 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm at the Latvian Railway Museum. In this video we're not going to explore the Railway Museum because I've just made a video on that. So if you want to see the Rail Museum, have a look at the link on screen now. In this video we're going to go and do some tram bashing in and around Riga. So this is Riga, the capital of Lithuania. It's got about 600,000 people, so it's a pretty big city. It's got quite an extensive tram network with, so far, I think, three different types of trams I've seen in service. So we're here. This is various routes. Route 10 I know is one of them. So what I thought we'd do, we'll just see what comes along and we'll head out to the end of one of the tram routes. And I'm not necessarily saying I'll show you the whole of the system, but I'm going to try and show you some of the most interesting parts of Riga's tram network. So if you go that way over the river, that will take you to the city centre. But my plan is to head out that way into the suburbs and see what we can find. So let's go and do some tram bashing out of the back. So we're on route two. I thought I'd just get whatever comes along first. And at the point now where I think, in a minute, we're going to branch off routes five and one. So we're just coming to a junction. So I'm in the second of the cars. Now it's interesting, they've got trolley cars like their very old ones. So if you look around there, you can see the front one of our carriage taking us round the corner. And that's the line. So we're branching off on routes five and one. Now my plan is on this one. I'll go to the end of the route as I always like to do. We're just coming to a stop now. And this one goes under a bridge, under route, I think it's route one or route five. So I may well come back a different way. I haven't quite decided what we're going to do. That's why. So I'm just going to continue now to enjoy the ride. This is the end of route two, wherever. This is our talk to trams. This is the return loop. So everyone just got off. The tram will go around there. I might wait a bit and see it do that. Or I'm just going to get back on. I'm not sure how often they come along. There's a railway line along there. I was hoping we might see a train. We might yet, but we haven't as of yet. You can see how tram has a trolley pole, which I think is quite nice. Not many tram systems, even with older trams like this, use trolley poles. They tend to have pantographs. The modern Skoda trams have pantographs, but these trams don't. So what I'll probably do now, I'm going to ride route two back into the city centre, because then that will get me back. I was thinking of getting the other route, which goes over the bridge. Sounded like some gunshots. Strange. Anyway, but it did like where it split and went down two different streets. I feel I got to do route two in both directions for the sake of completeness. So I'm going to go and probably get back on that tram and ride back into the city centre. I just had a wander up there hoping to see a train. I found a larder. That was about the best thing. Came back to the tram stop. Same tram. Hasn't gone yet. It was right about 15 minutes ago. There's a siding there, which is interesting. But I've just seen something even more interesting. I thought, what's that? This is like little houses for cats. And there is a cat there, looking at me, wondering what on earth is going on. He's going to come out. I don't think he wants to come out. It's probably too cold. I don't blame it. So I think what I'm going to do, I'm going to get back on the tram. But yeah, what's trying to find? The door's right from someone's bloke. So I wasn't sure if it would go around the loop and I could get on someone else. I did think about standing and watching you come around the loop. But it's just so cold. But yeah. I don't know if there's any spark codes. And there's a number of the trams. You can obviously do something to say you're on this tram. Sometimes in trains in the UK you can report a problem. And it tells you the number of the carriage, which I think is quite amusing. It's all the encouraged passengers without realising it takes on train numbers. I think it was the summer. I probably had my head out of the wind. I love having head out of the wind. I've already started to trams, but it's a bit cold and I've already annoyed the other passengers. Even if I have got the carriage to myself. So I'm just going to sit and wait here now, see what happens. But I think it's sooner or later. I'm going to enjoy the ride back to the city centre. And look, that cat has come out. I don't know if you can see it. There you go. See that typical cat. It wouldn't come out where I wanted it to. It comes out now. It'd be really funny if it came and got on the tram, wouldn't it? But I don't somehow think it will. Especially if it's heading off in the other direction. So I'm going to sit down and enjoy the ride back to Riga. It's day two of my tram bashing around Riga. It's quite nice here in the park in the centre. Lots of snow, but it's a much clearer ride today. It's actually colder than yesterday. It's about minus four. But that doesn't stop me enjoying doing the tram bashing. So we come to this stop here. And probably what I'm going to do if a tram on route one comes along, I'll travel to Amanta, which is the newest part of the network. It opened in 1984. So in terms of new routes, there hasn't been any new routes since 1984. It's a fairly big network though. Let's just see what the name of this stop is. That's the name of this stop. So you can see what it says, but I'm not going to try and pronounce it. Oh, it says the Retrotram stop. See, I've not seen it out. I expect that it runs in the summer. But I know there is a Retrotram. I'd love to see that and have a ride in it. Keep our eyes open, but as far as I'm aware, it's probably more of a summer thing. So I'm going to probably wait for a tram on route one and we'll go to the end of route one. See what it is there. So here we are at Amanta, the end of the route. I enjoyed my trip on this Skoda-built tram. So I think you have to get out here. I assume there's a big turning circle there. It's really just a massive housing estate. Lots of communist