I Tram Storici di Milano

The Historic Trams of Milan

I've been taken by the beauty of its historic trams, since I first came to Milan.

They glide like majestic ships through the streets, forming an important part of the city’s identity and adding to the elegance that Milan is so famous for. The trams are from a past era, they were built almost 100 years ago, but at the same time they are super advanced, providing a completely zero-emission, quasi on demand, way of urban transportation and they remain very contemporary with the colourful ‘homepage-takeover’ ads that some of them sport.

The ATM class 1500 trams are modelled on the streetcar designed and patented by Cleveland Railway commissioner Peter Witt, in 1914/1915.

In 1927 the municipality of Milan built two prototypes based on this design, numbered 1501 and 1502. Following successful tests, the municipality commissioned the construction of 500 units (numbered from 1503 to 2002) with six different Italian manufacturers. These cars were delivered between 1927 and 1930 and immediately put to service. Still today, the cars have their original numbers painted on the front, back and sides.

Of the 502 that were made originally, 136 trams are still operational.

As a tribute to the trams themselves and the poster child of urban sustainability that they really are, I decided to photograph and catalog each tram that is still operational.

It took me over two years to catch them all.

Here they are: