Aliance TW
Aliance TW is a consortium of three small Czech companies founded in 2001 that has started the further development and production of successor models to the Tatra trams . After two of the three parties involved, it is also referred to as Pragoimex & Krnovské opravny a strojírny .
Participants in the consortium are:
- the company Krnovské opravny a strojírny sro (KOS) in Krnov (Jägerndorf)
- the design office VKV Praha sro , founded in 1996 in Prague , since 2004 with a branch in Studénka
- the commercial engineering company Pragoimex as in Prague, founded in 1991
The Krnovské opravny a strojírny factory was founded in 1872 as a railway repair shop for the Moravian-Silesian Central Railway . On September 1, 1992, the repair shop, which at that time belonged to the Czechoslovak state railway ČSD , became independent . The maintenance and restoration of railroad cars are still important business areas, but have declined due to the economic transformation process . Building on the repair of Tatra trams, after the bankruptcy of ČKD, the idea of producing tram cars itself arose . The plant currently has around 600 employees. The other two partners in the alliance have the expertise in technical innovation and marketing.
The production program currently consists of five types of tram units (four of which are articulated ) with differently sized low-floor units and a low-floor sidecar . A particularly important business area is the modernization of Tatra wagons, including the replacement of car bodies and bogies . By the end of March 2009 a total of 250 trams had been built or extensively modernized.
