Carris: The Trams of Lisbon’s Municipal Transport System in the 1980s

Companhia Carris de Ferro de Lisboa, known as Carris, introduced the first electric trams at the turn of the twentieth century and Lisbon’s tram system gradually expanded over the following decades, reaching its zenith in 1959–63. At this time the fleet comprised 344 four-wheel trams, sixty-one bogie trams and 100 trailers (non-powered) which served twenty-seven main routes.

As with the buses, Carris constructed their own trams. In the period 1947–63 ten new bogie cars and around eighty four-wheel cars were built at the Santo Amaro workshops. From the mid-1960s the route network had started to shrink and by 1980 it had been reduced to eighteen routes which required 199 four-wheel cars, fifty-nine bogie cars and just thirty trailers. Only two of the bogie cars had succumbed to fatigue but the type was usually employed on the busy coastal services 3, 15, 17 and 19. Further decline ensued during the 1990s and the network retracted further such that by 2024 only six routes were operated.

To operate these services another programme of tram rebuilding was undertaken in the mid-1990s when forty-six of the older cars were substantially rebuilt and were known as ‘Remodelado’ trams. In addition, ten new articulated trams built by Siemens were added to the fleet in 1995 to work route 15. In 2023/4 a further fifteen CAF Urbos trams joined the fleet.

With fascinating images, Mike Rhodes documents Carris trams during the 1980s.