title: Tram

text: From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; the North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905.


title: Tram

text: In Dresden, Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the "Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system" started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73 is the sole survivor of the fleet).


title: Tram

text: In Italy, in Trieste, the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables.


title: Tram

text: Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables, pulleys, stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow the cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable would then have to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear, the entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) would have to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations.


title: Tram

text: Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels would not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable would physically pull the car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes, but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco.


title: Tram

text: The San Francisco cable cars, though significantly reduced in number, continue to perform a regular transportation function, in addition to being a well-known tourist attraction. A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the "Wellington Cable Car"). Another system, actually two separate cable lines with a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales, UK.


title: Tram

text: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden, Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra, Cieplice, and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in the UK at Lytham St Annes, Trafford Park, Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath, Wales (1896–1920).


title: Tram

text: On 29 December 1886 the Melbourne newspaper "The Argus" reprinted a report from the San Francisco Bulletin that Mr Noble had demonstrated a new 'motor car' for tramways 'with success'. The tramcar 'exactly similar in size, shape, and capacity to a cable grip car' had the 'motive power' of gas 'with which the reservoir is to be charged once a day at power stations by means of a rubber hose'. The car also carried an electricity generator for 'lighting up the tram and also for driving the engine on steep grades and effecting a start'.


title: Tram

text: Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, now the Australian Timetable Association.


title: Tram

text: A tram system powered by compressed natural gas was due to open in Malaysia in 2012, but the news about the project appears to have dried up.


title: Tram

text: The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using a similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880.


title: Tram

text: The second demonstrative tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition.


title: Tram

text: The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was world's first commercially successful electric tram. It initially drew current from the rails, with overhead wire being installed in 1883.


title: Tram

text: In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to in 1884, remains in service to this day and is the oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors. The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system is still in operation in a modernised form.


title: Tram

text: The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright, brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright, in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple functioning experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana, but they were not deemed good enough to replace the Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system, was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years.


title: Tram

text: In 1888, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across the world.


title: Tram

text: Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train, limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing the tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector, and Thorold, Ontario, opened in 1887, and was considered quite successful at the time. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of the winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s.


title: Tram

text: Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating the necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted important experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys.


title: Tram

text: Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as Prague, Bohemia (then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire), in 1891; Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1892 (the first permanent electric tram line in the Russian Empire); Dresden, Germany, Lyon, France, and Milan and Genoa, Italy, in 1893; Rome, Italy, Plauen, Germany, Lviv, Ukraine, Belgrade, Serbia in 1894; Bristol, United Kingdom, Munich, in 1895; Bilbao, Spain, in 1896; Copenhagen, Denmark, and Vienna, Austria, in 1897; Florence and Turin, Italy, in 1898; Helsinki, Finland, and Madrid and Barcelona, Spain, in 1899. Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be the busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running every 60 seconds at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia, starting operation on 2 March 1894.


title: Tram

text: The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne; afterwards, this was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. As well, electric systems were built in Adelaide, Ballarat, Bendigo, Brisbane, Fremantle, Geelong, Hobart, Kalgoorlie, Launceston, Leonora, Newcastle, Perth, and Sydney.


title: Tram

text: By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line, connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg, and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has also been extended to the Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin's 1914–1920 plans for the capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system.


title: Tram

text: In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of . By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan.


title: Tram

text: Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection, which was widely used in London, Washington, D.C. and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and currently in Bordeaux, France (the ground-level power supply system).


title: Tram

text: The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


title: Tram

text: There is one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been particularly heavily sanded by a previous tram, and the tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off the tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. In such an event, the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than the tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails.


title: Tram

text: In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs. Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram using ultracaps technology


title: Tram

text: As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport, a Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter.


title: Tram

text: Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague "accutram" of HTM in the Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, comparatively recently, during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo. In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. More recently in 2019, the West Midlands Metro in Birmingham, England, has adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall.


title: Tram

text: Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system.


title: Tram

text: Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of the combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler.


title: Tram

text: The Convict Tramway was hauled by human power in the form of convicts from the Port Arthur convict settlement. and was created to replace the hazardous sea voyage from Hobart to Port Arthur, Tasmania. Charles O'Hara Booth oversaw the construction of the tramway.


title: Tram

text: It opened in 1836 and ran for 8 km (5 miles) from Oakwood to Taranna. By most definitions, the tramway was the first passenger-carrying railway/tramway in Australia. An unconfirmed report says that it continued to Eaglehawk Neck and, if this was so, the length of the tramway would have been more than doubled. The tramway carried passengers and freight, and ran on wooden rails. The gauge is unknown. The date of closure is unknown, but it was certainly prior to 1877.


title: Tram

text: In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated the world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao. The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd., Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram.


title: Tram

text: The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for the downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle.


title: Tram

text: Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney.


title: Tram

text: Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi, used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to the city's hurricane-prone location, which would result in frequent damage to an electrical supply system.


title: Tram

text: Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a hidden diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the extensive Melbourne cable tramway system and now beautifully restored.


title: Tram

text: In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses, automobiles or rapid transit. The General Motors streetcar conspiracy was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made from the 1990s onwards (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking.


title: Tram

text: Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram:


title: Tram

text: There are two main types of tramways, the classic tramway built in the early 20th century with the tram system operating in mixed traffic, and the later type which is most often associated with the tram system having its own right of way. Tram systems that have their own right of way are often called light rail but this does not always hold true. Though these two systems differ in their operation, their equipment is much the same.


title: Tram

text: Trams were traditionally operated with separate levers for applying power and brakes. More modern vehicles use a locomotive-style controller which incorporate a dead man's switch. The success of the PCC streetcar had also seen trams use automobile-style foot controls allowing hands-free operation, particularly when the driver was responsible for fare collection.


title: Tram

text: Electric trams use various devices to collect power from overhead lines. The most common device found today is the pantograph, while some older systems use trolley poles or bow collectors. Ground-level power supply has become a recent innovation. Another new technology uses supercapacitors; when an insulator at a track switch cuts off power from the tram for a short distance along the line, the tram can use energy stored in a large capacitor to drive the tram past the gap in the power feed. A rather obsolete system for power supply is conduit current collection.


title: Tram

text: The old tram systems in London, Manhattan (New York City), and Washington, D.C., used live rails, like those on third-rail electrified railways, but in a conduit underneath the road, from which they drew power through a plough. It was called Conduit current collection. Washington's was the last of these to close, in 1962. Today, no commercial tramway uses this system. More recently, a modern equivalent to these systems has been developed which allows for the safe installation of a third rail on city streets, which is known as surface current collection or ground-level power supply; the main example of this is the new tramway in Bordeaux.


title: Tram

text: A ground-level power supply system also known as surface current collection or (APS) is an updated version of the original stud type system. APS uses a third rail placed between the running rails, divided electrically into eight-metre powered segments with three-metre neutral sections between. Each tram has two power collection skates, next to which are antennas that send radio signals to energize the power rail segments as the tram passes over them.


title: Tram

text: Older systems required mechanical switching systems which were susceptible to environmental problems. At any one time no more than two consecutive segments under the tram should actually be live. Wireless and solid state switching remove the mechanical problem.


title: Tram

text: Alstom developed the system primarily to avoid intrusive power supply cables in the sensitive area of the old city of old Bordeaux.


title: Tram

text: The resulting route patterns are very different. Some have a rational structure, covering their catchment area as efficiently as possible, with new suburbs being planned with tramlines integral to their layout – such is the case in Amsterdam. Bordeaux and Montpellier have built comprehensive networks, based on radial routes with numerous interconnections, within the last two decades. Some systems serve only parts of their cities, with Berlin being the prime example, owing to the fact that trams survived the city's political division only in the Eastern part. Other systems have ended up with a rather random route map, for instance when some previous operating companies have ceased operation (as with the "tramways vicinaux/buurtspoorwegen" in Brussels) or where isolated outlying lines have been preserved (as on the eastern fringe of Berlin). In Rome, the remnant of the system comprises 3 isolated radial routes, not connecting in the ancient city centre, but linked by a ring route. Some apparently anomalous lines continue in operation where a new line would not on rational grounds be built, because it is much more costly to build a new line than continue operating an existing one.


