Light Rail, Metros and Trams

(outside London)

Nottingham Tram at High Road Central College tram stop in Chilwell.
Tram 217, named for Nottingham boxer Carl Froch, is an Alstom Citadis 302 delivered in 2013.

Cities of the UK outside London have adopted very different approaches to urban transit, although several now have rail based solutions. The modern Light Rail Rapid Transit system comes in many guises, from something almost resembling a conventional railway with segregated tracks and platforms, to street running trams, and various hybrids of the two systems in between. Most of the systems below are new in the last few decades. Some of them operate over former railway tracks. Blackpool is unique in the UK in having retained its original seafront tramway route, now modernised, for over a century.

Transit systems currently operating in the UK are:

• Birmingham: West Midlands Metro
• Blackpool: Blackpool Transport
• Edinburgh: Edinburgh Trams
• Glasgow: The Subway
• Manchester: Metrolink
• Newcastle: Tyne and Wear Metro
• Nottingham: Nottingham Express Transit
• Sheffield: Supertram

Proposed system:

• Leeds: Mass Transit West Yorkshire - consultations are ongoing for a possible future tram network for the area.