Trolleybus Erfurt

Trolleybus Erfurt
A trolleybus to Hochheim auf dem Anger, February 17, 1969
Basic information
Country	German Democratic Republic
city	Erfurt
opening	February 26, 1948
Shutdown	November 9, 1975
operator	Erfurt transport company
Infrastructure
Depots	1
business
Lines	3 (1968)

The trolleybus Erfurt was a trolleybus operation in the Thuringian state capital Erfurt, which was in operation between February 26, 1948 and November 9, 1975. The operator was the Erfurter Verkehrsbetriebe (EVB, now active as EVAG). It was one of four trolleybus companies in Thuringia, there were more in Gera , Greiz and Weimar .

Route network

The Erfurt trolleybus operation consisted of three branches:

• Anger - Daberstedt - Melchendorf (in operation from 1948 to 1972, then bus lines C (to Melchendorf) and L (to Daberstedt, from 1973 line G, today line 9), the tram (line 3) has been running to Melchendorf since 1983)
• Anger - Brühlervorstadt - Hochheim (in operation from 1951 to 1975, replaced by omnibus (initially line A, now line 51))
• Anger - Leipziger Straße - Ringelberg (in operation from 1953 to 1975, then bus line A, since 2000 tram (line 2))

In addition, there was an operating line via Thälmann-, Liebknecht- and Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse to the depot on Breitscheidstrasse (today the Stadtwerke building). At Leipziger Platz there were connecting curves from the depot to the Ringelberg route in the direction of Anger.

There were intermediate turning loops on the route to Melchendorf at the main station (block bypass via Kurt-Schumacher-Straße, Bahnhofstraße), in Daberstedt and at the Am Schwemmbach stop. On the Hochheim route, amplifiers could turn on Wartburgstrasse.

history

Škoda 9Tr at the Eberswalde trolleybus

As in many other cities in Germany, plans were made in Erfurt to build a trolleybus network to complement the tram network after the end of the Second World War . When the construction work was completed in early 1948, the first line between the Anger and the southeastern part of Daberstedt was able to start operations on February 26th. A tram never ran into this part of the city. The trolleybus depot was laid out in Breitscheidstrasse / Magdeburger Allee in the north of Erfurt next to the tram depot. A special feature here was that the trolleybus between Anger and the depot shared the overhead line of the tram, as there was no separate trolleybus route there. The route began in the city center, where the trolleybuses turned in a loop over Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse, Bahnhofstrasse, Anger and Trommsdorffstrasse. It then led over the (old) Schmidtstedter Bridge, Clara-Zetkin-Strasse, Nonnenrain, Wilhelm-Busch-Strasse and in a loop over Stadtweg, Hans-Loch-Strasse, Thielenstrasse and Häßlerstrasse (then Otto-Nuschke-Strasse) back to Wilhelm-Busch-Strasse. The end point was in Thielenstrasse.

In 1948 and 1949 the trolleybus line was extended from Anger via Daberstedt to Melchendorf in the south-east in order to better connect this part of the city to local public transport. The line branched off from the Daberstedt line at the corner of Wilhelm-Buschstrasse and Häßlerstrasse and led via Häßlerstrasse, Am Schwemmbach and Kranichfelder Strasse to Melchendorf, Schulzenweg. As early as October 11, 1948, the section up to the post settlement (Blücherstraße) went into operation, the rest of the route followed on May 30, 1949. The loop at the post settlement was then dismantled again.

On April 30, 1951, the town of Hochheim , located in the southwest of Erfurt, also received a trolleybus line to Anger. Like the tram, it first ran through the government road or Neuwerkstraße, Wilhelm-Külz-Straße or Dalbergsweg and then turned into Walkmühlstraße. From there it continued through Bonifaciusstrasse, Gustav-Adolf-Strasse, Espachstrasse, Cyriakstrasse, Winzerstrasse and Wagdstrasse to Hochheimer Marktplatz. The trolleybuses from the direction of Melchendorf now drove to Hochheim, while the Daberstedter wagons continued to turn around at the Anger.

On December 16, 1953, another line was opened for operation. It connected the Anger via Meyfartstrasse, Juri-Gagarin-Ring (then Mao-Tse-Tung-Ring), Krämpferstrasse and Leipziger Strasse with the Ringelberg settlement in the east of Erfurt ( Krämpfervorstadt district ). The wagons drove straight into town through Krmpferstrasse to the Anger. The end point was initially at the horticultural school. In 1956 the EVB bought five three-axle double-decker trolleybuses from Hamburg and converted them into single -decker trolleybuses. New intermediate loops were opened on November 1, 1958 on the corner of Am Schwemmbach and Kranichfelder Strasse and in June 1959 on Wartburgstrasse (Hochheimer route). In rush hour traffic, emergency vehicles drove from Schwemmbach to Wartburgstrasse.

