This is the Central Tram ride in Scarborough, UK and it is the shortest public transport journey I have ever been on. It last under one minute!!! The Central Tram Company first opened in 1881 and is one the oldest Victorian tram ride in the UK today. It carries passengers between the beach and the town further up on the hill in Scarborough, but one can easily walk from one to the other in a couple of minutes going up, and a lot quicker coming down.
I started my tram ride from the beach and there was just short queue when I arrived.
As I was waiting for my ride, I saw this painting in the small waiting area celebrating the 140th anniversary of the Central Tramway Company in 2021. It depicted a busy Victorian crowd waiting outside the station by the beach. Apparently 3000 passengers took the tram ride on the opening day in 1881!!! I was thinking what it would have been like during the 140 year celebrations in 2021 as we were still not quite out of Covid. Would the crowd have been so big as well? I didn’t have much more time to think about it as the next tram had arrived and I had to get on it.
Each tram easily sits 12 to 14 people and has space for around 6 standing passengers. There were only 14 people in my carriage, with some passengers opting to wait for the next ride, like I had. I choose the seat by the door at the rear of the tram to get the best view coming up to town. And as we were waiting for the tram to leave, I took a look around the carriage. Despite its age, the condition of the interior looked quite new but still maintained a vintage look. Maybe they spruced up the carriages for the 140th anniversary. I love the two signs they had overhead on both sides and the wooden panel ceilings, and the leather handles for standing passengers looked very regal.
Very soon we were off. My seat next to the rear window gave me a great view of the beach as we slowly pulled away. This image was taken about 5 second after we left.
This was taken another 19 seconds later. You can see the station at the beach end, and the other tram that had just arrived from town
Another 11 seconds, we had arrived at the top of the cliff and passengers were ready to get off. All in all the tram ride lasted for about 35 seconds!!!
I waited for everyone else to get off first and walked slowly out to get nice full view of the carriage and the two entrance to the trams.
The station on the Town end is bigger than the Beach end. At the beach end, the waiting area fits only a handful of passengers and I really do mean 5 or 6. Passengers walk straight onto the tram and pay upon arrival at the town. Once you pay, you exit through the simple yet stylish Victorian turnstile. Here's the view of the station after I exited.
And if you still can't grasp how short the tram ride is, let me show you this image we took when we were waiting for our tram to arrive. The tram from the beach end had just left on the left, and the one from the town is coming down on the right track and the whole track is just 76m long.
My shortest ever tram ride only lasted 35 seconds, cost me £1.30 and was a great way to experience a little piece of Victorian history. Have you ever taken a very short train or tram ride before?
You can checkout all my travel post on the Pinmapple here or click on Mr Pinmapple below
Hi @livinguktaiwan,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍
Did you know you have your own profile map?
And every post has their own map too!
Want to have your post on the map too?
What a fun little ride @livinguktaiwan 😁 such a cool tram. Definitely worth it hahaha 🤣
Thanks for sharing this short but beautiful adventure with us!
Have a great Friday 👋🏻☀️
Short but fun and it was over before I knew it
(woops, that came out the wrong way 😄 )
Hahaha lol 😂 🤣 all fine…
Great to hear though!
Enjoy your Tuesday @livinguktaiwan 👋🏻☀️
Hiya, @choogirl here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Top 3 in Daily Travel Digest #1589.
Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
Become part of our travel community:
Ha ha, this is so interesting. Cool you could kinda step back in time. I have been on a tram ride in San Francisco and Hong Kong.
Both those are really cool as well. I enjoyed them
That is a seriously short ride!!! I have never taken one that short, I didn't even know one existed! :)
It was definitely worth it for the cool point of getting that Victorian experience and the tram was beautifully taken care of. This was a fun adventure! Thank you!
I think they 140th anniversary last year may have helped, I imagine they would have spiced things up for the celebrations as the carriages looked newly decorated
They definitely hopped on that train! But, it looked like so much fun!
Congratulations @livinguktaiwan! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):
Your next target is to reach 240000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPSupport the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
That's just being lazy 🤣
I walked back down after wards ☺️
🤣 😂 🤣
35 seconds! Thats so fast haha.
It's a really nice looking tram. I like the details that you pointed out. So you pay when you exit though after you've taken the ride (did I understand that correctly)? That part seems strange to me.
Yup that's correct. On the beach end, there's only a little waiting place and you face two doors that opens up to the track, or the rear door of the tram when it arrives. The staff lets you in and make sure the doors are safely closed before the tram leaves. There's nothing else at the beach end station. When you arrive at the other end you leave the tram and step right into the little station. So you can't dodge the fare.
Interesting set up. Sounds like it works though
Seems fair to call it the world's first escalator as much as the shortest public transport.
I'm not really sure why they built such a short tram ride, one could easily walk up. Maybe the Victorians where too posh to walk!!
AHH I miss it so much! Hope you're enjoying Scarborough. There used to be 4 of those team rides when I was a kid. I remember so far back when it was just 5p to ride!
Enjoy your holiday :-)
5p!!! That's inflation for you!!
Thanks for the recommendation, it was a lovely holiday, now got to write about it.
Cool - I really like Scarborough - great place !!
!LUV
@livinguktaiwan, @hoosie(1/1) sent you LUV.
wallet | market | tools | discord | community | daily
It's a very nice and busy seaside town, puts my own to shame😌
hahaha, well, I would call it a funicular, but I understand why they went with the tram, pretty cool
it was more of a novelty than anything else. but i agree, it was pretty cool
I've been on a train only once in my life and that was the shuttle? between the airport and the train station in Birmingham, England. It was a surprisingly comfortable way to travel, and my first time as the only train station in my city closed down decades ago. It was convienent for me as the station in the UK was right across the street from my hotel where I slept in the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in in my life. I've got to get back to England someday, until then, there's blogs like this. :)
Thanks for dropping by. We do a lot of train rides in UK, that's why the trade union can hold us to ransom by going on strike to get what they want. This week they're going on strike for three alternate days which literally brings down the whole commuting network in England for the whole week.