Kaiserslautern trolleybus

Kaiserslautern trolleybus
Trolleybus 115 of the type HS 160 OSL-G in January 1979
Route length:	11.1 km
Legend Birdache Homburger Strasse At the Belzappel Bahnheim West Bahnheim New bridge Palatine Ludwig Railway Lothringer Eck Lautertal Railway Forest road Main entrance to the hospital Worsted Route Pfaffplatz Marienkirche Fackelwoogstrasse Torch well Schillerplatz Synagogue Square Apostle Church town hall Stiftsplatz Kennedyplatz Fairground Altenwoogstrasse Kaiserslautern – Enkenbach railway line Donnersbergstrasse Depot Stiftswaldstrasse graveyard 23 barracks Stiftswaldstrasse Warm outdoor pool Daenner barracks Real multi-market Highway junction Armored barracks west Armored barracks east

The Kaiserslautern trolleybus operated from 1949 to 1985 in the Rhineland-Palatinate city ​​of Kaiserslautern . The operating company was Stadtwerke Kaiserslautern - Verkehrsbetriebe (SWK).

prehistory

In Kaiserslautern, local public transport was initially served by the Kaiserslautern tram, opened in 1916 , which ran on a total of three lines . On July 1, 1935, however, the city of Kaiserslautern replaced the tram with a network of five bus lines. In the years after the Second World War , the need for transport increased considerably and could no longer be satisfied with the diesel bus. An electric trolleybus (trolleybus) - also with bus trailers - should therefore make local public transport on the main east-west axis more efficient. The aim was to better meet the requirements of a city the size of Kaiserslautern, which at that time had around 60,000 inhabitants.

history

On 29 October 1949, opened Stadtwerke 7.5 km long trolleybus line 1. You served as a diameter line the main axis of the Kaiserslautern transportation and led from the western district Vogelweh coming through the city center to the 23er barracks in the east of the city. At the end point Vogelweh there was an intersection-free turning loop . In the following year, the line could be extended by 2.5 kilometers to the tank barracks on the eastern outskirts of Kaiserslautern. In 1970 a 600 meter long branch line was added from the 23 barracks to the warm outdoor pool. This was initially operated under line signal 3, and later also as line 1. Including the 500-meter-long operating line to the depot , a total network length of 11.1 kilometers was achieved. The trolleybus depot was located east of the route on Stiftswaldstraße and also served the city buses. The facility still exists today as a bus depot.

Decline

After more than three decades, the fundamental renewal of overhead line systems and vehicles became more and more urgent, but the city of Kaiserslautern showed little interest in the continued operation of the trolleybus . The outdated and therefore very maintenance-intensive vehicle fleet proved particularly problematic. In addition, the fleet of vehicles was very inhomogeneous, which resulted in an expensive spare parts inventory. To make matters worse, there were no series-produced trolleybuses available on the German market at that time due to a lack of demand, replacement procurement would only have been possible from abroad. This in turn would not have been able to share spare parts stockpiling with the standard buses used on the other city transport routes .

The obligation to transfer passengers to and from Einsiedlerhof and Hohenecken also had a negative effect . As early as the second half of the 1970s, the use of duo buses was therefore briefly examined ; they should be used on the sections Vogelweh – Einsiedlerhof (around six kilometers) and Vogelweh – Hohenecken (around four kilometers) without overhead lines. For this purpose, the very first duo bus prototype from Mercedes-Benz was tested for a day in Kaiserslautern. The OE 302 vehicle was equipped for battery and contact line operation and was tested from 1975 to 1978 on the Esslingen am Neckar trolleybus . However, the concept was not pursued in Kaiserslautern. At the beginning of the 1980s, the decline of the Kaiserslautern trolleybus began, and from this point on, the weaker weekend traffic was handled entirely by diesel buses.

attitude

On November 25, 1985 the Kaiserslautern city council decided with 28 votes from the SPD and Greens against 24 votes from the CDU to abandon the trolleybus. The main reasons given for the abolition were the higher costs of electrical operation, but also the more sophisticated diesel technology and the greater flexibility of diesel buses.

The older vehicles were parked on the day on which the city council decided to cease operations. But even the newer ones were no longer serviced before, so in the last few months of operation it was no longer possible to operate all nine courses on Line 1 electrically on weekdays. Missing trolleybuses were prematurely replaced by diesel buses. The last day of operation was Saturday, November 30, 1985. On this day, the overhead line was switched off, and since then only diesel buses have been running in Kaiserslautern. In the beginning, this also included vehicles that were borrowed from other cities, because due to the short-term changeover, there were not enough diesel buses available.

