order to visit the small Tramway Museum that is situated behind the Töölön
tram depot. We then take a ride on tram
99 on route 4 from Ooppera to Katajanokka.
From here we return to Töölön halli to connect with tram 410 to ride to
Kamppi on route 2. From here we ride on
tram 229 on route 2/3 to Viiskulma for more filming in this pleasant
suburb. Tram 55, a Valmet Nr I, on route 1A
takes us to Olympialaituri where we see the trams in the company of large
ocean-going liners at this busy sea terminal.
We then film at Kauppatori, Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie. Further tram rides on routes 6T and 8 show us
the suburbs of Arabianranta and Rouholati.
Evening filming begins at Kanavakatu Tove and continues to the city
centre to capture the action as the sun sets during the long twilight hours. We hope that you have enjoyed your journeys
around Finland’s capital city as much as we did filming it for you!
