Tag Archives: Lisbon

Bus Photo of the Month: November 2022

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MAN 18.310 HCOL-NL 2241

Location: Cais Da Rocha, Lisbon, Portugal
Operator of Vehicle: Carris
Date of Photo: November 15, 2013

For a transit enthusiast, Lisbon is probably best known for its “Remodelado” trams, but the trams aren’t the only thing to see in the Portuguese capital.  Tram Route 15 operates with modern Siemens built trams as it travels along the Tagus Riverfront from central Lisbon to Belem.  And a portion of the route is a pretty impressive transit corridor in and of itself.  The tram tracks serve both routes 15 and 18, and the tram stations on these routes are also shared by conventional bus routes that run along the same section of road.  By essentially treating the tram right-of-way as a full fledged transit way, the buses can operate separate from general purpose traffic.  To the left (from the vantage of this photo) is the Linha de Cascais, a railway line that has the distinction of being the first heavy rail line to be electrified in the entire country.  

For more photos of Lisbon buses, please click here.

Rail Photo of the Month: June 2018

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Class 3250 EMU

Class 3250 EMU

Location: Cais Da Rocha, Lisbon, Portugal
Operator of Vehicle: CP Urbanos de Lisboa (Lisbon Area Commuter Rail)
Date of Photo: November 15, 2013

The high speed railways in European countries such as France, Germany, Spain, and Italy are well known both among transit fans as well as other travelers.  Many are familiar with the TGV, ICE, and AVE names, even if they are not necessarily the types of people who might visit this website on a regular basis.  However, not every country in Europe is as reliant upon high speed trains for its intercity transit network.  One such country is Portugal, where eighty percent of the country’s railroad ridership is on the commuter rail lines serving the Lisbon area.  The Lisbon commuter rail is not even the biggest “attraction” in the city’s transportation network (that title goes to the Remodelado Trams), but it is very useful for anyone who wishes to visit Cascais or Sintra.  In addition, the Cascais line right of way runs adjacent to one of Lisbon’s tram lines and several bus routes in the vicinity of its Cais do Sodré terminus.  Isn’t it fun when three different modes come together like that?  

The Class 3250 EMU train photographed here was introduced in 1959 and refurbished between 1998 and 2002.

For more photos of Lisbon area commuter rail trains, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: June 2017

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Mercedes-Benz O530G 4629

Mercedes-Benz O530G 4629

Location: Avenida da Liberdade at Rua das Pretas, Lisbon, Portugal
Operator of Vehicle: Carris
Date of Photo: November 15, 2013

Articulated buses with three doors are finally becoming more common in the United States, but in Europe, three door artics have been a standard sight for many years now, and the Mercedes-Benz O530G model is easily found all over the continent.  This particular bus operates in Lisbon, one of 50 units that can be found in the Portuguese capital.  Unlike some other European capitals, such as Paris, buses can be found with relative ease in the city center.  In some cases, the buses even share a right of way with Lisbon’s famed trams.  In other words, it isn’t implausible for a tourist to have a need to take a bus to get from one place to another.  In addition to sharing fare media with the trams and Metro, Lisbon’s buses have automated announcements that call out the name of each stop, making for easy navigation.  While the trams are the “transportation highlight” in Lisbon hands down, don’t overlook the buses while you’re there, either for transit fanning or just to get around.  

For more photos of Lisbon’s buses, please click here.

 

New Arrivals

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Over the course of redesigning Oren’s Transit Page, I was also continuing to travel, take photos, and add them in to the queue to be included in the redesigned website once it launched.  Now that the redesigned website is here, keep reading to find out what new material was added in conjunction with the redesign.  This isn’t an exhaustive list but rather just the “highlights”, there is plenty of new content scattered around the whole site.

NABI 60-BRT 9574 on Main Street at Aliso Street
Los Angeles, CA
July 11, 2014

Starting off in the United States, I traveled to a number of places for the first time in my life in 2014.  I made a Midwest swing in May 2014 that resulted in the creation of sections for Minneapolis-St. Paul (just prior to the Green Line opening) and Kansas City.  After that, in July 2014, I did some long distance Amtrak travel (with some flights in between) and visited Los Angeles and San Diego for the first time.  Also on this trip were stops in Denver (in time for the soft reopening of Denver’s Union Station), Chicago, and San Francisco.  I had passed through Denver before but I had never used or photographed its mass transit prior to that summer.  The stops in Chicago and San Francisco were my first in each city since 2007 and were quite brief, but there are new photos in those sections as well, including my first photos of the CTA 5000 Series cars.

The Washington, DC section now includes photos of some of the newer buses to ply the region’s streets, such as WMATA’s New Flyer XDE40 buses and Ride On’s Gillig Advantage/CNG buses.  On the rail side of things, there is now a gallery for photos of the new WMATA 7000 Series railcars, manufactured by Kawasaki.

PCC 3263 at Capen Street
Milton, MA
May 2, 2011

I last traveled to Philadelphia in 2012 and was able to get a last round of Silverliner II and Silverliner III photos, in addition to my first Silverliner V photos.  I made two trips to Boston, one in 2011 and the other in 2013.  On the 2011 trip, I rode the southern end of the Orange Line for the first time, and both trips included a number of trips on the Green Line and Red Line.  I also was able to get photos from along the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line right of way and of various MBTA buses, including the trackless trolleys, in Cambridge.  Finally, for the first time since Oren’s Transit Page’s initial launch over 15 years ago, there are new photos in the Atlanta section.

There are also new photos from New York City, but due to the immense size of that section, it was decided to leave it “as is” in the old format and add the new photos to the Uncaptioned Photos gallery for now.  The New York section will be updated with the new design as soon as possible.

North of the border, there is a new section for photos from Niagara Falls, Ontario.  My only trip to South America to date was in 2010 so there isn’t anything new in the Brazil and Argentina sections (while Buenos Aires is on my bucket list, I haven’t found the occasion to get myself down there just yet).

Crossing the ocean to Europe, I visited both Hungary and Portugal for the first time.  My stop in Budapest was a layover between flights in 2011 that was measured in hours rather than days, but it was enough time to photograph some of the city’s trams, buses, and trolleybuses and whet my appetite for another trip there that will be longer 13 hours. I spent almost a full week in Lisbon, a city that shares many similarities to San Francisco including the fact that its trams are a tourist attraction in and of themselves, and visited continental Europe’s westernmost bus stop for good measure.

Bombardier Flexity Outlook “Cityrunner” 3069 at Place Royale
Brussels, Belgium
November 21, 2013

In 2008, I unexpectedly found myself with 90 minutes in Brussels due to a missed train connection, which was just enough time to get some transit photos before the next train to my destination came.  In 2013, I was in Brussels yet again, this time for a full 8 hours between flights, so that section has seen some additional expansion including a new gallery for photos of the Belgian National Railway.

Finally, in the Middle East, the Israel section has expanded further and to my knowledge, Oren’s Transit Page’s Israel section is the largest of its kind on any English language website.  The Jerusalem Light Rail opened to passengers just after I began the long process of overhauling the website, so many photos of revenue service along the length of the entire line are now included on the site.  The Metronit bus rapid transit system in the Haifa region opened in 2014, and there are also photos of that.  In addition, there are many new photos of the many bus operators that operate throughout the entire length of the country.

I hope you enjoy exploring the site, whether you choose to browse the new sections, old sections, or a mix of both!  And if you have a favorite section, let everyone know what it is in the comment section below!