Freight trams

Flickr photo by hrs51.

While looking up something, I came across the concept of freight trams. (Discussion thread in Skyscraper City.) Obviously, using street railways for freight is not a new concept, but with the rise of trucking (for obvious reasons, a truck can go directly to the final destination), this was abandoned.

In Dresden, Volkswagen has created a freight tram (CarGo Tram) to move parts from a storage facility to the manufacturing plant, and to move finished cars to a logistics facility. Apparently, as many as 65 daily semi-truck trips are avoided as a result.

There was an attempt to create a company to do this in Amsterdam (City Cargo BV), but as of 2009 they entered bankruptcy.

There would be opportunities to do this kind of dedicated delivery, especially overnight.