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Here in Nottingham England we have streetcars, but they're called trams. It's a mix on on & off street running. The off street part whizzes along at 40 to 50 MPH, & the on street part tootles along at 20 to 30 MPH. It opened in 2004. It is all overhead powered at 750 volts DC. The trams uses insulated gate bipolar transistors to convert the 750 volts DC line current to variable voltage variable frequency 3 phase AC for the 3 phase asynchronous traction motors. They make a very strange whistling/whining noise when they're accelerating & slowing down. I can travel on them for free as I'm over 65, I can also go free on local buses. Last time I went on one was just over two years ago when I went to the hospital outpatients eye dept to have my detached retina treated...
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