The New Trolley Bus

I know, I know. Sorry to disappoint. What a terrible photo. Gek spotted the beast first. Jumping up and down she was. Literally. She could hardly get the words out. I have to worry about the influence I am having on this girl!!!! Anyway, I whipped out the camera, and …oh …no…, an obstruction in the line of sight, moving with the panning camera. A very lovely obstruction it has to be said, but an obstruction never the less,

which was then joined by a tree and car. This trolley bus is not for being photographed. I can see it is going to take a special mission, but it is not a mission impossible. I shall be back bus.

Trolley Bus Update

This is rather a belated blog entry. Sorry. And I have not yet been to the depot. But on the positive side I have now spotted 41 running TBus on the UB streets of which I have photographed 21. I still spot a new TBus on occasion but I now think there are less than 50 TBus left in running order.

The highest number is 4-179. I am guessing but that probably means there were 180 TBus originally. 4-001, the UB build TBus is still plying the number 6 route to the south of the river. And has eluded the camera. Again apologies. Work gets in the way of life, don’t you find? The fact that 4-001 is running nearly every day is very impressive. It must be like a prototype, it being the only one so far, and to have it running a full service schedule speaks volumes about the build.

The New Trolley Bus

Route

I still have no photograph of this allusive TBus. But I did find out today that she has been moved on to route 6 which goes to the south of the city and not down Peace Avenue as before. That would explain why I haven't seen her for weeks!!!!

What I know about the Network.

Routes

There were originally 8 routes going by the sign boards that are still in place on the bus stop stands. Only 2, 4 and 6 are currently running. From travelling around the city, the over head wires are still in place in some, if not all the unused routes. The state of the wires and supports looks good. The climate here is very, very dry slowing corrosion dramatically. The routes need walking to get a better assessment. Hummmm.....bit cold at the moment but I will make a start!!!

New Information

The following information has been sent to me by Ian Longworth. I have not yet made much head way myself in getting information locally, but Inspired by Ian's email I will redouble my efforts!!!

From Ian

The system is fairly modern and is believed to have opened on 29th October 1987. We suspect a product of Russian aid. No map of the system has been published or if all the original system is currently in use.

The TBs I noted were all ZiU 9 (export model was ZiU 682) built at Engels and standard USSR fare of which around 2,000 a year were built from 1972 until the collapse of the USSR . ZiU stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo. They have reinvented themselves as Trolza http://www.trolza.ru/ .

We think around 255 were delivered new to UB and on my visit the lowest number I saw was 30 and the highest 177. Some will have been written off in accidents and for canabalised for spare parts. The 4 in front of the fleet number may refer to the depot number which would be standard Soviet practice. The Soviet practice was also to send TBs to central factories for overhaul and they often returned in a different paint schemes with other modifications depending on availability of parts and colour of the paint available this week.

Some of these plants have also tried to build replicas!. Soviet steel was always prone to rust and major rebuilds were fairly common. I have been in such a workshop in Kaliningrad and when they take the panels off it a bit rough underneath! I brief history of the ZiU 9 is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZiU-9 "

Trolley Bus Spotting 3rd Dec 2006

On this spotting stroll down Peace Avenue, I only caught 2 new TBus’s for the register. I clocked 11 Tbus on first spotting trip in November, 7 TBus on this trip of which only 2 were new sightings. Is it possible to work out an estimate for the total number of TBus on this route from this data? Hummmm. No new TBus on camera yet BUT she does have a number 4 - 001. Spotted that last week. Brilliant.

4-168 looks quite smart, unlike poor old 4-146. In fact on the following Thursday, I passed 146 broken down on Peace Avenue. She had been heading East.

Trolley Bus Depot

The TBus depot is in the west of the city, about 1 mile from Peace Avenue, heading north. The log of the company is set in bricks on the front of the building. Neat.

To the left of the office block is the entrance to the TBus yard. Ariunaa and I were travelling by taxi to visit a college and we took the opportunity to get these picture. I hope to arrange a visit in the near future and get some pictures of the workshops etc. Mind you, this picture might have turned out a bit better if I had rembered to set the camera up right!!!! Still, blue is the nations colour.