title: Tram

text: In some places, the opportunity is taken when roads are being repaved to lay tramlines (though without erecting overhead cables) even though no service is immediately planned: such is the case in Leipzigerstraße in Berlin, the Haarlemmer Houttuinen in Amsterdam, and Botermarkt in Ghent.


title: Tram

text: Tram systems operate across national borders in Basel (from Switzerland into France and Germany), Geneva (from Switzerland into France) and Strasbourg (from France into Germany). A planned line linking Hasselt (Belgium) with Maastricht (Netherlands) was cancelled in June 2022.


title: Tram

text: Tramway track can have different rail profiles to accommodate the various operating environments of the vehicle. They may be embedded into concrete for street-running operation, or use standard ballasted track with railroad ties on high-speed sections. A more ecological solution is to embed tracks into grass turf.


title: Tram

text: Tramway tracks use a grooved rail with a groove designed for tramway or railway track in pavement or grassed surfaces (grassed track or track in a lawn). The rail has the railhead on one side and the guard on the other. The guard provides accommodation for the flange. The guard carries no weight, but may act as a checkrail. Grooved rail was invented in 1852 by Alphonse Loubat, a French inventor who developed improvements in tram and rail equipment, and helped develop tram lines in New York City and Paris. The invention of grooved rail enabled tramways to be laid without causing a nuisance to other road users, except unsuspecting cyclists, who could get their wheels caught in the groove. The grooves may become filled with gravel and dirt (particularly if infrequently used or after a period of idleness) and need clearing from time to time, this being done by a "scrubber" tram. Failure to clear the grooves can lead to a bumpy ride for the passengers, damage to either wheel or rail and possibly derailing.


title: Tram

text: In narrow situations double-track tram lines sometimes reduce to single track, or, to avoid switches, have the tracks interlaced, e.g. in the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam on three short stretches (see map detail); this is known as interlaced or gauntlet track. There is a UK example of interlaced track on the Tramlink, just west of Mitcham Station, where the formation is narrowed by an old landslip causing an obstruction. (See photo in Tramlink entry).


title: Tram

text: Historically, the track gauge has had considerable variations, with narrow gauge common in many early systems. However, most light rail systems are now standard gauge. An important advantage of standard gauge is that standard railway maintenance equipment can be used on it, rather than custom-built machinery. Using standard gauge also allows light rail vehicles to be delivered and relocated conveniently using freight railways and locomotives.


title: Tram

text: Another factor favoring standard gauge is that low-floor vehicles are becoming popular, and there is generally insufficient space for wheelchairs to move between the wheels in a narrow gauge layout. Standard gauge also enables – at least in theory – a larger choice of manufacturers and thus lower procurement costs for new vehicles. However, other factors such as electrification or loading gauge for which there is more variation may require costly custom built units regardless.


title: Tram

text: Tram stops may be similar to bus stops in design and use, particularly in street-running sections, where in some cases other vehicles are legally required to stop clear of the tram doors. Some stops may resemble to railway platforms, particularly in private right-of-way sections and where trams are boarded at standard railway platform height, as opposed to using steps at the doorway or low-floor trams.


title: Tram

text: Approximately 5,000 new trams are manufactured each year. As of February 2017, 4,478 new trams were on order from their makers, with options being open for a further 1,092.


title: Tram

text: Trams are in a period of growth, with about 800 tram systems operating around the world, 10 or so new systems being opened each year, and many being gradually extended. Some of these systems date from the late 19th or early 20th centuries. In the past 20 years their numbers have been augmented by modern tramway or light rail systems in cities that had discarded this form of transport. There have also been some new tram systems in cities that never previously had them.


title: Tram

text: "Tramways with tramcars" (British English) or "street railways with streetcars" (North American English) were common throughout the industrialised world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but they had disappeared from most British, Canadian, French and US cities by the mid-20th century.


title: Tram

text: By contrast, trams in parts of continental Europe continued to be used by many cities, although there were contractions in some countries, including the Netherlands.


title: Tram

text: Since 1980 trams have returned to favour in many places, partly because their tendency to dominate the roadway, formerly seen as a disadvantage, is now considered to be a merit since it raises the visibility of public transport (encouraging car users to change their mode of travel), and enables streets to be reconfigured to give more space to pedestrians, making cites more pleasant places to live. New systems have been built in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, France, Australia and many other countries.


title: Tram

text: In Milan, Italy, the old "Ventotto" trams are considered by its inhabitants a "symbol" of the city. The same can be said of trams in Melbourne in general, but particularly the iconic W class. The Toronto streetcar system had similarly become an iconic symbol of the city, operating the largest network in the Americas as well as the only large-scale tram system in Canada (not including light rail systems, or heritage lines).


title: Tram

text: The largest tram (classic tram, streetcar, "straßenbahn") and fast tram (light rail, stadtbahn) networks in the world by route length (as of 2016) are:


title: Tram

text: Historically, the Paris Tram System was, at its peak, the world's largest system, with of track in 1925 (according to other sources, ca. of route length in 1930). However it was completely closed in 1938. The next largest system appears to have been , in Buenos Aires before 19 February 1963. The third largest was Chicago, with over of track, but it was all converted to trolleybus and bus services by 21 June 1958. Before its decline, the BVG in Berlin operated a very large network with of route. Before its system started to be converted to trolleybus (and later bus) services in the 1930s (last tramway closed 6 July 1952), the first-generation London network had of route in 1931. In 1958 trams in Rio de Jainero were employed on () of track. The final line, the Santa Teresa route was closed in 1968. During a period in the 1980s, the world's largest tram system was in Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg) with , USSR, and was included as such in the Guinness World Records; however Saint Petersburg's tram system has declined in size since the fall of the Soviet Union. Vienna in 1960 had , before the expansion of bus services and the opening of a subway (1976). Substituting subway services for tram routes continues. was in Minneapolis-Saint Paul in 1947: There streetcars ended 31 October 1953 in Minneapolis and 19 June 1954 in St. Paul. The Sydney tram network, before it was closed on 25 February 1961, had of route, and was thus the largest in Australia. As from 1961, the Melbourne system (currently recognised as the world's largest) took over Sydney's title as the largest network in Australia.


title: Tram

text: In many European cities, much tramway infrastructure was lost in the mid-20th century, though not always on the same scale as in other parts of the world such as North America. Most of Central and Eastern Europe retained the majority of its tramway systems and it is here that the largest and busiest tram systems in the world are found.


title: Tram

text: Urban public transportation has been experiencing a sustained revival since the 1990s. Many European cities are rehabilitating, upgrading, expanding and reconstructing their old tramway lines and building new tramway lines.


title: Tram

text: In North America, these vehicles are called "streetcars" (or "trolleys" in parts of the United States); the term "tram" is more likely to be understood as an aerial tramway or a people-mover, though "tram" may be used colloquially in Canada. Streetcar systems were developed in late 19th to early 20th centuries in a number of cities throughout North America. However, most North American cities saw their streetcar lines removed in the mid-20th century for a variety of financial, technological and social reasons. Exceptions included Boston, Cleveland, Mexico City, New Orleans, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Toronto.


title: Tram

text: Toronto currently operates the largest streetcar system in the Americas in terms of track length and ridership. Operated by the Toronto Transit Commission, the system consists of both street-running and grade-separated tramways. The streetcar system was established in 1861, and used a variety of vehicles in its history, including horse-drawn streetcars, Peter Witt streetcars, the PCC streetcar, and the Canadian Light Rail Vehicle and its articulated counterpart, the Articulated Light Rail Vehicle. Since 29 December 2019, the system exclusively uses the Flexity Outlook made by Bombardier Transportation.


title: Tram

text: Streetcars once existed in the Canadian cities of Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Peterborough, Quebec City, Regina, Saskatoon, Windsor, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. However, Canadian cities excluding Toronto, removed their streetcar systems in the mid-20th century. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, light rail systems were introduced in Calgary and Edmonton; with another light rail system established in Ottawa in 2001. There is now something of a renaissance for light railways in mid-sized cities with Waterloo, Ontario the first to come on line and construction underway in Mississauga, Ontario and Hamilton, Ontario. In the late 20th century, several Canadian locales restored portions of their defunct streetcar lines, operating them as a heritage feature for tourists. Heritage streetcar lines in Canada include the High Level Bridge Streetcar in Edmonton, the Nelson Electric Tramway in Nelson, and the Whitehorse Waterfront Trolley in Whitehorse.