1,960 EVB bought four new Škoda -Obusse type 8TR . In 1962 the successor to the 8Tr, which was called the 9Tr , was bought for the first time . A total of 13 vehicles of this type were procured by 1968. In 1966 the EVB rebuilt some lines. From January, the Ringelberg wagons ran in both directions directly through the Krämpferstrasse, the loop over the Meyfartstrasse was dismantled. On October 29th of that year a direct route was built through Clara-Zetkin-Straße and Am Schwemmbach, which the Melchendorfer wagons now used. The previous loop in Daberstedt was dismantled and the old route via Häßlerstraße, Wilhelm-Busch-Straße and Nonnenrain was now used as a single-lane counter-clockwise loop. An extension to Ostdaberstedt (Jenaer Straße) was discussed, but was not implemented. Instead, a bus line L was opened there in 1966. Another small extension of the route from the horticultural school to the Ringelbergtreppe went into operation on December 22, 1967. The loop at the horticultural school was dismantled. According to the 1968 summer timetable, the following lines (without line numbers) were in use:

Routing (stops)	Car sequence ( HVZ / Mon-Fri before / Sat / Sun / evening)
Melchendorf - Schulzenweg - Postsiedlung - Kranichfelder Straße - Am Schwemmbach - Robert-Schumann-Straße - Otto-Nuschke-Straße - Clara-Zetkin-Straße - Trommsdorffstraße - Anger - Eichenstraße - Gorkistraße (direction Hochheim) - Dalbergsweg (direction Melchendorf) - Straße des Friedens - Straße der Einheit - iga - Wartburgstraße - Hochheim, entrance to the town - Hochheim	10/20/10/10/40
Anger - Hauptbahnhof (direction Anger) - Trommsdorffstraße (direction Daberstedt) - Clara-Zetkin-Straße - Nonnenrain (direction Anger) - Rubensstraße (direction Anger) - Daberstedt, Stadtweg (only during rush hour )	10 / - / - / - / -
Anger - Hospitalgasse - Thälmannstraße - Reisshausstraße - Greifswalder Straße - Tiroler Straße - Horticultural School - Ringelberg	10/30/15/15/25

As of February 21, 1970, trolleybuses no longer drove through the Daberstedt loop, the L bus route took over these transport tasks. In June 1970, the operating line through Thälmannstrasse was shut down and the cars moving in and out had to drive to the Anger via Krämpferstrasse. When the Schmidtstedter bridge was to be replaced by a new building from 1971, the EVB initially wanted the Melchendorfer line to end in a provisional loop south of the Schmidtstedter junction , but this was not implemented. The line to Daberstedt and Melchendorf was shut down on January 2, 1972 and replaced by bus line C. From 1983 the tram then went to Melchendorf. With the closure of the Melchendorfer line, the two remaining sections to Ringelberg and Hochheim were tied through and, with the timetable change on May 29, 1972, they were designated as line A.

In 1974 the Krämpferknoten (Juri-Gagarin-Ring / Krämpferstrasse) had to be closed for extensive construction work. On September 2nd of that year, a provisional possibility of turning was created at the Ursuline monastery, from the Anger to Ringelberg buses drove in replacement traffic. Trolleybuses were only able to drive to Ringelberg again in December. Furthermore, the Anger, used by all lines, has now been redesigned into a pedestrian zone. The trolleybus route was therefore interrupted on June 12, 1975. There was island traffic between Hochheim and Angerbrunnen, the Ringelberg line ended at the Anger. The overhead line on the western meadow was dismantled.

With the adoption of the third general traffic plan of the city of Erfurt in 1975, the end of the Erfurt trolleybus operation was sealed; the conversion of the remaining operations to bus operation took place on November 10, 1975. The Anger - Ringelberg section has been served by a tram line since spring 2000; Diesel and natural gas powered buses run to Hochheim and Daberstedt on lines 51 and 9.

When the gas buses did not prove their worth, in 2014 the purchase of trolleybuses was considered, which are equipped with a battery and only run in sections under contact wire .

Vehicle use

The Erfurt trolleybus had a total of 34 vehicles and 14 trailers in consecutive numbering.

No.	Manufacturer	Type	Construction year	retired / sold
1-5	Henschel & Sohn , Kassel	Standard trolleybus type II	1947	1961-1966
6th	LOWA Werdau	W 600 A	1950	1966
7/8	LOWA Werdau	W 601 A	1952	1968/1970
9/10	LOWA Werdau	W 602 A	1954/56	1969/1970
11	Waggon construction Halle- Ammendorf	W 602 A	1956	1968
12-16	Vehicle works Bremen	562 DD	1953¹	1961-1965
17-20	Škoda Pilsen	8Tr	1960	1973
21/22 24-30	Škoda Pilsen	9Tr	1962 1964/65	1975
23	Lowa Werdau	W 602 A	1952²	1970
31-34	Škoda Pilsen	9 Tr 2	1967/68	1975

¹ came in 1957 to Erfurt, previously when Obus in Hamburg-Harburg in use
² in 1964 to Erfurt, before the trolleybus Weimar in use

pendant

No.	Manufacturer	Construction year	retired / sold
120-127 129/130	Schumann / LOWA Werdau	1949 1948	1962-1968
128	Waggon construction Bautzen	1952	1966
131	LOWA Werdau	1951	1967
132/133	Schumann Werdau	1942¹	1962/1965

¹ came in 1959 to Erfurt, before the trolleybus Zwickau in use

See also

• List of trolleybus systems
• List of former trolleybus systems
• Bus traffic in Erfurt

literature

• Hans Wiegard: The Erfurt tram - local transport in Thuringia's capital . GeraMond Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7654-7190-9 .
• Ludger Kenning, Mattis Schindler: Trolleybuses in Germany. Volume 1. Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn 2008, ISBN 978-3-933613-34-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Timetable and information, valid from May 27, 1968, VEB (K) Erfurter Verkehrsbetriebe.
2. ↑ Return of trolleybuses and new tram line planned in Erfurt. In: Thuringian General. January 30, 2014, accessed December 25, 2014 .