C class Melbourne tram
2001 Melbourne tram class
The C class Melbourne tram is a fleet of three-section Alstom Citadis 202 trams built in La Rochelle, France that operate on the Melbourne tram network. They were the first low-floor trams in Melbourne, being delivered in 2001-2002.
History
To meet a franchise commitment to introduce new trams to replace Z1 and Z2-class trams, 36 three-section Alstom Citadis 202 low-floor trams were purchased by Yarra Trams. They were the first low-floor trams in Melbourne, and the first tram imported for the Melbourne tram system since the 1920s.
The design was adapted by Alstom for local conditions, with the first four trams arriving at Webb Dock on 10 August 2001. Following fit-out and testing at Preston Workshops, they entered service on 12 October 2001. The last arrived on 25 June 2002 and entered service on 30 August 2002. All C1-class trams initially operated solely on route 109.
Criticisms
The Citadis trams have been criticised by the Australian Rail Tram & Bus Industry Union (RTBU), who claim they have operational problems, including injuries to the drivers relating to design. There were concerns raised in 2011 regarding the rear-vision cameras fitted to the trams.
The public source identifies “C class Melbourne tram” as 2001 Melbourne tram class. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around class, Melbourne and tram.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5005934. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2001, 2002 and 2011.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “C class Melbourne tram” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.