It’s the European Tram Driver Championships from Frankfurt! This is exactly the sort of thing Channel 5 should be all over, it’s a) niche, b) really watchable and c) has quite a bit of British interest. It’s basically You Bet! without Stephen Mulhern. Also I love the Eurovision-style postcards, but with trams, introducing each team.
Six disciplines this year, each one with 500 points available:
- Start/Stop: At the front of the tram is a bowl of water filled to the brim. The driver must smoothly accelerate and stop in three zones to keep as much water in the bowl as possible.
- Brake on target: The driver must run to the back of the tram, accelerate to at least 20km/h then when they are ready, set a variable emergency brake and raise their hands so they can’t touch the controls anymore. They have to try and stop the cab as close to a barrier as possible.
- Billiards: Stop the cab so you push a cue which will push a ball up the billiard table, points awarded for where the ball lands. You only get one go at this, if you stop early or knock the table over you score nothing.
- Blind stop: With the speedometer covered, the driver must accelerate to at least 25km/h then stop. The quicker they stop the more points they get, but if they don’t get up to the speed they score nothing.
- Precision stop: Stop the cab so the middle of the second set of doors lines up with an arrow, without using cameras or mirrors. More points for accuracy.
- Attention Test: Along the course are five signs, put the signs on the board in order. Then sprint to the finish button to stop the clock!
We first saw this years ago where it also had a bowling element but it’s not there this year.
Presumably this is a local production and as such it’s not perfect by any means – sometimes the director misses a shot or the angle doesn’t show us a score clearly, and it would be nice if we had a speedo for the Blind Stop bit. Most annoyingly is that you don’t see a running score for the current team, just a constant top three. Still, though.