Munich trolleybus

Route length:

Scheduled traffic: 9.3 km
Depot access: 0.2 km

600 volts =

	0.0	Romanplatz
		Hirschgartenallee
		Kemnatenstrasse
		Herthastrasse
		Laimer underpass
	1.8	Laim train station
		Fürstenrieder Strasse
		Gotthardstrasse
		Aindorferstrasse
		Ammerseestrasse
		Andreas-Vöst-Strasse
		Graefelfinger Strasse
	5.1	Forest cemetery
		Waldfriedhof main entrance
		Drygalski Avenue
		Machtlfinger Strasse
		Geisenhausenerstrasse
	8.0	Ratzingerplatz
		Aidenbachstrasse depot
	8.5	Hofmannstrasse
		Munich – Holzkirchen railway line
	9.3	Wolfratshauser Strasse

The Munich trolleybus was the trolleybus operator of the Bavarian capital. It ran from April 28, 1948 to April 28, 1966, was operated by the public transport company of Stadtwerke München (SWM) and supplemented the Munich tram . Only a 9.3-kilometer-long tangential line with 19 stops in the western districts of Munich was electrically operated . One or from 1953 two lines ran on it ; to distinguish them from the bus lines until 1962 they were marked with the addition "O" for trolleybus. Colloquially - in dialect it was called the Stangerlbus , derived from Stangerlwagen for a tram with a pantograph .

history

Boom

The first trolleybuses in Munich ran on an initially 3.3 kilometer long line from Laim train station through Fürstenrieder Straße to the forest cemetery . Two cars were available for the opening. At the endpoints, they initially made a provisional U- turn using turning triangles ; the hairpin in Laim was on Helmpertstrasse. The use of trailers was therefore initially not possible. The vehicles were also temporarily housed in the former tram depot number 3 Westendstrasse east of Laimer Platz. They had to be towed there over a distance of more than a kilometer through Gotthard and Zschokkestrasse .

On May 7, 1949, the line at the southern end of the route through Boschetsrieder Strasse was extended by 3.4 kilometers to Hofmannstrasse in Obersendling . About 200 meters south of Ratzingerplatz, at the intersection of Gmunder Strasse and Aidenbachstrasse and in the immediate vicinity of the former tram depot number 6 Hofmannstrasse , there was from now on also the independent trolleybus depot . On September 5, 1949, the 800-meter-long section from Hofmannstrasse to Thalkirchen finally went into operation, the terminus was at the confluence of Boschetsrieder Strasse and Wolfratshauser Strasse. The last new opening was the northern extension of Laim through Wotanstrasse to Romanplatz in Nymphenburg on October 25, 1953, it was 1.8 kilometers long. Even after completion, not all courses served the entire route, both at Laim train station and at Waldfriedhof and on Hofmannstrasse, intermediate turning loops were available for repeater trips.

Temporarily planned extensions to a ring line leading around the old town could not be realized. This would have been around 35 kilometers long and would have led from Obersendling via Harlaching , Giesing , Bogenhausen , Oberföhring , Freimann , Milbertshofen , Moosach and Nymphenburg back to Obersendling. For the further expansion of the trolleybus, preliminary construction work has already been done : For example, a catenary in the street Greinerberg, after the Thalkirchen terminus and at the forest cemetery, a branch leading in a westerly direction into the Würmtalstraße.

Decline

Instead of further expansion, economic reasons ultimately led to the gradual changeover to bus operation. This initially affected the Hofmannstrasse - Wolfratshauser Strasse section from November 4, 1962. In connection with the extension of tram line 8, the section Ratzingerplatz - Hofmannstraße followed on December 19, 1964, and finally, on April 10, 1966, the northern section Romanplatz - Laim station.

The increasing road expansion in the course of the Outer Ring ultimately meant the final end for the Munich trolleybus. The main reason for this was the construction work in the area of the Munich- Kreuzhof junction of the federal motorway 95, which opened in 1966 . Originally, Friday, April 29, 1966, was supposed to be the last day of operation of the remaining Laim Bahnhof – Ratzingerplatz section; in the end it was only served during rush hour. As a result of a lightning strike in the catenary , the trolleybus ran one last time the evening before. To the present day, south of the Laim train station, the orphaned turning loop in front of the Werbe-Spiegel building is reminiscent of the Munich trolleybus.

