The TW 400 is a type of

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

vehicle formerly used on the tramways of

Hanover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, built from 1956 to 1958 by

Duewag Düwag or Duewag (stylised in all caps), formerly Waggonfabrik Uerdingen, was a German manufacturer of rail vehicles. It was sold in 1999 to Siemens with the brand later retired. History Duewag was founded in March 1898 as Waggonfabrik U ...

. Some units underwent remodeling to prepare them for being used on the

Hanover Stadtbahn Hanover Stadtbahn is a light urban rail transport (Stadtbahn, ) system in the city of Hanover, the capital of Lower Saxony, Germany. It opened on 29 September 1975, gradually replacing the city's tramway () network over the course of the subsequ ...

network but they were never used for this purpose. During the construction of the A tunnel of the Hanover Stadtbahn it was not foreseeable whether the new

TW 6000 The TW 6000 is a type of articulated light rail vehicle used on the Hanover Stadtbahn system, manufactured by Duewag, Linke-Hofmann-Busch, AEG, Kiepe and Siemens. The vehicle can serve both high platforms and street-level stops; it has cabs a ...

cars would be available in sufficient numbers. Therefore, a number of TW 400 cars (called because of their body width of ), was brought up to tunnel standards from 1969 onwards. This involved: *Folding steps *Rearrangement of the doors *wide door steps (dubbed "Blumenbretter" or "window sills"), bridging the gap between the tramcar and the platform. Since the tram cars were unidirectional vehicles, all stations on the A line have their platforms on the right in direction of travel. This led to some problems, most notably the complicated layout of the station ''Lister Platz'', with platforms stacked on top of each other. The ''Lahe'' terminus also was equipped with a

turning loop A balloon loop, turning loop, or reversing loop (Glossary of North American railway terms, North American Terminology) allows a rail vehicle or train to reverse direction without having to Shunting (rail), shunt or stop. Balloon loops can be u ...

to allow the TW 400 cars to turn around. In the end, when the Stadtbahn system opened in 1975, there was a large enough number of

available and so the TW 400 were never used in the tunnels. They used to run on the tramway lines and were put out of service in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of them were consequently scrapped. The tunnel-enabled unit 427, together with trailer 1424, has been preserved at the HSM in

Sehnde Sehnde () is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located approximately 15 kilometres southeast of Hanover. History Sehnde was formed in 1974 by combining fifteen autonomous villages which belonged to three different districts: Bilm, Bolzum, ...

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Trams in Hannover
{{Public transport in Hanover Duewag tram vehicles Tram vehicles of Germany

400 __NOTOC__ Year 400 (Roman numerals, CD) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Stilicho and Aurelianus (consul 400), Aurelianus (or, less frequently, year ...

See also

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