Trolleybus Dresden

Trolleybus Dresden
Trolleybus with trailer on Zellescher Weg in front of the student dormitories on Wundtstrasse 7/9/11 (1972)
Basic information
Country	Germany Democratic Republic 1949 German Democratic Republic
city	Dresden
opening	November 8, 1947
Shutdown	15th December 1975
operator	Dresden transport company
Infrastructure
Route length	16.8 km
Switches	23
Depots	1
business
Lines	2
vehicles	30th

The Dresden trolleybus was the second trolleybus operation in Dresden after the Dresden Haide Railway . It was built from 1947 and at times comprised two lines with a total route length of 16.8 kilometers. Due to the inadequate maintenance of the contact line systems and the high level of wear and tear on the vehicles, the Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (DVB) switched operations to buses with diesel engines by December 15, 1975 .

history

In the exhibition "Dresden Builds Up", which took place in the summer of 1946 in the building of what is now the Bundeswehr Military History Museum , the organizers presented a future transport concept for the city of Dresden. The east-west as well as the north-south traffic were to be led past the inner old town via new streets to be built, the tram was intended as an under-paving tram here . An outer ring road was supposed to accommodate an O-bus line from which further lines went to the suburbs. The future of the bus, however, has been completely called into question.

The planning arose against the background that a large part of the bus fleet was not available. The vehicles were either in need of repair or, if operational, served as trucks . At the same time, however, it became known that the Schumann Wagenfabrik in Werdau Henschel - had chassis and electrical equipment for trolleybuses. At the instigation of the CEO of DVB, Alfred Bockemühl , some parts as well as the necessary contact line systems were brought to Dresden.

Overhead lines on Zellescher Weg at the level of the Willers building of the Technical University, 1962

Overhead lines on Zellescher Weg at the level of the student dormitories, Wundtstrasse 11, 1972

Construction dragged on until the end of 1946, initially due to bottlenecks in the supply of materials, and only 38 percent of the work planned for this period could be carried out. In the spring of 1947, the assembly of the overhead line masts began. Wall rosettes were used in their place where possible . Much of the route followed the earlier bus line C. Since there was no suitable turning point at Schillerplatz , the line began on the other side of the Blue Wonder at Körnerplatz. It followed the course of the bus route to Strehlen , from there it went via Zellescher Weg to the campus of the Technical University (from 1961: Technical University ). The end point was at Münchner Platz. A total of 19.5 kilometers of double contact wire and one kilometer of cable were laid for the route; The overhead line crossed that of the tram a total of eight times.

The first trolleybus arrived in Dresden in April 1947. The approach to the Blasewitz tram station , where the vehicles were stationed, initially had no catenary, so the wagons on this section were towed with a tractor. On November 8, 1947, line C between Körnerplatz and Münchner Platz went into operation. Of the total of five vehicles that had arrived in Dresden by then, three were deployed as planned at 20-minute intervals, which was by no means sufficient. On November 27, 1947, the section through George-Bähr-Strasse to Münchner Platz was discontinued because the line, the former district court on Münchner Platz had become a military prison of the Soviet occupying forces, had to pass two Red Army posts there . Due to lack of tires, the vehicles soon had to be parked. Against replacing an Opel logo - articulated lorry could Dresden streetcar AG procure spare tire that reached after a short time only for three cars. In order to increase capacity a little, the company acquired three trolleybus sidecars the following year . In 1949 another five railcars and five trailers followed.

The next step was to change the Bühlau outer track from Bühlau to Weißig . The section formerly served by tram line 11 was initially converted to bus operation on February 20, 1949. The trolleybus was then extended on May 1, 1949 from Körnerplatz via Grundstraße to Steglichstraße and was later to reach Bühlau. Since the steep section brought the trolleybuses beyond their performance limit, the extension was temporarily canceled on July 25, 1949. Instead, the Bühlau – Weißig line was put into operation independently of the rest of the line on November 1, 1949 and then connected to it on May 16, 1950. The trolleybuses ran every quarter of an hour between Fritz-Foerster-Platz and Bühlau, every half hour to Weißig. The trolleybus overhead line between Bühlau and Weißig was initially only laid out as a single lane and without air switches . When trolley buses met, one of them had to pull off the two pantograph poles and put them back on after the opposite course had passed. The loop in Weißig also had no air switch, there the poles had to be turned over accordingly. That was changed over the next few months, the two-lane catenary between Bühlau and Weißig was built by December 8, 1951.