title: Tram

text: Pittsburgh had kept most of its streetcar system serving the city and many suburbs, making it the longest-lasting large-network streetcar system in the United States. However, most of the city's streetcar lines had been abandoned by the early 1970s, and the handful of surviving streetcar lines were converted to light rail in the 1980s. San Francisco's Muni Metro system is the largest surviving streetcar system in the United States, and has even revived previously closed streetcar lines such as the F Market & Wharves heritage streetcar line. In the late 20th century, several cities installed modern light rail systems, in part along the same corridors as their old streetcars systems, the first of these being the San Diego Trolley in San Diego in 1981.


title: Tram

text: In the 1980s, some cities in the United States brought back streetcars lines, including Memphis, Tampa, and Little Rock; However, these streetcar systems were designed as heritage streetcar lines, and used vintage or replica-vintage vehicles. The first "second-generation streetcar systems" in North America was opened in Portland in 2001. The "second-generation streetcar system," utilizes modern vehicles – vehicles that feature low-floor streetcars. These newer streetcar systems were built in several American cities in the early 21st century including Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.


title: Tram

text: Model trams are popular in HO scale (1:87) and O scale (1:48 in the US and generally 1:43,5 and 1:45 in Europe and Asia). They are typically powered and will accept plastic figures inside. Common manufacturers are Roco and Lima, with many custom models being made as well. The German firm Hödl and the Austrian Halling specialise in 1:87 scale.


title: Tram

text: In the US, Bachmann Industries is a mass supplier of HO streetcars and kits. Bowser Manufacturing has produced white metal models for over 50 years. There are many boutique vendors offering limited run epoxy and wood models. At the high end are highly detailed brass models which are usually imported from Japan or Korea and can cost in excess of $500. Many of these run on gauge track, which is correct for the representation of (standard gauge) in HO scale as in US and Japan, but incorrect in 4 mm (1:76.2) scale, as it represents . This scale/gauge hybrid is called OO scale.


title: Tram

text: O scale trams are also very popular among tram modellers because the increased size allows for more detail and easier crafting of overhead wiring. In the US these models are usually purchased in epoxy or wood kits and some as brass models. The Saint Petersburg Tram Company produces highly detailed polyurethane non-powered O Scale models from around the world which can easily be powered by trucks from vendors like Q-Car.


title: Tram

text: In the US, one of the best resources for model tram enthusiasts is the East Penn Traction Club of Philadelphia and Trolleyville a website of the Southern California Traction Club.


title: Tram

text: It is thought that the first example of a working model tramcar in the UK built by an amateur for fun was in 1929, when Frank E. Wilson created a replica of London County Council Tramways E class car 444 in 1:16 scale, which he demonstrated at an early Model Engineer Exhibition. Another of his models was London E/1 1800, which was the only tramway exhibit in the Faraday Memorial Exhibition of 1931. Together with likeminded friends, Frank Wilson went on to found the Tramway & Light Railway Society in 1938, establishing tramway modelling as a hobby.


title: Tram

text: The English terms "tram" and "tramway" are derived from the Scots word , referring respectively to a type of truck (goods wagon or freight railroad car) used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran. The word "tram" probably derived from Middle Flemish ("beam, handle of a barrow, bar, rung"). The identical word with the meaning "crossbeam" is also used in the French language. Etymologists believe that the word "tram" refers to the wooden beams the railway tracks were initially made of before the railroad pioneers switched to the much more wear-resistant tracks made of iron and, later, steel. The word "Tram-car" is attested from 1873.


title: Tram

text: Although the terms "tram" and "tramway" have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English; North Americans prefer "streetcar", "trolley", or "trolleycar". The term "streetcar" is first recorded in 1840, and originally referred to horsecars. When electrification came, Americans began to speak of "trolleycars" or later, "trolleys". A widely held belief holds the word to derive from the "troller" (said to derive from the words "traveler" and "roller"), a four-wheeled device that was dragged along dual overhead wires by a cable that connected the troller to the top of the car and collected electrical power from the overhead wires; this portmanteau derivation is, however, most likely folk etymology. "Trolley" and variants refer to the verb "troll", meaning "roll" and probably derived from Old French, and cognate uses of the word were well established for handcarts and horse drayage, as well as for nautical uses.


title: Tram

text: The alternative North American term 'trolley' may strictly speaking be considered incorrect, as the term can also be applied to cable cars, or conduit cars that instead draw power from an underground supply. Conventional diesel tourist buses decorated to look like streetcars are sometimes called "trolleys" in the US (tourist trolley). Furthering confusion, the term "tram" has instead been applied to open-sided, low-speed segmented vehicles on rubber tires generally used to ferry tourists short distances, for example on the Universal Studios backlot tour and, in many countries, as tourist transport to major destinations. The term may also apply to an aerial ropeway, e.g. the Roosevelt Island Tramway.


title: Tram

text: Although the use of the term "trolley" for tram was not adopted in Europe, the term was later associated with the "trolleybus", a rubber-tired vehicle running on hard pavement, which draws its power from pairs of overhead wires. These electric buses, which use twin trolley poles, are also called "trackless trolleys" (particularly in the northeastern US), or sometimes simply "trolleys" (in the UK, as well as the Pacific Northwest, including Seattle, and Vancouver).


title: Tram

text: The New South Wales government in Australia has decided to use the term "light rail" for their trams.


title: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

text: The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year.


title: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

text: As the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (awarded 1918–1947), it was one of the original Pulitzers; the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year (no Novel prize was awarded in 1917, the first one having been granted in 1918).


title: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

text: The name was changed to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948, and eligibility was expanded to also includes short stories, novellas, novelettes, and poetry, as well as novels.


title: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

text: As defined in the original Plan of Award, the prize was given "Annually, for the American novel published during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life, and the highest standard of American manners and manhood," although there was some struggle over whether the word "wholesome" should be used instead of "whole", the word Pulitzer had written in his will. In 1927, the advisory board quietly instituted Pulitzer's word choice, replacing "wholesome" with "whole".


title: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

text: With 1929 came the first of several much more substantive changes. The board changed the wording to "preferably one which shall best present the whole atmosphere of American life" and deleted the insistence that the novel portray "the highest standard of American manners and manhood". In 1936, emphasis was changed again, with the award going to "a distinguished novel published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life". In 1948, the advisory board widened the scope of the award with the wording "For distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life." This change allowed the prize to go to a collection of short stories for the first time, James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific".


title: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

text: In 31 years under the "Novel" name, the prize was awarded 27 times; in its first 69 years to 2016 under the "Fiction" name, 62 times. There have been 11 years during which no title received the award. It has never been shared by two authors. Four writers have won two prizes each in the Fiction category: Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead.


title: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

text: Four writers to date have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction multiple times, one nominally in the novel category and two in the general fiction category. Ernest Hemingway was selected by the 1941 and 1953 juries, but the former was overturned with no award given that year.


title: Carmilla

text: Carmilla is an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897) by 26 years. First published as a serial in "The Dark Blue" (1871–72), the story is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be Mircalla, Countess Karnstein (Carmilla is an anagram of Mircalla). The character is a prototypical example of the lesbian vampire, expressing romantic desires toward the protagonist. The novella notably never acknowledges homosexuality as an antagonistic trait, leaving it subtle and morally ambiguous. The story is often anthologised, and has been adapted many times in film and other media.


title: Carmilla

text: "Carmilla", serialised in the literary magazine "The Dark Blue" in late 1871 and early 1872, was reprinted in Le Fanu's short-story collection "In a Glass Darkly" (1872). Comparing the work of two illustrators of the story, David Henry Friston and Michael Fitzgerald—whose work appears in the magazine article but not in modern printings of the book—reveals inconsistencies in the characters' depictions. Consequently, confusion has arisen relating the pictures to the plot. Isabella Mazzanti illustrated the book's 2014 edition, published by Editions Soleil and translated by Gaid Girard.


title: Carmilla

text: Le Fanu presents the story as part of the casebook of Dr. Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult detective in literature.