blocks everywhere. Let's go across the tram line and see if we can see where the tram is going to go. So there we go. Oh yeah, there's another tram there waiting to come back. So unfortunately, you don't actually get to ride the loop here. Sometimes you can when you go on these tram lines. You get to travel around the loop, which is always quite fun. By the end of route two yesterday, the stop was on the loop. But here it seems you get off and the tram will go around the loop. So this is the newest part of the Regus tram system. And like I said, it's not that new really, opened in 1984. So there's our Skoda tram and I wonder if it's going to move off soon for either wheel or boat. There's actually two tracks there so they can have two trams waiting so they can have a bit of flexibility. So I'm going to wait here and see what our tram does. See if it will go around the loop. I know that. Stand and watch it go around the loop. I've got off the tram here and the tram has gone that way back towards the city centre. My plan is to do the western end of route five which junction is a couple of stops that way. Now I would have got off at the junction stop. The reason I chose to get off here was because on the way out of the corner of my eye I noticed something behind these buildings starting to do with trams. It's also where one of the trolley bus routes cross. I'm not too into trolley buss but we might have a ride on one either tomorrow or next day. Just going to here. I'm not sure I'm supposed to just walk into here but look there's a touch of tram. Well actually there's two of them. I don't know if this is a bar or what it is. I'm sort of ready for someone to come along and ask me what I'm doing and tell me to leave. I don't know if I'm supposed to just walk in. But anyway we have two touch of trams. Interestingly they've got car number plates on them so I'm not too sure. They have quite a it's quite unusual that the trams here have five numbers in their number and they start with a three or a four or five. They're three to four to five because they know it's which deco they're from. This one's open. I'm a bit cheeky and just have a look. No one's here to tell me not to. I think they've made this into a bar. So like I said I don't think I'm supposed to just go walking into here but no one said no. So yeah these two old touch of trams have here a little here's the driver's seat and they've taken all the controls away. So yeah a bit of a surprise that was I'm going to go back out now my plan is to go and ride route five. The western end of tram route five on another touch of trams. It's been quite an interesting route. One part of me wants to now ride it right to the other end but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to get off and do route 10 because route 10 looks to be a nice interesting route on the system because it's got lots of single track sections and I don't want to get off because I'm not sure they're not very frequent on this route. So rather than get off I'll just show you that is the turning circle. Tram these doors are open so put the camera up window. Tram would have come along there and it's gone around the turning loop like we saw yesterday at the end of route two. So I'm just going to sit here now and wait for however long it takes for us to go back again. What I wanted to do of all the others I like it when they're single track. I know the snow is the light is not in our friend at the moment of course the track is covered in snow and the light is just making it look like so we're on the single track tram route 10. There's passing stops or passing loops at some of the stops at the north all of the stops so we seem to have reached I think we haven't quite reached a stop so this stop doesn't have a passing loop but others do. It was an interesting bit further about my plan is to get out there on the way back because what happened was the trams took different routes so the trams heading out of the city went one way and on the way back they go a slightly different way. It was a similar thing we saw on route two they go around a cemetery but there's also a depot just like a square with a cemetery in the chimney so that's quite an unusual combination so we're going to have a look at that on the way back. I'm going to continue enjoying the ride to the end see what we see I like how it's now because quite a lot of what we saw we were effectively on the roads on route one the newer section we were sort of on single track. Now we're running roadside tramway really which is what I quite like normal something here yeah we're just coming to sort of a road jump so again we're on one of these total tram cars there's two of them always go in the back a lot because I particularly like standing in the back looking at the view out of the back so I'm just going to see if we can show you one of these passing loops that we keep seeing it's also a residential area this is is that passing? because every time it comes to passing it slows right down for the tram to negotiate yeah I think this might be one now for the tram to negotiate the turns as we're doing right now one thing I like about these trams is it's clearly outdoors at one time you've got a lot more room for seats so you can see we are on on either a double track or a passing loop I think it is just a passing loop very cold outside still it's minus four today yesterday it was minus two so it's even colder but it's actually a lot fresher today it's a nice day yes they're just a little bit dull the tram is a five foot gauge so the same as the Russian Railway gauge so it's quite nice to ride on these broad gauge trams here we are going back hopefully we'll be over the points but back onto single track I'm going to sit down now and enjoy the rest of the ride and we'll see what we find maybe we're reaching the end of the route because there's a tram just there we're going onto the circle now so just see the tram and the other ones leaving so I didn't get enough 30873 I think it was so they're just leaving so I don't know how long it is whether we'll wait here we're just not going to get to the whole route so whether we'll wait here for the tram to come the other way and then we'll go again I'm not too sure these other routes, they're