After several months delay Sydney's new tram line in Parramatta finally started four days before Christmas on the 20th December. This view of two of the thirteen cars deployed was taken on Thursday in Macquarie Street. The cars are the same as those on the original, now L1, line in the CBD and terminating at Sydney Central Station: CAF Urbos 100 models. The new line is the L4 linking Westmead with Carlingford via the centre of Parramatta. Plans are to extend it to Olympic Park. In the picture car 2 is headed to Westmead, but it also carries fleet number 2162, similarly Carlingford bound 11 is also 2171, the 2000-series being used by the rest of the Sydney tram fleet. It is unlikely that the L4 line will ever link up with the other trams in Sydney CBD. Sydney does not refer to its trams as trams but "Light Rail" all are painted red and white and stops are denoted with the letter L. Similarly the new Metro Stations are labelled with M using dark blue, the trains T and orange, the ferries F and green and finally the buses are B and light blue. Can be very confusing when you look for your bus from Stand B and ALL the stands have flags with B on them! One also cannot help thinking that blue should have been used for the ferries, perhaps with the letter B for Boats. The trams could then be proper trams with T, changing the trains to R for rail, but what letter would fit buses? O for Omnibus? In reality there are much better universally used pictograms to represent the different modes of transport and would be intuitively easier for residents and visitors to understand than the letters floating around!
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