title: Carmilla

text: Laura, the teenaged protagonist, narrates, beginning with her childhood in a "picturesque and solitary" castle amid an extensive forest in Styria, where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower retired from service to the Austrian Empire. When she was six, Laura had a vision of a very beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. She later claims to have been punctured in her breast, although no wound was found.


title: Carmilla

text: Twelve years later, Laura and her father are admiring the sunset in front of the castle when her father tells her of a letter from his friend, General Spielsdorf. The General was supposed to visit them with his niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt, but Bertha suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. The General ambiguously concludes that he will discuss the circumstances in detail when they meet later.


title: Carmilla

text: Laura, saddened by the loss of a potential friend, longs for a companion. A carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Her name is Carmilla. Both girls instantly recognise each other from the "dream" they both had when they were young.


title: Carmilla

text: Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Before she leaves, she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself, and that Carmilla is of sound mind. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off.


title: Carmilla

text: Carmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally Carmilla's mood abruptly changes. She sometimes makes romantic advances towards Laura. Carmilla refuses to tell anything about herself, despite questioning by Laura. Her secrecy is not the only mysterious thing about Carmilla; she never joins the household in its prayers, she sleeps much of the day, and she seems to sleepwalk outside at night.


title: Carmilla

text: Meanwhile, young women and girls in the nearby towns have begun dying from an unknown malady. When the funeral procession of one such victim passes by the two girls, Laura joins in the funeral hymn. Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura, complaining that the hymn hurts her ears.


title: Carmilla

text: When a shipment of restored heirloom paintings arrives, Laura finds a portrait of her ancestor, Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, dated 1698. The portrait resembles Carmilla exactly, down to the mole on her neck. Carmilla suggests that she might be descended from the Karnsteins, though the family died out centuries before.


title: Carmilla

text: During Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares of a large, cat-like beast entering her room. The beast springs onto the bed and Laura feels something like two needles, an inch or two apart, darting deep into her breast. The beast then takes the form of a female figure and disappears through the door without opening it. In another nightmare, Laura hears a voice say, "Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin," and a sudden light reveals Carmilla standing at the foot of her bed, her nightdress drenched in blood. Laura's health declines, and her father has a doctor examine her. He finds a small, blue spot, an inch or two below her collar, where the creature in her dream bit her, and speaks privately with her father, only asking that Laura never be unattended.


title: Carmilla

text: Her father sets out with Laura, in a carriage, for the ruined village of Karnstein, three miles distant. They leave a message behind asking Carmilla and one of the governesses to follow once the perpetually late-sleeping Carmilla awakes. En route to Karnstein, Laura and her father encounter General Spielsdorf. He tells them his own ghastly story.


title: Carmilla

text: At a costume ball, Spielsdorf and his niece Bertha had met a very beautiful young woman named Millarca and her enigmatic mother. Bertha was immediately taken with Millarca. The mother convinced the General that she was an old friend of his and asked that Millarca be allowed to stay with them for three weeks while she attended to a secret matter of great importance.


title: Carmilla

text: Bertha fell mysteriously ill, suffering the same symptoms as Laura. After consulting with a specially ordered priestly doctor, the General realised that Bertha was being visited by a vampire. He hid with a sword and waited until a large, black creature of undefined shape crawled onto his niece's bed and spread itself onto her throat. He leapt from his hiding place and attacked the creature, which had then taken the form of Millarca. She fled through the locked door, unharmed. Bertha died before the morning dawned.


title: Carmilla

text: Upon arriving at Karnstein, the General asks a woodman where he can find the tomb of Mircalla Karnstein. The woodman says the tomb was relocated long ago by a Moravian nobleman who vanquished the vampires haunting the region.


title: Carmilla

text: While the General and Laura are alone in the ruined chapel, Carmilla appears. The General and Carmilla both fly into a rage upon seeing each other, and the General attacks her with an axe. Carmilla disarms the General and disappears. The General explains that Carmilla is also Millarca, both anagrams for the original name of the vampire Mircalla, Countess Karnstein.


title: Carmilla

text: The party is joined by Baron Vordenburg, the descendant of the hero who rid the area of vampires long ago. Vordenburg, an authority on vampires, has discovered that his ancestor was romantically involved with the Countess Karnstein before she died. Using his forefather's notes, he locates Mircalla's hidden tomb. An imperial commission exhumes the body of Mircalla. Immersed in blood, it seems to be breathing faintly, its heart beating, its eyes open. A stake is driven through its heart, and it gives a corresponding shriek; then, the head is struck off. The body and head are burned to ashes, which are thrown into a river.


title: Carmilla

text: Afterwards, Laura's father takes his daughter on a year-long tour through Italy to regain her health and recover from the trauma, but she never fully does.


title: Carmilla

text: “Carmilla” exhibits the primary characteristics of Gothic fiction. It includes a supernatural figure, a dark setting of an old castle, a mysterious atmosphere, and ominous or superstitious elements.


title: Carmilla

text: In the novella, Le Fanu abolishes the Victorian view of women as merely useful possessions of men, relying on them and needing their constant guardianship. The male characters of the story, such as Laura's father and General Spielsdorf, are exposed as being the opposite of the putative Victorian males – helpless and unproductive. The nameless father reaches an agreement with Carmilla's mother, whereas Spielsdorf cannot control the faith of his niece, Bertha. Both of these scenes portray women as equal, if not superior to men. This female empowerment is even more threatening to men if we consider Carmilla's vampiric predecessors and their relationship with their prey. Carmilla is the opposite of those male vampires – she is actually involved with her victims both emotionally and (theoretically) sexually. Moreover, she is able to exceed even more limitations by dominating death. In the end, that her immortality is suggested to be sustained by the river where her ashes had been scattered.


title: Carmilla

text: Le Fanu also departs from the negative idea of female parasitism and lesbianism by depicting a mutual and irresistible connection between Carmilla and Laura. The latter, along with other female characters, becomes a symbol of all Victorian women – restrained and judged for their emotional reflexes. The ambiguity of Laura's speech and behaviour reveals her struggles with being fully expressive of her concerns and desires.


title: Carmilla

text: Another important element of “Carmilla” is the concept of dualism presented through the juxtaposition of vampire and human, as well as lesbian and heterosexual. It is also vivid in Laura's irresolution, since she "feels both attraction and repulsion" towards Carmilla. The duality of Carmilla's character is suggested by her human attributes, the lack of predatory demeanour, and her shared experience with Laura. According to Jönsson, Carmilla can be seen as a representation of the dark side of all mankind.


title: Carmilla

text: As with "Dracula", critics have looked for the sources used in the writing of "Carmilla". One source used was from a dissertation on magic, vampires, and the apparitions of spirits written by Dom Augustin Calmet entitled "Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenants de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c." (1751). This is evidenced by a report analysed by Calmet, from a priest who learned information of a town being tormented by a vampiric entity three years earlier. Having travelled to the town to investigate and collecting information of the various inhabitants there, the priest learned that a vampire had tormented many of the inhabitants at night by coming from the nearby cemetery and would haunt many of the residents on their beds. An unknown Hungarian traveller came to the town during this period and helped the town by setting a trap at the cemetery and decapitating the vampire that resided there, curing the town of their torment. This story was retold by Le Fanu and adapted into the thirteenth chapter of Carmilla


title: Carmilla

text: According to Matthew Gibson, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould's "The Book of Were-wolves" (1863) and his account of Elizabeth Báthory, Coleridge's "Christabel" (Part 1, 1797 and Part 2, 1800), and Captain Basil Hall's "Schloss Hainfeld; or a Winter in Lower Styria" (London and Edinburgh, 1836) are other sources for Le Fanu's "Carmilla". Hall's account provides much of the Styrian background and, in particular, a model for both Carmilla and Laura in the figure of Jane Anne Cranstoun, Countess Purgstall.


title: Carmilla

text: Carmilla, the title character, is the original prototype for a legion of female and lesbian vampires. Although Le Fanu portrays his vampire's sexuality with the circumspection that one would expect for his time, lesbian attraction evidently is the main dynamic between Carmilla and the narrator of the story:


title: Carmilla

text: When compared to other literary vampires of the 19th century, Carmilla is a similar product of a culture with strict sexual mores and tangible religious fear. While Carmilla selected exclusively female victims, she only becomes emotionally involved with a few. Carmilla had nocturnal habits, but was not confined to the darkness. She had unearthly beauty, and was able to change her form and to pass through solid walls. Her animal alter ego was a monstrous black cat, not a large dog as in "Dracula". She did, however, sleep in a coffin. "Carmilla" works as a Gothic horror story because her victims are portrayed as succumbing to a perverse and unholy temptation that has severe metaphysical consequences for them.


title: Carmilla

text: Some critics, among them William Veeder, suggest that "Carmilla", notably in its outlandish use of narrative frames, was an important influence on Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" (1898).


