Экзаменационный (типовой) материал ЕГЭ / Английский / 10 задание / 47

A. The Industrial Revolution is often associated with the invention of a steamengine, locomotives and trains. It is also known that in the 1840s most European countries were going through a "Railway Mania" phase, when the first railways connecting big cities enabled passengers to move at a fast speed and much more comfortably than before. In this grand scale of things, it is easy to forget the little brother of the railway  — the tram  — that actually appeared first and faithfully served passengers within the limits of towns and cities.
 

B. The electric tram system in the early 1900s was gaining more and more popularity in the state of New York and around it. Not only did trams serve passengers inside towns and cities, but often took them to more distant suburbs and outskirts. Sometimes to go from one town to another all one had to do was to change from a tram belonging to one town’s tram system to the one from the other. At some point it was even possible to go from New York to Chicago by trams, changing them multiple times on the way.
 

C. The horse-drawn tram passenger system Konka (from the Russian word kon’ for horse) started working in Moscow in 1872, nine years later than in St. Petersburg. Even though powered by horses, these trams used railways  — which made them functional in any weather, their routes permanent, and schedules regular. In cities it was a lot safer and cleaner to use animal power for trams, rather than steam locomotives as in trains, considering that locomotives often suffered from boiler explosions, while burning coal added to the city air pollution.
 

D. The first electric tram route was opened in Moscow in 1899. Electric trams were faster than horse-drawn, and owners of Konka started losing money to their competitors. Electric trams were city-owned, and the Moscow government soon bought Konka to gradually transform it into a tram system, while using the same railways. This way people who used to work for Konka didn’t lose their jobs but learned how to use the new technology. Konka was used in Moscow until 1912, when it was completely replaced by electric trams.
 

E. The first electric tram circular route in Moscow was opened in 1911 under the letter "A" instead of a number. It encompassed the Boulevard Ring and a couple of embankments along the way. Muscovites soon started calling it Annushka, giving it a diminutive form of a girl’s name. Even though Annushka’s route has been changed many times during its lifetime, it still exists, being the only tram line in the very center of Moscow, having survived for over 110 years!
 

F. Another circular tram route, this time along the Garden Ring, was opened in 1912 under the letter "B". At that time the Boulevard Ring was known as "Ring A", while the Garden Ring was called “Ring B”. Similar to tram "A", the route received an endearing name from the Muscovites  — Bukashka. When a trolley bus replaced the tram on this route in 1937, it inherited the name as well. In 2017, to the great sadness of Muscovites, Bukashka trolley buses were replaced by buses.
 

G. There are two major novels in world literature that feature trams as an important part of the plot. Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita is one of them, with the tram’s dramatic if not tragic mission in the opening pages of the book. James Joyce’s Ulysses is the other. The tramway system in Dublin reached the peak in its development around 1904  — the year described in the famous novel. Joyce wanted "to give a picture of Dublin so complete"… that ‘it could be reconstructed out of’ his book, if necessary, and the tram system is not an exception.