The originally planned trolleybus ring line finally operated between 1965 and 1972 as Omnibus line 60. Today, the MetroBus line 51 runs on the former trolleybus route and, during rush hour, also the city bus line 151. In the medium term, a tram line is to be set up on this connection known as the western bypass become.

Line overview

	Main line			Amplifier line
from April 28, 1948	O32	Laim train station - forest cemetery	3.3 km	no
from May 7, 1949		Laim Bahnhof – Hofmannstrasse	6.7 km
from September 5, 1949		Laim Bahnhof – Wolfratshauser Strasse	7.5 km
from October 25, 1953		Romanplatz – Wolfratshauser Strasse	9.3 km	O33	Laim Bahnhof – Hofmannstrasse	6.7 km
from October 2, 1961	O41			O42
from April 22, 1962	41			42
from November 4, 1962		Romanplatz – Hofmannstrasse	8.5 km
from December 19, 1964		Romanplatz – Ratzingerplatz	8.0 km		Laim train station-Ratzingerplatz	6.2 km
from April 11, 1965	58	Romanplatz – Ratzingerplatz	8.0 km	E58
from April 10, 1966 to April 28, 1966	no			E58

At times, the end point Wolfratshauser Straße was also only served by the respective main line on Sundays and only in the summer season.

vehicles

Despite the short service life, two generations of vehicles were in use on the Munich trolleybus. At the opening, the municipal utilities procured 15 two-axle KME 130 vehicles based on the KMO 130 diesel bus model from the local companies Krauss-Maffei ( chassis ) and Rathgeber ( body ). Their electrical equipment was supplied by the BBC (cars 1, 6, 7, 10-12, 14 and 15) and SSW (cars 2-5, 8, 9 and 13). The BBC cars were motorized with a power of 125 HP a little more than the SSW cars with 120 HP. Most of the vehicles in this series were retired in 1958, only cars 13 and 15 continued to run until 1960 and 1964, respectively.

The second generation of Munich trolleybuses consisted of 18 three-door two-axle vehicles with passenger flow . They were delivered between 1955 and 1959, their type designation was KME 160 - derived from the omnibus type KMO 160. The manufacturer was again Krauss-Maffei, the electrical equipment was largely taken over from the decommissioned first generation cars. From this series with road numbers 1 to 18, all of which were in stock until 1966, only two cars remained. Car 2 was used as a construction car by a company in Murnau until 1986 , car 14 was used by Bavaria Film as a workshop for special effects until 1998 . Both vehicles came into the care of the Omnibus-Club München e. V. The association is currently busy restoring one of the two cars to its original condition, the other being used as a spare parts dispenser. A trailer is also being processed.

In addition, the trolleybuses of the two series had a total of 23 trailers available. Including 15 from the year of construction 1948 with the numbers 21 to 35 and eight from 1955 with the numbers 51 to 58.

Others

As early as 1912 there was a project for a "trackless railway" from Neuhausen to Sendling ; it was to be carried out according to the then contemporary Mercédès-Électrique-Stoll system. Due to the war , however, this project could no longer be realized.

A trolleybus of the type MAN SL 172 HO from the Solingen trolleybus has been exhibited in the traffic center of the Deutsches Museum since 2006 .

Stadtwerke München also undertook the initial driver training and the two-year lane renewal of the rubber-mounted axles for the Regensburg trolleybus , which existed from 1953 to 1963 and was also operated with Krauss-Maffei vehicles.

literature

Martin Pabst: An outsider, the “Stangerlbus” - trolleybuses between Nymphenburg and Obersendling. In: Martin Pabst (Ed.): Local traffic in Munich. Bavaria's metropolis (= local tram special. No. 2, ISSN 1860-0611 ). GeraNova-Zeitschriftenverlag, Munich 1997.
Peter Schricker: Munich local rail transport. Tram · S-Bahn · U-Bahn · O-Bus . GeraMond, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7654-7137-2 .