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when a group of prominent Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of British India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests on the Indian subcontinent.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The party arose out of the need for the political representation of Muslims in British India, especially during the Indian National Congress-sponsored massive Hindu opposition to the 1905 partition of Bengal. During the 1906 annual meeting of the All India Muslim Education Conference held in Israt Manzil Palace, Dhaka, the Nawab of Dhaka, Khwaja Salimullah, forwarded a proposal to create a political party which would protect the interests of Muslims in British India. Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi, a prominent Muslim leader from Lahore, suggested the political party be named the 'All-India Muslim League'. The motion was unanimously passed by the conference, leading to the official formation of the All-India Muslim League in Dhaka. It remained an elitist organization until 1937, when the leadership began mobilising the Muslim masses, which turned the league into a popular organization. The Muslim League's paramilitary wing was the Muslim National Guard.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: In the 1930s, the idea of a separate nation-state and influential philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal's vision of uniting the four provinces in North-West British India further supported the rationale of the two-nation theory. This aligned with the ideas proposed by Syed Ahmad Khan who, in 1888 at Meerut, said, "After this long preface I wish to explain what method my nation — nay, rather the whole people of this country — ought to pursue in political matters. I will treat in regular sequence of the political questions of India, in order that you may have full opportunity of giving your attention to them. The first of all is this — In whose hands shall the administration and the Empire of India rest? Now, suppose that all English, and the whole English army, were to leave India, taking with them all their cannon and their splendid weapons and everything, then who would be rulers of India? Is it possible that under these circumstances two nations — the Mahomedans and the Hindus — could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable." When the Congress party effectively protested against the United Kingdom unilaterally involving India in World War II without consulting the Indian people, the Muslim League went on to support the British war efforts. The Muslim League played a decisive role in the 1940s, becoming a driving force behind the division of India along religious lines and the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state in 1947.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: After the Partition of India and the establishment of Pakistan, the All-India Muslim League was formally disbanded in India in December 1947. The League was officially succeeded by the Pakistan Muslim League, which eventually split into several political parties. Other groups diminished to a minor party, that too only in Kerala, India. In Bangladesh, the Muslim League was revived in 1976, but it was reduced in size, rendering it insignificant in the political arena. In India, a separate independent entity called the Indian Union Muslim League was formed, which continues to have a presence in the Indian parliament to this day.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: With the sincere efforts by the pioneers of the Congress to attract Muslims to their sessions the majority of the Islamic leadership, with exception of few scholars like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Syed Ameer Ali, who focused more on Islamic education and scientific developments, rejected the notion that India's has two distinct communities to be represented separately Congress sessions.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: In 1886, Sir Syed founded the Muhammadan Educational Conference, but a self-imposed ban prevented it from discussing politics. Its original goal was to advocate for British education, especially science and literature, among India's Muslims. The conference, in addition to generating funds for Sir Syed's Aligarh Muslim University, motivated the Muslim upper class to propose an expansion of educational uplift elsewhere, known as the Aligarh Movement. In turn, this new awareness of Muslim needs helped stimulate a political consciousness among Muslim elites, For a few of them, many years after the death of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan the All-India Muslim League was formed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The formation of a Muslim political party on the national level was seen as essential by 1901. The first stage of its formation was the meeting held at Lucknow in September 1906, with the participation of representatives from all over India. The decision for the re-consideration to form the all-Indian Muslim political party was taken and further proceedings were adjourned until the next meeting of the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference. The Simla Deputation reconsidered the issue in October 1906 and decided to frame the objectives of the party on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Educational Conference, which was scheduled to be held in Dhaka. Meanwhile, Nawab Salimullah Khan published a detailed scheme through which he suggested the party to be named All-India Muslim Confederacy.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Pursuant to the decisions taken earlier at the Lucknow meeting and later in Simla, the annual meeting of the All-India Muhammadan Educational Conference was held in Dhaka from 27 December until 30 December 1906. Three thousand delegates attended, headed by both Nawab Waqar-ul-Mulk Kamboh and Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk (the Secretary of the Muhammaden Educational Conference), in which they explained its objectives and stressed the unity of Muslims under the banner of an association. It was formally proposed by Nawab Salimullah Khan and supported by Hakim Ajmal Khan, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Zafar Ali Khan, Syed Nabiullah, a barrister from Lucknow, and Syed Zahur Ahmad, an eminent lawyer, as well as several others.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The Muslim League's insistence on separate electorates and reserved seats in the Imperial Council were granted in the Indian Councils Act after the League held protests in India and lobbied London.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The draft proposals for the reforms communicated on 1 October 1908 provided Muslims with reserved seats in all councils, with nominations only being maintained in Punjab. The communication displayed how much the Government had accommodated Muslim demands and showed an increase in Muslim representation in the Imperial and provincial legislatures. But the Muslim League's demands were only fully met in UP and Madras. However, the Government did accept the idea of separate electorates. The idea had not been accepted by the Secretary of State, who proposed mixed electoral colleges, causing the Muslim League to agitate and the Muslim press to protest what they perceived to be a betrayal of the Viceroy's assurance to the Simla deputation.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: On 23 February Morley told the House of Lords that Muslims demanded separate representation and accepted them. This was the League's first victory. But the Indian Councils Bill did not fully satisfy the demands of the Muslim League. It was based on the October 1908 communique in which Muslims were only given a few reserved seats. The Muslim League's London branch opposed the bill and in a debate obtained the support of several parliamentarians. In 1909 the members of the Muslim League organised a Muslim protest. The Reforms Committee of Minto's council believed that Muslims had a point and advised Minto to discuss with some Muslim leaders. The Government offered a few more seats to Muslims in compromise but would not agree to fully satisfy the League's demand.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Minto believed that the Muslims had been given enough while Morley was still not certain because of the pressure Muslims could apply on the government. The Muslim League's central committee once again demanded separate electorates and more representation on 12 September 1909. While Minto was opposed, Morley feared that the Bill would not pass parliament without the League's support and he once again discussed Muslim representation with the League leadership. This was successful. The Aga Khan compromised so that Muslims would have two more reserved seats in the Imperial Council. The Muslim League hesitantly accepted the compromise.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Sultan Muhammad Shah (Aga Khan III) was appointed the first honorary president of the Muslim League, though he did not attend the Dhaka inaugural session. There were also six vice-presidents, a secretary, and two joint secretaries initially appointed for a three-year term, proportionately from different provinces. The League's constitution was framed in 1907, espoused in the "Green Book," written by Mohammad Ali Jauhar.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Aga Khan III shared Ahmad Khan's belief that Muslims should first build up their social capital through advanced education before engaging in politics, but would later boldly tell the British Raj that Muslims must be considered a separate nation within India. Even after he resigned as president of the AIML in 1912, he still exerted a major influence on its policies and agendas. In 1913, Mohammed Ali Jinnah joined the Muslim league.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Intellectual support and a cadre of young activists emerged from Aligarh Muslim University. Historian Mushirul Hasan writes that in the early 20th century, this Muslim institution, designed to prepare students for service to the British Raj, exploded into political activity. Until 1939, the faculty and students supported an all-India nationalist movement. After 1939, however, sentiment shifted dramatically toward a Muslim separatist movement, as students and faculty mobilised behind Jinnah and the Muslim League.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Politically, there was a degree of unity between Muslim and Hindu leaders after World War I, as typified by the Khilafat Movement. Relationships cooled sharply after that campaign ended in 1922. Communalism grew rapidly, forcing the two groups apart. Major riots broke out in numerous cities, including 91 between 1923 and 1927 in Uttar Pradesh alone. At the leadership level, the proportion of Muslims among delegates to the Congress party fell sharply, from 11% in 1921 to under 4% in 1923.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Muhammad Ali Jinnah became disillusioned with politics after the failure of his attempt to form a Hindu-Muslim alliance, and he spent most of the 1920s in Britain. The leadership of the League was taken over by Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who in 1930 first put forward the demand for a separate Muslim state in India. The "Two-Nation Theory", the belief that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations who could not live in one country, gained popularity among Muslims. The two-state solution was rejected by the Congress leaders, who favoured a united India based on composite national identity. Congress at all times rejected "communalism" — that is, basing politics on religious identity. Iqbal's policy of uniting the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan, Punjab, and Sindh into a new Muslim majority state became part of the League's political platform.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The League rejected the Committee report (the Nehru Report), arguing that it gave too little representation (only one quarter) to Muslims, established Devanagari as the official writing system of the colony, and demanded that India turn into a "de facto" unitary state, with residuary powers resting at the centre – the League had demanded at least one-third representation in the legislature and sizeable autonomy for the Muslim provinces. Jinnah reported a "parting of the ways" after his requests for minor amendments to the proposal were denied outright, and relations between the Congress and the League began to sour.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: On 29 December 1930, Sir Muhammad Iqbal delivered his presidential address to the All-India Muslim League annual session. He said:


