Trolleybus 8515 (line 90) at the outer terminus at largo Labia.

When we visited the Roma – Pantano interurban earlier this month (see further below) we did also spend some time riding the other tram lines in Roma. I must say, I’m still a little confused about the ownership of the trams and buses. Yes, the Pantano line, the metro and the other non-state railway (FS or TrenItalia as they call themselves these days) electric railways (Roma – Viterbo and Roma – Lido) are owned and operated by Metropolitana di Roma s.p.a. using the Met.Ro name (this company was of course called Cotral until a few years ago, and before that ACoTral when they absorbed the old STEFER network lines).

http://www.metroroma.it/

ATAC has been the tram and bus operator in the city of Roma for as long as I can remember. Only now, ATAC is rather more like a transit authority responsible for timetables and tickets etc. The buses and trams have been moved to a new company called Trambus S.p.A.

http://www.atac.roma.it/
http://www.trambus.com/

I only witnessed this new name on a service van seen at Grotte Celoni and the articulated restaurant tram carried this name (but it also said ATAC underneath). The buses (all the new ones seem to be in silver with a red stripe, the previous deliveries are all two-tone green like most of the trams – few trams in orange survive and only some buses with the “alibi” orange stripe on the front) and trams only have stickers for ATAC.

I assume that ATAC is the holding company of Trambus and they also seem to have taken over Met.Ro (their fairly new Met.Ro logo is already being replaced by a new red logo (I call it “half an arrow”) which can be seen on all three websites mentioned above and many of the new silver buses plus some of the Pantano line cars). Maybe we will see the new name on the trams and buses eventually. Enough of the confusion – let’s have some tram pics (all taken on July 5th or 6th)…

Restaurant car 7021 at piazzale di Porta Maggiore.

Historic MRS car 2137 with the rest of the birthday party (same location).

7013 (line 5) at piazza dei Gerani terminus.

9107 is pulling out onto line 8 and was caught in via Porta Maggiore/piazzale di Porta Maggiore.

9247 on line 8 approaching the terminus at Circonvallazione Gianicolense/via del Casaletto.

9001 at the line 3 terminal loop in piazza Thorwaldsen. During the week this line is all bus (weekends see trams from here to piazzale di Porta Maggiore – the rest of the line is always bus operated at this time because of metro works). The following image shows bus 4353 at P.ta Maggiore.

We had no time for the Roma – Lido railway but a few minutes were spent at the Roma Flaminio terminus of the Met.Ro Roma – Viterbo railway (Roma Nord). One can only take photos here when no security people are visible. This is EMU 110 (leading car 109).