Semi Retired Foamer: TRAMS & TROLLEYS BUSES: ZURICH SWITZERLAND

Monday, 31 August 2026

TRAMS & TROLLEYS BUSES: ZURICH SWITZERLAND

Map of Zurich.

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Howdee all,

Back again, and this time we start something quite different.

I was recently given a very large photo collection containing a huge number of transport-related images, primarily from around Australia, but also from various other parts of the world.

I am slowly working my way through scanning them and preparing them for eventual donation to an archive, where hopefully they can be preserved and enjoyed by transport enthusiasts and researchers for many years to come. This is exactly the same goal I have with my own personal collection — after all, there seems little point in spending decades accumulating thousands upon thousands of photographs only for them to eventually end up in a cupboard somewhere, gathering dust and wondering what they did to deserve such a fate!

The photographer, Fred Ricketts, obviously had a similar interest in all things transport to myself, and what I have seen so far indicates that his photography covers roughly the 1960s through to the 1980s. There is a tremendous amount of material here, and I think quite a bit of it will be of enormous interest to my fellow transport nuts.

Now, I'm going to admit it right from the start.

I know absolutely nothing about Zurich, Switzerland, or the trams and trolleybuses that operated there!

So everything I have found out about this particular subject has been the result of scanning the photographs, doing a fair bit of research, and attempting to work out what on earth I was actually looking at. Fortunately, unlike some railway subjects where identifying an obscure locomotive can involve several hours of detective work, Zurich's transport system has left rather more information behind.

Zurich has one of those wonderfully extensive electric transport systems that makes a transport enthusiast wonder why more cities couldn't have followed the same sensible idea. Trams have been an important part of public transport in the city since the late 19th century, and over the decades the network has developed into a remarkably comprehensive system serving Zurich and its surrounding suburbs. Rather than being some quaint little tourist attraction operated for the benefit of people taking photographs of themselves, these are proper everyday public transport vehicles, carrying large numbers of passengers around the city.

Correction: 2034 + ??

The trolleybuses are another particularly interesting part of the Zurich scene. Electric trolleybuses have operated in the city since the 1930s and, like the trams, became an important part of the public transport network. They provided the advantages of electric traction without requiring rails to be installed in every street. For someone brought up looking at Australian transport systems, where electric tramways and trolleybuses have disappeared from many cities, seeing the Zurich system operating on such a substantial scale is rather fascinating.

And of course, for photographers such as Fred, this provided an almost endless supply of things to point a camera at. Trams, trolleybuses, streetscapes, overhead wiring and all the assorted infrastructure that goes with an electric transport system — basically a recipe for keeping a transport photographer happily occupied for hours on end.

What makes these photographs particularly interesting today is that they don't simply show the vehicles themselves. They capture Zurich as it looked several decades ago, complete with the surrounding buildings, streets, signs, cars and everyday life of the city. In many cases, the transport vehicle is only part of the story. The photograph becomes a little time capsule of Zurich from another era.

So, while I may have started this particular project knowing approximately as much about Zurich's transport system as I do about advanced nuclear physics, I have certainly enjoyed learning something along the way!

And finally, a very big thank you to Fred Ricketts for taking all these photographs in the first place. Without the time, effort and obvious enthusiasm he put into documenting these vehicles and places all those years ago, this wonderful collection simply wouldn't exist.

Fred may have taken the photographs decades ago, but thanks to his efforts they are now getting another lease of life — and hopefully, after they eventually find their permanent home in an archive, they will continue to be enjoyed by transport enthusiasts for many decades yet.

So, Fred, wherever you are, thank you very much for pointing that camera at all these wonderful bits of transport history!