title: All-India Muslim League

text: "Iqbal never pleaded for any kind of partition of the country. Rather he was an ardent proponent of a 'true' federal setup for India..., and wanted a consolidated Muslim majority within the Indian Federation".


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Another Indian historian, Tara Chand, also held that Iqbal was not thinking in terms of partition of India, but in terms of a federation of autonomous states within India. Dr. Safdar Mehmood also asserted in a series of articles that in the Allahabad address, Iqbal proposed a Muslim majority province within an Indian federation and not an independent state outside an Indian Federation.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: On 28 January 1933, Choudhary Rahmat Ali, founder of the Pakistan National Movement, voiced his ideas in the pamphlet entitled "Now or Never". In a subsequent book, he discussed the etymology in further detail: “'Pakistan' is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands ... That is, Panjab, Afghania (North-West Frontier Province), Kashmir, Iran, Sindh (including Kachch and Kathiawar), Tukharistan, Afghanistan, and Balochistan."


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The British and the Indian Press vehemently criticised these two different schemes and created confusion about the authorship of the word "Pakistan" to such an extent that even Jawaharlal Nehru had to write:


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Until 1937, the Muslim League had remained an organisation of elite Indian Muslims. The Muslim League leadership then began mass mobilisation and it then became a popular party with the Muslim masses in the 1940s, especially after the Lahore Resolution. Under Jinnah's leadership, its membership grew to over two million and became more religious and even separatist in its outlook.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The Muslim League's earliest base was the United Provinces, where they successfully mobilised the religious community in the late 1930s. Jinnah worked closely with local politicians, however, there was a lack of uniform political voice by the League during the 1938–1939 Madhe Sahaba riots in Lucknow. From 1937 onwards, the Muslim League and Jinnah attracted large crowds throughout India in its processions and strikes.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: In Lahore, the Muslim League formally recommitted itself to creating an independent Muslim state which would include Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, the North West Frontier Province, and Bengal, and which would be "wholly autonomous and sovereign". The Lahore Resolution, moved by the sitting Chief Minister of Bengal A. K. Fazlul Huq, was adopted on 23 March 1940, and its principles formed the foundation for Pakistan's first constitution. In the Indian provincial elections of 1946, the Muslim League won 425 out of 476 seats reserved for Muslims (and about 89.2% of Muslim votes) on a policy of creating the independent state of Pakistan, and with an implied threat of secession if this was not granted. Congress, led by Gandhi and Nehru, remained adamantly opposed to dividing India.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: In opposition to the Lahore Resolution, the All India Azad Muslim Conference gathered in Delhi in April 1940 to voice its support for a united India. Its members included several Islamic organisations in India, as well as 1400 nationalist Muslim delegates; the "attendance at the Nationalist meeting was about five times than the attendance at the League meeting." The All-India Muslim League worked to try to silence those Muslims who stood against the partition of India, often using "intimidation and coercion". For example, Deobandi scholar Maulana Syed Husain Ahmad Madani traveled across British India, spreading the idea he wrote about in his book, "Composite Nationalism and Islam", which stood for Hindu-Muslim unity and opposed the concept of a partition of India; while he was doing this, members of the pro-separatist Muslim League attacked Madani and disturbed his rallies. The murder of the All India Azad Muslim Conference leader Allah Bakhsh Soomro in 1943 also made it easier for the All-India Muslim League to demand the creation of Pakistan.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: In the British Indian province of Sind, the historian Ayesha Jalal describes the actions that the pro-separatist Muslim League used in order to spread communal division and undermine the elected government of Allah Bakhsh Soomro, which stood for a united India:


title: All-India Muslim League

text: In the few years before the partition, the Muslim League "monetarily subsidized" mobs that engaged in communal violence against Hindus and Sikhs in the areas of Multan, Rawalpindi, Campbellpur, Jhelum and Sargodha, as well as in the Hazara District. The Muslim League paid assassins money for every Hindu and Sikh they murdered. As such, leaders of the Muslim League, including Muhammad Ali Jinnah, issued no condemnation of the violence against Hindus and Sikhs in the Punjab.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: After the partition of the British Indian Empire, the Muslim League played a major role in giving birth to modern conservatism in Pakistan and the introduction of the democratic process in the country.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The Pakistani incarnation was originally led by the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and later by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, but suffered from ill-fate following the military intervention in 1958. One of its factions remained supportive of President Ayub Khan until 1962, when all factions decided to reform into the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nurul Amin, and to support Fatima Jinnah in the presidential elections in 1965. Furthermore, it was the only party to have received votes from both East and West Pakistan during the elections held in 1970. During the successive periods of Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim League went on to be one of the ruling parties holding alternating power within the nation.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: After the partition of India in 1947, the All-India Muslim League was disbanded. It was succeeded by Indian Union Muslim League in the new India.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Indian Union Muslim League contests Indian General Elections under the Indian Constitution. The party has always had a constant, if small presence, in the Indian Parliament. The party has had two members in every Lower House from the third to the 16th House, with the exception of the Second, in which it had no members, and the fourth, in which it had three members. The party had a single member in the 14th Lower House. The party currently has four members in Parliament. The party is currently a part of the United Progressive Alliance in national level.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Indian Union Muslim League is recognized by the Election Commission of India as a State Party in Kerala.The party is a major member of the opposition United Democratic Front, the Indian National Congress-lead pre-poll state-level alliance in Kerala. Whenever the United Democratic Front rules in Kerala, the party leaders are chosen as important Cabinet Ministers.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: The Muslim League formed its government in East Bengal immediately after the partition of Bengal, with Nurul Amin becoming the first Chief Minister.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Problems in East Pakistan for the Muslim League began to rise following the issue of the Constitution of Pakistan. Furthermore, the Bengali Language Movement proved to be the last event that led the Muslim League to lose its mandate in East Bengal. The Muslim League's national conservatism program also faced several setbacks and resistance from the Communist Party of Pakistan. In an interview given to print media, Nurul Amin stated that the communists had played an integral and major role in staging the massive protests, mass demonstrations, and strikes for the Bengali Language Movement.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: All over the country, the political parties had favoured the general elections in Pakistan with the exception of the Muslim League. In 1954, legislative elections were to be held for the Parliament. Unlike in West Punjab, not all of the Hindu population migrated to India, instead a large number stayed in the state. The influence of the Communist Party deepened, and its goal of attaining power was finally realised during the elections. The United Front, the Communist Party, and the Awami League returned to power, inflicting a severe defeat to the Muslim League. Out of 309, the Muslim League only won 10 seats, whereas the Communist Party got 4 seats of the ten contested. The communists working with other parties had secured 22 additional seats, totalling 26. The right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami had completely failed in the elections.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: In 1955, the United Front named Abu Hussain Sarkar as the Chief Minister of the State and he ruled the state in two non-consecutive terms until 1958, when martial law was imposed. The Muslim League remained as a minor party in East Pakistan but participated with full rigour during the Pakistan general elections in 1970. It won 10 seats from East Pakistan and 7 seats from other parts of Pakistan. After the independence of Bangladesh, the Muslim League was revived in 1976 but its size was reduced, rendering it insignificant in the political arena.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: During the 1940s, the Muslim League had a United Kingdom chapter active in the British politics. After the establishment of Pakistan, the Pakistani community's leaders took over the UK branch, choosing Zubeida Habib Rahimtoola as president of the party to continue to serve its purpose in the United Kingdom. At present, the Muslim League's UK branch is led by the PML-N, with Zubair Gull as its president.


