The driver braked hard and came to a screeching stop. Fans gasped, awed at the precision. Referees conferred, making sure all was aboveboard.
“We’re ready to rumble,” said Markus Chencinsky, 50, a driver from Vienna.
Despite the adrenaline, the speed and the thousands of eyes, this was not a demolition derby or a stunt-driving expo.
Instead, the competitors facing off on Saturday in a central square of Frankfurt were the captains of Europe’s tram systems. They had come to Germany’s financial hub to vie for the trophy at the 11th European Tramdriver Championship.
The annual public transit jamboree might best be described as tram dressage. The drivers coaxed their commuter chariots through an obstacle course meant to test their whimsy, mettle and precision.
“We try to mirror the entire range of skills a driver should have,” said Wieland Stumpf, the president of the championship.
Some events focused on safety: Drivers had to emergency brake at a precise spot, just as if a cyclist had swerved in front of them. Another tested their ability to multitask: Could they remember a series of symbols that appeared on mock traffic signs?
A few challenges evaluated the smoothness of their touch: Drivers had to come to a stop so gently that water did not slosh out of a bowl that was filled to the brim. (A front-mounted camera showed every lost droplet: the less spilled, the more points.)
One test was downright counterintuitive: Tram billiards, in which a driver steers the vehicle to gently knock a pool cue attached to a stand into a billiard ball on a table. (The highest possible score for the billiards portion was 500 points, awarded if the ball rolled to a stop right in the middle of the table.)
“It’s not often you’re trying to hit something with your tram,” joked Victoria Young, 39, of Edinburgh. “You’ve just got this feeling inside you that says, ‘I should be stopping now.’”
Tram driving is surprisingly gentle — even for all its mandated collisions. It stands out from other niche sports involving heavy machinery.
Take lawn mower racing, which is half motocross, half go-karting. Or snowmobile watercross, in which competitors drive their vehicles onto water, almost as if they were Jet Skis.
Tram driving’s closest cousin may be the backhoe rodeo, in which operators perform delicate tasks like placing helmets onto cones using their machines’ hulking yellow claws.
But while backhoe contests typically attract construction workers, the tram competitions draw public transit fanatics with strong opinions.
“Buses are the worst,” said Nosa Tasslimi, 27.
How about the metro? “I like subways more than trams, but there are no subway competitions.”
Mr. Tasslimi even designed a soccer fan-style scarf in support of the team from Oradea, a Romanian city to which he had no obvious connection. He and his friends — who were also not Romanian — wore the scarves with pride.
Earlier this year, transit systems held internal tournaments to select their 2024 teams. With the exception of Kyiv, Ukraine, every competing city had a male and female representative, said Mr. Stumpf, the championship’s president. (Most Ukrainian men have been barred from traveling internationally during the country’s war with Russia.)
Many of the 26 competing teams thought that Frankfurt, as the home team, would have an advantage. But Mr. Stumpf thought those concerns were unfounded, adding that trams are mostly alike in terms of design and control boards. Only one host city — Brussels, in 2019 — has ever won first place.
The teams spent part of Friday racing back and forth on unused tracks near a depot, getting a feel for their vehicles. For some drivers, it was a little bit like the first few minutes spent adjusting the mirrors and the seat in a rental car.
“We have been practicing,” said Virendra Mohan, 47, of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. “But the other teams have also been practicing, too.”
Mr. Mohan had been testing his precision stops. But the drivers representing Edinburgh, which was competing for the first time, had trained two hours a week for about six weeks. Dougie White, the team’s coach, rigged up a pool table in the depot. In Frankfurt, they had to get a feel for different pedals, one of which was where the horn would normally be on their trams.
“That’ll be the biggest challenge for them,” Mr. White said: “Driving a different tram.”
Vienna, next year’s host, is already brainstorming ideas for the competition. The pressure is on: It could host teams from Asia, the Americas and beyond for the first truly world championship. So far, it’s keeping the details of the next championship largely under wraps.
Christian Ludwig, an event manager with Vienna’s public transit operator, said he came to scope out ideas. “We are a tram bowling city,” Mr. Ludwig hinted, alluding to a beloved event that was not included in this year’s rotation. “That I can say already.”
The tournaments are partially meant to laud the almighty tram, which has the feel of a bus but travels along set tracks with the precision of a subway. They have been embraced by many cities looking to limit cars.
Mostly, though, the competition is a celebration of the drivers. It’s also an attempt to market the profession.
Cities across Europe are struggling to recruit drivers, Mr. Stumpf said, and the job can be thankless. Commuters rarely acknowledge the drivers’ efforts to ensure the trams are safe, reliable and jostle free.
Still, many drivers take immense pride in their work. At the competition, some wore socks bearing their transit company’s logo. A few wore large tram pins. Elinor Svensson, 23, painted her nails yellow and blue, the colors of the Swedish flag.
“I want my passengers to be impressed,” she said.
As she loops around Stockholm, she said, she tries to drive so smoothly that her riders take notice. But as a passenger, “you don’t really notice it when it’s good,” she admitted. “You notice it when it’s bad.”
Ms. Svensson often imagines her riders at work or in classrooms, or perhaps talking to their doctors or friends.
“If I wasn’t here,” she said, “they wouldn’t get to where they needed to be.”
That’s part of what made the weekend so joyful. For two days, the drivers were celebrities — of public transit, that is.
In the end, Budapest came out on top. It was faster, smoother — maybe luckier.
“We were training hard,” said Ákos Bodnár, 25, a member of Budapest’s team who also won the runner-up award for best driver. “We can’t believe it.”