The Kaiserslautern trolleybus was able to hold up for a comparatively long time compared to the other West German companies. In addition to the businesses in Esslingen am Neckar and Solingen , both of which still exist, Kaiserslautern was the third to last classic trolleybus operation in the old Federal Republic of Germany, out of more than sixty businesses that once existed in parallel. In addition, from 1983 to 1995 there was still a duo-bus test operation in Essen .

remains

In some streets, especially along Pariser Straße and Berliner Straße, as well as in the area of ​​the garden show , the catenary masts can still be seen today, which now serve as masts for fastening the street lighting.

vehicles

Procurements over the years

In the mid-1950s, eleven trolleybuses from various manufacturers and nine trailers from Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke were in use. As the use of trailers for July 1, 1960 in accordance with StVZO was prohibited by law, acquired Stadtwerke first time in 1962 a joint car -type Henschel 160 OSL-G . This type of vehicle was planned as the new standard type, but in 1963 Henschel stopped producing trolleybuses at short notice, so that this plan could not be implemented. Instead, used vehicles were procured somewhat later from the abandoned businesses in Gießen (1968), Trier (1970), the Bonn trolleybus (1971), the Offenbach am Main trolleybus (1973) and the Aachen trolleybus (1974).

Nevertheless, two brand new articulated vehicles of the type MAN SG 192 followed in 1974 ; they were the first trolleybuses based on the standard bus.

Because there were no standard trolleybuses available in Germany at the time, an emergency solution was decided at the end of the 1970s. In 1978 O-Bus 135 was built in the own workshops of Stadtwerke Kaiserslautern, the donor vehicle was the conventional bus with the road number 65 of the type Mercedes-Benz O 305 , which had been acquired in 1970 . This car was created before Mercedes-Benz started producing trolleybuses based on the standard bus from 1979 onwards. However, this one conversion remained, other vehicles were not converted.

One of the service vehicles was a tower car with the road number 310 (type S3500 , year of construction 1955, chassis number 190306/14) from Magirus-Deutz , this vehicle was used for revision work on the overhead line. On the other hand, a more modern Magirus Deutz truck that was used as a catenary de-icing vehicle (with pantographs specially attached for this purpose), otherwise it served as a tow truck for broken-down trolleybuses.

The following table lists all trolleybuses (without trailers) ever available in Kaiserslautern. Still preserved wagons are highlighted in gray:

No.	Manufacturer	Electrics	Construction year	Type	Art	Remarks
101	Daimler Benz	SSW	1948	O 5000 O	solo	Retired on November 17, 1969, today a museum vehicle of the Stadtwerke Kaiserslautern
102	Daimler Benz	SSW	1949	O 5000 O	solo
103	MAN	SSW	1949	MKE 1	solo
104	MAN	SSW	1949	MKE 1	solo
105	MAN	SSW	1951	MKE 1	solo
106	MAN / Kässbohrer	SSW	1951	MKE 2	solo
107	Daimler Benz	SSW	1953	O 6600 T	solo	1980 to the HSM
108	Henschel / Uerdingen	Box	1953	ÜHIIIs	solo
109	MAN / Rathgeber	SSW	1953	HEC 1	solo
110	Henschel / Uerdingen	Box	1955	ÜHIIIs	solo	first to the HSM, later scrapped
111	Henschel / Uerdingen	SSW	1956	ÜHIIIs	solo	1977 to the HSM
112	Henschel / Kässbohrer	SSW	1959	562e	joint
113	Henschel / Kässbohrer	Box	1961	562e	joint
114	Henschel / Kässbohrer	Box	1961	562e	joint
115	Henschel	Box	1962	HS 160 OSL-G	joint	Scrapped in 1985
116	Büssing / Emmelmann	SSW	1964	president	joint	initially intended as a further Kaiserslautern museum car, sold to a scrap dealer in 1998
117	Büssing / Emmelmann	SSW	1964	president	joint
118	Büssing / Emmelmann	SSW	1966	president	joint	first to the HSM, later scrapped
119	Büssing / Emmelmann	SSW	1966	president	joint
120	Büssing / Emmelmann	SSW	1963	president	joint	1968 from Gießen (ex 25), 1985 or 1986 to HSM
121	Büssing / Emmelmann	SSW	1963	president	joint	1968 from Gießen (ex 26), 1986 to the trolleybus Kapfenberg , there scrapped as a spare parts donor
122	MAN / cousin	Box	1974	SG 192	joint
123	MAN / cousin	Box	1974	SG 192	joint
124	MAN / Kässbohrer	Box	1959	610 FEC 1	joint	1972 by Stadtwerke Trier (ex 22), shut down in 1976
125	MAN / Kässbohrer	Box	1959	610 FEC 1	joint	1972 by Stadtwerke Trier (ex 23; ex 25 - served as a spare part dispenser for vehicles 124 and 125), closed in 1976
126	Büssing / Ludewig	Box	1963	President 14 R	solo	1973 from Offenbach (ex 55), 1985 back to Offenbach, today in the Transport Museum Frankfurt am Main
127	Büssing / Ludewig	Box	1964	President 14 R	solo	1973 by Offenbach (ex 56), scrapped in 1985
128	Büssing / Uerdingen	Box	1958	ÜB IV s	solo	1973 from Offenbach (ex 68)
129	Büssing / cousin	Box	1963	Senator 13 R	joint	1973 from Offenbach (ex 88)
130	Büssing / cousin	Box	1963	Senator 13 R	joint	1973 from Offenbach (ex 89)
131	Büssing / cousin	Box	1964	Senator 13 R	joint	1973 from Offenbach (ex 90)
132	Henschel	Box	1961	HS 160 OSL-G	joint	1974 from Aachen (ex 35), 1968 from Siegen (ex 67)
133	Henschel	Box	1961	HS 160 OSL-G	joint	1974 from Aachen (ex 36), 1968 from Siegen (ex 68)
134	Henschel	Box	1961	HS 160 OSL-G	joint	1974 from Aachen (ex 37), 1968 from Siegen (ex 69)
135	Daimler Benz	Box	1970	O 305 T	solo	1978 conversion to a trolleybus, 1985 to the East Anglia Transport Museum
136	Daimler Benz	BBC Sécheron	1982	O 305 GT	joint	in April 1986 to the trolleybus Basel (new 921), in February 2000 to Brașov (921), retired in 2003, scrapped in 2005
137	Daimler Benz	BBC Sécheron	1983	O 305 GT	joint	in April 1986 to the trolleybus Basel (new 922), in February 2000 to Brașov (922), retired in November 2009