title: All-India Muslim League

text: Historically, Pakistan Muslim League can also refer to any of the following political parties in Pakistan:


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: Yaphet Frederick Kotto (born Frederick Samuel Kotto; November 15, 1939 – March 15, 2021) was an American actor known for numerous film roles, as well as starring in the NBC television series "" (1993–1999) as Lieutenant Al Giardello. His most well-known films include the science-fiction horror film "Alien" (1979), the science-fiction action film "The Running Man" (1987), the James Bond film "Live and Let Die" (1973), in which he portrayed the main villain Dr. Kananga, and the comedy thriller "Midnight Run" (1988) opposite Robert De Niro.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: Kotto was born Frederick Samuel Kotto in New York City. His mother, Gladys Marie, was an American nurse and U.S. Army officer of Panamanian and West Indian descent. His father, Yaphet Avraham Kotto (who was, according to his son, originally named Njoki Manga Bell), was a businessman from Cameroon who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s. Kotto's father was raised Jewish and his mother converted to Judaism. The couple separated when Kotto was a child, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: By the age of 16, Kotto was studying acting at the Actors Mobile Theater Studio, and at 19, he made his professional acting debut in "Othello". He was a member of the Actors Studio in New York. Kotto got his start in acting on Broadway, where he appeared in "The Great White Hope", among other productions.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: His film debut was in 1963, aged 23, in an uncredited role in "4 for Texas". He performed in Michael Roemer's "Nothing but a Man" (1964) and played a supporting role in the caper film "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968). He played John Auston, a confused Marine Lance Corporal, in the 1968 episode "King of the Hill", on the first season of "Hawaii Five-O".


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: In 1967 he released a single, "Have You Ever Seen the Blues" / "Have You Dug His Scene" (Chisa Records, CH006).


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: In 1973 he landed the role of the James Bond villain Mr. Big in "Live and Let Die", as well as roles in "Across 110th Street" and "Truck Turner". He played a police officer, Richard "Crunch" Blackstone, in the 1975 film "Report to the Commissioner". Kotto portrayed Idi Amin in the 1977 television film "Raid on Entebbe". He starred as an auto worker in the 1978 film "Blue Collar". The following year he played Parker in the sci-fi–horror film "Alien". He followed with a supporting role in the 1980 prison drama "Brubaker". In 1983, he guest-starred as mobster Charlie "East Side Charlie" Struthers in "The A-Team" episode "The Out-of-Towners". In 1987, he appeared in the futuristic sci-fi movie "The Running Man", and in 1988, in the action-comedy "Midnight Run", in which he portrayed Alonzo Moseley, an FBI agent. A memo from Paramount indicates that Kotto was among those being considered for Jean-Luc Picard in "", a role which eventually went to Patrick Stewart.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: Kotto was cast as a religious man living in the southwestern desert country in the 1967 episode "A Man Called Abraham" on the syndicated anthology series "Death Valley Days", hosted by Robert Taylor. In the story line, Abraham convinces a killer named Cassidy (Rayford Barnes) that Cassidy can change his heart despite past crimes. When Cassidy is sent to the gallows, Abraham provides spiritual solace. Bing Russell also appeared in this segment.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: Kotto retired from film acting in the mid-1990s, though he had one final film role in "Witless Protection" (2008). However, he continued to take on television roles. Kotto portrayed Lieutenant Al Giardello in the long-running television series "". As a black Sicilian proud of his Italian ancestry, the character was a breakout for television. He has written the book "Royalty" and also wrote scripts for "Homicide". In 2014, he voiced Parker for the video game "", reprising the role he played in the movie "Alien" in 1979.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: Kotto's first marriage was to a German immigrant, Rita Ingrid Dittman, whom he married in 1959. They had three children together before divorcing in 1976. Later, Kotto married Toni Pettyjohn, and they also had three children together, before divorcing in 1989. Kotto married his third wife, Tessie Sinahon, who is from the Philippines, in 1998.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: Kotto was versed in the Hebrew liturgy and incorporated Jewish prayers at turning points throughout his life. He said his father "instilled Judaism" in him.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: Kotto supported Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. He also expressed support for Black Lives Matter and QAnon, despite their conflicting views and the conflicts between both groups.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: He died on March 15, 2021, at the age of 81 near Manila, Philippines. His wife, who announced the news on Facebook, did not reveal the cause of his death.