In the following years, the fleet of vehicles was initially increased by purchasing new railcars and trailers and the cycle on the line was increased accordingly. By installing intermediate loops at Falkensteinplatz and in Winterbergstrasse in Gruna , the amplifiers could be reduced to the western section. The wooden catenary masts were also replaced by steel ones. On October 28, 1957, the Z-operation was introduced on the courses driven with trailers. Conductors only drove on the towing vehicle and operated the trailer doors with compressed air from the rear platform. The sidecar could only be used by season ticket holders, hence the name that the tickets had to show the conductor when boarding.

Overhead lines at the Nuremberg Egg in the direction of Nossner Bridge (1968)

After operations had gradually stabilized, the route could be extended again from the end of the 1950s. On January 2, 1958, the extension from Fritz-Foerster-Platz to Nürnberger Ei went into operation, followed by an extension over the Nossener Bridge to Willi-Ermer-Platz (today: Ebertplatz) in Löbtau on June 28, 1964 . The Dresden trolleybus network thus reached its greatest expansion. The network comprised a total of 16.8 kilometers of route, 73.83 kilometers of contact wire and 23 air switches. Simultaneously with the extension to Löbtau, line C to the Technical University was withdrawn and line 61 between Willi-Ermer-Platz and Falkensteinplatz was re-established so that the two lines overlapped in sections. In 1965, line C was renamed to 62 accordingly. The division did not prove itself, so that both lines were combined to form 61 on May 1, 1966. Since then there has been a five-minute cycle between Willi-Ermer-Platz and Bühlau, onward to Weißig the trolleybuses run every 15 minutes. There were also employers at the Technical University.

Due to the large number of passengers and the heavy use of the trains on the main road, the wear was extremely high. However, it was not possible to replace the vehicles because the Škoda plants, from which DVB - like all other GDR trolleybus companies - had purchased their vehicles since 1958, temporarily stopped trolleybus production. Independently of this, mass-produced articulated trolleybuses were only available in the Council for Mutual Economic Aid from the late 1970s. In addition, the overhead contact line systems had not been repaired for a long time. The transport companies therefore decided in the early 1970s to switch the O-bus operation to the use of articulated buses on route 61. On September 3, 1971, the Bühlau - Weißig section was served by the O-bus for the last time Bus. This was followed by the sections Willi-Ermer-Platz - Winterbergstraße on July 15, 1974 and Winterbergstraße - Schillerplatz on July 1, 1975. On November 28, 1975 the remaining section from Schillerplatz via the Blue Wonder and the Grundstraße to Bühlau was also converted into At lunchtime, the last trolleybus, coming from Bühlau, moved from Schillerplatz to the Blasewitz depot.

vehicles

Trolleybus railcars with trailers, presented at the Leipzig spring fair in 1949. Vehicles of this type were used in Zwickau and Dresden.

An identical Škoda of the type 9Tr has been preserved as a traditional vehicle in Eberswalde.

The first trolleybus vehicles came from Henschel and corresponded to the war unit trolleybus (KEO) of standard size II. The vehicles were available in Werdau at the end of the war and were assembled there by the Schumann works. By the start of operations in 1947, five trolleybuses had been delivered to Dresden, but due to a lack of tires, only a maximum of three of them could be used at the same time. When replacing a damaged vehicle, the tires first had to be removed and attached to the jacked up reserve vehicle before it could move out. By purchasing three sidecars in 1948, however, the capacity of the individual trains could be increased. In 1948 a further three motor vehicles and in 1949 five motor vehicles and trailers were procured, so that a total of 13 trolleybuses and eight trailers were available. One of the railcars immediately served as a spare parts donor before it came into passenger service in 1951. Due to the lack of alternatives, the electrical equipment was in two vehicles from BBC and Siemens , which made maintenance difficult.

The worm gear and the electro-pneumatic control of Ansaldo in the trailer operation on the Grundstraße proved to be problematic . By driving on the steep route, the vehicles regularly reached their performance limit. In 1952 the company received the first type W700 sidecars from Waggonbau Bautzen , followed by ten W602 motor vehicles from 1953 to 1957 . The electrical equipment of these vehicles came from the LEW "Hans Beimler" in Hennigsdorf and has proven itself so well that the older vehicles were also equipped with it.

After the trolleybus construction in the GDR was discontinued , the companies obtained their vehicles from the Czechoslovak manufacturer Škoda . The first 8Tr trolleybus came to Dresden in 1957. Since the vehicle was not designed for trailer operation, it was mainly used as an amplifier. From 1962, Škoda delivered an improved version, the 9Tr , which also had trailer hitches. The 8Tr was replaced by a 9Tr in a ring swap. By 1969, a total of 30 vehicles of this type had come to Dresden, which gradually replaced the older models. For trailer operation, the transport company acquired seven W701 trailers from 1958 , which were smaller than the W700 and were therefore also used on the main road. After production of this type was discontinued, ten more used ones were added. 1969 13 followers of were also Polish type P-01 of Jelcz procured.