In addition, the trolleybus operation in Bonn, which was discontinued in 1971, handed over its two cars 221 and 222 to Kaiserslautern in 1970. The two vehicles of the type ÜHIIIs served as spare parts dispensers for the similar cars 108, 110 and 111.

Location of the vehicles

The former trolleybus 126 (ex Offenbach 55) in the Transport Museum Frankfurt am Main

The museum car from above

The former trolleybus 137 in Basel livery in Brașov

After the cessation of operations, only the two new cars 136 and 137 - at that time just three and two years old respectively - could be sold; they went to the Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe (BVB). The two articulated wagons were loaded onto the railroad on April 2, 1986 and were used in Basel from autumn 1986. From there they reached Brașov in Romania in February 2000 . Car 136 was taken out of service there at the beginning of 2005 and has since been scrapped, while car 137 was the last trolleybus in Kaiserslautern that was in scheduled use until 2009. Furthermore, car 121 could be given to the Mürz Valley Transport Company as a spare part donor.

Nine other cars were initially preserved in a museum, six of which are still there today, the rest, however, was scrapped. In addition, the O-Bus Museum Solingen e. V. gave the former tower car on permanent loan in the spring of 2002.

literature

• Werner Stock: Trolleybus systems in Germany, Bielefeld 1987, ISBN 3-926882-00-X
• Herbert Hofmann: From the traffic history of the city of Kaiserslautern in the magazine "Stadtverkehr" 1958, p. 74 ff.
• Thomas Dittemer: Comparison of trolleybus / diesel bus, University of Kaiserslautern, Department of Transport, Kaiserslautern 1985

Web links

• Trolleybus operation in Kaiserslautern - historical photo report by Rolf Koestner, with 16 color photos from March 1983
• Memories of the Lauterer trolleybus (with nine pictures from October 1975)
• O-bus farewell in Kaiserslautern 1985 - photo report by Rainer Christmann (with photos from the last day of operation)
• Picture gallery by Jochen Kehl (28 pictures)
• Picture gallery by Bernd Kittendorf (twelve pictures)
• Photo documentation of O-Bus 120
• Photo documentation of O-Bus 121

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Kaiserslautern trolleybus on www.bahnen.de ( Memento from July 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Press excerpts from www.obus-es.de
3. ↑ Passenger newspaper from PRO BAHN Hessen, issue number 70 ( Memento from September 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 543 kB)
4. ↑ Dieter Mosbach's private vehicle list
5. ↑ RATBv. - Troleibuze
6. ↑ Mattis Schindler: Brasov [RO] - Other used trolleybuses taken over, network changes. (No longer available online.) In: trolleymotion.eu. November 15, 2006, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; Retrieved July 20, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.