not that regular for the trams so I find it's easier to stay on when I went to the end of route 5 I basically just stayed on sat there for about 10 minutes there route 1 seems to be the regular one my plan is there to get out because I don't think this tram is going to go in there until the tram comes in well they haven't been building it like this at the end of most routes and I think the driver must go and get a cup of tea interestingly, like most of the rest of Eastern Europe train drivers on the whole tend to be women which I think is quite nice obviously train drivers is often thought of a male's job in the UK certainly now there's a lot more female drivers but in Eastern Europe it's quite common to have female tram drivers so there's our tram they don't both have the trolley pole up let's walk around here so the places I've come to I'm just at the end of the tram route I'm not sure the name of the stop I'll put it on screen now very very cold minus 4 degrees snow on the ground look at that the icicles coming out of that height there's our two trams I can't see if there is a driver there's a driver there and again it's a female driver like I said they do tend to be female drivers so I'm just going to have a little look at the trams I'm going to get back on I do really like these tartar trams back to about 1976 and still built up to about 1981 so these what were Czechoslovakia at the time Czechoslovakian trams I found in many cities over Eastern Europe there's not so many as they used to be though a lot of cities like Dresden would have had them once they've all been replaced with more modern trams but I think they're great I really enjoy bashing on I enjoy any trams but tartar trams are some of my favourite trams so I think I'm going to get back on and enjoy the ride as I said we will get off where the stop where the depot is to have a little look at that so I just had a very enjoyable trip over route 10 and I filmed it as far as here so that's a separate video if you want to have a look at that, look at the link on the screen now that's the single line from there now it's interesting what happens here I said that the tracks split around the depot so if you're heading back towards the centre you'll be on this track and you'll go down there and then there is the depot now it's got dark now but luckily the top of the net like I'm showing you the depot is full flood so we can have a fairly good look and then when you're coming out the city you should come along this line here so basically along there the route turns left and then joins the other route the outward route over there and as I mentioned before the other side behind depot is the cemetery so it's a bit of an odd combination this square of a tram depot and a cemetery so see various tartar trams they all seem to be tartar trams now this thing I mentioned about some depots being coded a 3 and some a 5 we seem to have a bit of both in here so I'm not sure which one this is and I haven't yet discovered if there's any other depots which I hopefully will find out I'm pretty not going to do much more tram ration J purely because it's got dark so this is the back of the depot there's a few trams there the cemetery is there where those trees are there's another tram there what we'll do we'll just go around so you get a good view for sight by just simply walking down that path there and you can see there's two tracks and some of them are parked in such a way that the tram on this side obstructs their numbers which is a bit annoying but you know I'm not sure some of them look like they might be sort of semi-permently out of service so ever I'll ever get a chance to ride those ones I don't know so that's the single line now to the end of route 10 where we were earlier there's a couple of trolley bus routes here you just see a trolley bus over there so I might do a trolley bus route tomorrow I haven't decided yet or the next day I'm just walking around this corner and just takes us back to where we can see all the trams it's a really nice old brick building the depot is so there you go that's some good view of the trams what we'll do we'll go down here there's a really nice cobbled street which just has such a nice atmosphere the cobbled street and the trams running down it I did particularly enjoy route 10 because the way it works is a roadside tramway I wonder what would happen because when you get a tram route and you notice a single track I knew from the map I was looking at it's going to be single track I'm always intrigued to know what's going to happen how does it, what's the relationship like off the single track route could be sometimes places like London, Nottingham they run on old railway lines so they can be single track but when they run along roads like the interurban trams between Heidelberg and Mannheim they have some single track sections on roads and the cars come in the other way simply have to wait for the tram to come the other way but this one seems to be pretty much a roadside tramway once it gets up there it comes double track again runs beside the road and then it runs into the middle of the road most of Riga's tram routes what I've seen so far tend to run in the middle of the road which I always find is the least exciting I like it when they kind of do a bit of everything so there we go coming to down here quite round here there's just a cobbled street there all very icy I've nearly slipped over a few times today feels very eastern Europe it does feel quite you know just eastern a long way from home so it doesn't look like they've been out for a while I just wanted to bring you around here to show you the front of the depot I didn't see any activity here at all thinking about it didn't look like any trams that come in or go lately so maybe this isn't the main operational depot no idea what's in there there could be all sorts of it and this is one of Riga's tram depots and then just up there the route you can see which one you get to travel on but I'm actually standing on on a track now you can barely see it you can just about tell it's there and there's the point going into the depot so I'm going to walk around I'm going to go and find the stop around the corner and jump on the tram head back into the city centre