title: Yaphet Kotto

text: A hardcore punk band from California took its name from the actor. He was also mentioned by Childish Gambino on the track 'yaphet kotto (freestyle)'.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: The Saab 37 Viggen (Swedish for ""the Bolt"" or ""the Tufted Duck"" (see name)) is a retired Swedish single-seat, single-engine, short-medium range combat aircraft. Development work on the type was initiated at Saab in 1952 and, following the selection of a radical delta wing configuration, the resulting aircraft performed its first flight on 8 February 1967 and entered service in 21 June 1971. It was the first canard design produced in quantity. The Viggen was also the most advanced fighter jet in Europe, albeit slower than the earlier MiG-21bis, until the introduction of the Panavia Tornado into operational service in 1981.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: Several distinct variants of the Viggen were produced to perform the roles of strike fighter (AJ 37), aerial reconnaissance (SF 37), maritime patrol aircraft (SH 37) and a two-seat trainer (Sk 37). In the late 1970s, the all-weather fighter-interceptor aircraft JA 37 variant was introduced. In November 2005, the Viggen was retired from service by the Swedish Air Force, the only operator, having been replaced by the newer Saab JAS 39 Gripen.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: The first meaning refers to "åskvigg", which is modernly translated to "thunderbolt". Traditionally however the word refers to "thunderstones", prehistoric stone axes found in the ground during the viking age The Scandinavian people of this period thought that these axes had been sent down to earth by the lightning strikes of the god Thor when he hunted giants with his war hammer Mjölnir. It was believed that these axes had magic powers such as lightning protection (since "lightning never strikes the same spot twice"). However with time the word has been transformed to the Swedish equivalent of the English "thunderbolt" and thus the name generally refers to this. However since the name "Viggen" is missing the "thunder"-prefix "åsk" and is in Swedish definitive form it should be translated as "the Bolt" when referring to this meaning.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: The second meaning refers to "vigg", the Swedish word for the tufted duck. This is in reference to its canard configuration as "canard" is French for duck.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: The Viggen was initially developed as an intended replacement for the Saab 32 Lansen in the attack role and later the Saab 35 Draken as a fighter. In 1955, as Saab's prototype Draken, the most aerodynamically advanced fighter in the world at that point, performed its first flight, the Swedish Air Force was already forming a series of requirements for the next generation of combat aircraft; due to the challenging nature of these requirements, a lengthy development time was anticipated, with the first flight intended to be no earlier than the middle of the next decade. Between 1952 and 1957, the first studies towards what would become the Viggen were carried out, involving the Finnish aircraft designer Aarne Lakomaa. Over 100 different concepts were examined in these studies, involving both single- and twin engine configurations, both traditional and double delta wings, and canard wings. Even VTOL designs were considered, with separate lift engines, but were soon identified as being unacceptable.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: From the onset, the Viggen was planned as an integrated weapon system, to be operated in conjunction with the newest revision of Sweden's national electronic air defense system, STRIL-60. It was used as the nation's standard platform, capable of being efficiently adapted to perform all tactical mission roles. Other requirements included supersonic ability at low level, Mach 2 performance at altitude, and the ability to make short landings at low angles of attack (to avoid damaging improvised runways). The aircraft was also designed from the beginning to be easy to repair and service, even for personnel without much training.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: One radical requirement of the proposed aircraft was the ability for it to be operated from short runways only 500 meters long; this was part of the Bas 60 air base system that had been introduced by the Swedish Air Force in the late 1950s. Bas 60 revolved around force dispersal of aircraft across many wartime air bases, including road runways acting as backup runways. Utilizing partially destroyed runways was another factor that motivated STOL capability. Bas 60 was developed into Bas 90 in the 1970s and 1980s, and included short runways only 800 meters in length. Enabling such operations imposed several critical demands upon the design, including a modest landing speed, no-flare touchdown, powerful post-landing deceleration, accurate steering even in crosswinds on icy surfaces, and high acceleration on take-off.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: In 1960, the U.S. National Security Council, led by President Eisenhower, formulated a security guarantee for Sweden, promising U.S. military help in the event of a Soviet attack against Sweden; both countries signed a military-technology agreement. In what was known as the "37-annex", Sweden was allowed access to advanced U.S. aeronautical technology that made it possible to design and produce the Viggen much faster and more cheaply than would otherwise have been possible. According to research by Nils Bruzelius at the Swedish National Defence College, the reason for this officially unexplained U.S. support was to protect U.S. Polaris submarines deployed just outside the Swedish east coast against the threat of Soviet anti-submarine aircraft. However, Bruzelius' theory has been discredited by Simon Moores and Jerker Widén. The connection also appears doubtful due to the time scale – the Viggen's strike version only became operational in 1971, and the fighter version in 1978, by which time Polaris had already been retired.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: In December 1961, the Swedish government gave its approval for the development of "Aircraft System 37", which would ultimately become the Viggen. By 1962, all elements for the project either existed or were close to fully developed; these included the aircraft itself, the powerplant, ejector seat, armaments, reconnaissance systems, ground servicing equipment, and training equipment such as simulators. In February 1962, approval of the overall configuration was given and was followed by a development contract in October 1962. According to aviation authors Bill Gunston and Peter Gilchrist, the project was "by far the largest industrial development task ever attempted in Sweden". During the 1960s, the Viggen accounted for 10 per cent of all Swedish R&D funding.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: In 1963, Saab finalized the aerodynamic design of the aircraft; the aerodynamic configuration was radical: it combined an aft-mounted double delta wing with a small, high-set canard foreplane, equipped with powered trailing flaps mounted ahead of and slightly above the main wing; this would be judged to be the best means to satisfy the conflicting demands for STOL performance, supersonic speed, low turbulence sensitivity at low level flight, and efficient lift for subsonic flight. Canard aircraft have since become common in fighter aircraft, notably with the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Saab JAS 39 Gripen and the IAI Kfir, but principally for the purposes of providing agility during flight rather than for its STOL capabilities. Further aerodynamic refinements during the later stage of development included the addition of dog-tooth patterns upon the main wing to generate vortices, allowing for the elimination of blown flaps from the canard. The use of a thrust reverser enabled the sought short landing performance.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: During development, Saab had opted to power the type using a single large turbofan engine. Originally, the British Rolls-Royce Medway engine had been selected to power the Viggen, which was then considered to be ideal for the basis for a supersonic engine equipped with a fully modulated afterburner; however, development of the Medway engine was cancelled due to the intended launch aircraft, the de Havilland Trident, being downsized during development. In place of the Medway, Saab chose to adopt a licence-production version of the American Pratt & Whitney JT8D engine, the Volvo RM8, instead. The RM8 was heavily redesigned, using new materials to accommodate flight at Mach-2 speeds, a Swedish-built afterburner, and a fully variable nozzle.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: During 1964, construction of the first prototype aircraft commenced; on 8 February 1967, the first of an eventual seven prototypes conducted its maiden flight, which had occurred as per the established development schedule. This first flight, which lasted for 43 minutes, was flown by Erik Dahlström, Saab's chief test pilot, who reported the prototype to have been easy to handle throughout. Writing at the time, aerospace publication Flight International described the flight as having been "Sweden's astonishing unilateral stand in the front rank of advanced aircraft-building nations..."


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: Each of the seven prototypes were assigned different roles, although the initial aircraft were focused on supporting the development of the initial production variant, the AJ37. In 1967, the Swedish Government concluded that the in-development AJ 37 Viggen would be both cheaper than and superior to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. In April 1968, the Swedish government formally issued the authorization for manufacturing of the Viggen to proceed, issuing an order for 175 Viggens that year. Also in 1968, Saab began work on the Viggen's maritime reconnaissance and photo reconnaissance variants. In May 1969, the Viggen made its first public appearance outside of Sweden at the Paris Air Show. On 23 February 1971, the first production aircraft, an AJ37 model, conducted its first flight. In July 1971, the first production aircraft was delivered to the Swedish Air Force.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: As the initial AJ 37 Viggen was being introduced to service, further variants of the Viggen proceeded to complete development and enter production. In 1972, the first SK 37, an operational trainer variant with a staggered second canopy for an instructor, was delivered to the Swedish Air Force. On 21 May 1973, the first prototype of SF 37 Viggen, a tactical reconnaissance variant featuring a modified nose to accommodate seven sensors, conducted its first flight.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: While other variants entered production during the 1960s, Saab continued the development of the more capable all-weather interceptor version of the aircraft, the JA 37. In 1970, Sweden's air defenses had been closely inspected and it was determined that the prospective JA 37 Viggen was highly suited to the role. In 1972, the Swedish government authorized the development of the fighter-interceptor variant to proceed, which was followed by several major contracts for the JA 37's further development. A total of five prototypes would be produced, four of which being modified AJ 37s and one being a sole pre-production JA 37 model, to test the control systems, engine, avionics, and armaments respectively. In June 1974, the first of these prototypes conducted its maiden flight; later that year, an initial order for 30 JA 37s was issued by the Swedish government.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: The JA 37 Viggen featured various changes from its predecessor, including revisions to the design of the airframe, the use of the more powerful RM8B powerplant, a new generation of electronics being adopted, and a revised armament configuration employed; the principle externally visible changes from most earlier variants were a taller tailfin and the underfuselage gunpack arrangement. The JA 37, in addition to its principal aerial combat mission, also retained a secondary ground-attack capability, and was better suited to low-level operations. In November 1977, the first production JA 37 Viggen conducted its maiden flight. Operational trials for the new variant were conducted between January and December 1979, which resulted in the type being introduced to operational service that year. According to Flight International, at the time of the JA 37's introduction, it was the most advanced European fighter then in service.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: In April 1964, the Swedish government revealed its budget proposal for the Swedish Air Force, in which it had been envisioned that 800 or more Viggens would be produced, which was in turn intended to allow all other combat aircraft then in service with the Swedish Air Force to be replaced with this single type. However, a combination of inflation and other factors eventually reduced the total number of aircraft manufactured to 329. By 1980, up to 149 JA 37 Viggens were projected to be built, and the line to be closed within the decade as the Swedish aerospace industry changed focus to the impending Saab JAS 39 Gripen, the Viggen's eventual replacement. Over time, advances in computing, such as the microprocessor, had enabled greater flexibility than the physical configuration of the Viggen, so further development of the Viggen platform was not viewed as cost-effective. In 1990, production of the Viggen ceased and the final aircraft was delivered.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: In May 1991, a SEK 300-million program to upgrade 11 AJ37, SF37 and SH37 Viggens to a common multirole variant, designated AJS37, was announced. Amongst the changes involved, interchangeable armaments and sensor payloads were implemented in addition to the adoption of new mission planning and threat analysis computer systems. The onboard ECM systems were also improved. Specifically, the implementation of a new stores management system and MIL-STD-1553 serial data bus, similar to that used on the newer JAS 39 Gripen, allowed for the integration of the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile; an upgraded Ericsson PS-46A radar was installed, and a new tactical radio. On 4 June 1996, the first upgraded prototype JA37 Viggen performed its first flight.


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: In 1996, according to Swedish air force material-department chief General Steffan Nasstrom, the various upgrades performed to the Viggen since its introduction had "doubled the effectiveness of the overall system".


title: Saab 37 Viggen

text: The Viggen was powered by a single Volvo RM8 turbofan. This was essentially a heavily modified licence-built variant of the Pratt & Whitney JT8D engine that powered commercial airliners of the 1960s, with an afterburner added for the Viggen. The airframe also incorporated a thrust reverser to use during landings and land manoeuvres, which, combined with the aircraft having flight capabilities approaching a limited STOL-like performance, enabled operations from 500 m airstrips with minimal support. The thrust reverser could be pre-selected in the air to engage when the nose-wheel strut was compressed after touchdown via a pneumatic trigger.