Some of the vehicles were handed over to other companies after the trolleybus operations were closed. For example, three 9Trs went to the Eberswalde trolleybus .

Vehicle overview
Years of construction	Manufacturer	Type	number	Numbers (from 1947)	Numbers (from 1949)	EDP numbers (from 1971)	Remarks
Railcar
1947	Henschel	AU292	1	151			Retired in 1965
1947	Henschel	NII	12	152-163	252, 255, 257		Retired 1963–1968
1953-1956	LOWA	W602a	10	164-173	264-273		Retired in 1970
1952	LOWA	W602	1	174	274		Retired in 1970
1958	Škoda	8Tr	1		174		Sold in 1962
1959-1969	Škoda	9Tr	17th		175-191	303 014-030	Retired 1972–1975
pendant
1944-1950	Schumann		15th	101-115	201-214		retired
1952	LOWA	W700	8th		216-223		Retired 1966–1970
1941-1942	Schumann	FE540	3		502, 506, 507		ex Leipzig , retired 1952–1956
1956-1960	LOWA	W701	10		223-233	353 001-012 353 024-030	Retired 1975/1976
1969	Jelcz	P-01	13		341-353	354 011-023	Retired 1973/1974

literature

Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (Ed.): From coachmen and conductors. The history of the Dresden tram from 1872 to 2007 . Junius Verlag, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-88506-018-5 .

Web links

Lars Herrmann: Trolleybus. In: dresdner-stadtteile.de. Retrieved March 27, 2013 .
Website with various pictures, maps and explanations

Individual evidence

↑ Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (Ed.): From coachmen and conductors. The history of the Dresden tram from 1872 to 2007 . Junius-Verlag, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-88506-018-5 , p. 168 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (Ed.): From coachmen and conductors. The history of the Dresden tram from 1872 to 2007 . Junius-Verlag, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-88506-018-5 , p. 174-180 .
↑ Thomas Mösche: In Memoriam: The Blasewitz bus station - the home of the trolleybuses and buses . In: Dresden traffic stories . 2015, ISBN 978-3-940224-02-6 , pp. 3 ff, especially p. 6 ( online at docplayer.org ).
^ Mario Schatz: Meter gauge trams in Dresden. Kenning, Nordhorn 2007, ISBN 978-3-933613-76-9 , p. 32.
↑ That with Hans-Joachim Hentschel and others: Four decades of socialist development of the VEB Verkehrsbetriebe der Stadt Dresden . Brochure published on the 40th anniversary of the GDR, VEB Verkehrsbetriebe Dresden, Dresden 1989, p. 47, the date December 15, 1975 is incorrect.
^ Hartmut Bülow: Implementation of trolleybuses from Dresden. Retrieved March 27, 2013 .
↑ Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (Ed.): From coachmen and conductors. The history of the Dresden tram from 1872 to 2007 . Junius-Verlag, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-88506-018-5 , p. 361 .

[Kutscher_168-1] Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (Ed.): From coachmen and conductors. The history of the Dresden tram from 1872 to 2007 . Junius-Verlag, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-88506-018-5 , p. 168 .

[Kutscher_174-2] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (Ed.): From coachmen and conductors. The history of the Dresden tram from 1872 to 2007 . Junius-Verlag, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-88506-018-5 , p. 174-180 .

[3] Thomas Mösche: In Memoriam: The Blasewitz bus station - the home of the trolleybuses and buses . In: Dresden traffic stories . 2015, ISBN 978-3-940224-02-6 , pp. 3 ff, especially p. 6 ( online at docplayer.org ).

[4] Mario Schatz: Meter gauge trams in Dresden. Kenning, Nordhorn 2007, ISBN 978-3-933613-76-9 , p. 32.

[5] That with Hans-Joachim Hentschel and others: Four decades of socialist development of the VEB Verkehrsbetriebe der Stadt Dresden . Brochure published on the 40th anniversary of the GDR, VEB Verkehrsbetriebe Dresden, Dresden 1989, p. 47, the date December 15, 1975 is incorrect.

[6] Hartmut Bülow: Implementation of trolleybuses from Dresden. Retrieved March 27, 2013 .

[Kutscher_361-7] Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (Ed.): From coachmen and conductors. The history of the Dresden tram from 1872 to 2007 . Junius-Verlag, Dresden 2007, ISBN 978-3-88506-018-5 , p. 361 .