Suhl trolleybus
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| Route length: | 5.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Suhl trolleybus was an ongoing trolleybus project in the GDR . It should connect the city of Suhl with the neighboring city of Zella-Mehlis . A further expansion within Suhl was planned for a later date.
history
In the 1980s, the GDR set itself the goal of saving expensive imported oil and instead promoting the use of domestic lignite . In addition to the cities of Hoyerswerda , Neubrandenburg , Stendal , Stralsund and Wismar , the introduction of a trolleybus system was also prepared in the then district town of Suhl. A 5.5 kilometer stretch was planned from the large residential area Suhl-Nord via Fröhlicher Mann to today's industrial area Zella-Mehlis on the federal highway 71 , then called Industriegebiet Nord . The planned route corresponded to today's bus routes B, F and H. The decision to build it was made in January 1983, and implementation was planned within seven years. However, after the government of the GDR withdrew from the project in March 1987, it was pursued under local authority. The opening date was originally planned for October 7, 1989, the 40th anniversary of the GDR .
Construction work began in 1989 when the first catenary masts were erected in the area around Grosse Beerbergstrasse and Am Königswasser Strasse . But a little later, with the political turnaround in 1989, the requirements for the trolleybus in the GDR changed. In 1990 the city administration finally ended the trolleybus project. In the spring of 1990, the construction work was canceled, by this time the overhead line was largely completed.
To this day, the concrete catenary masts and the rectifier substation (GUW) along Industriestrasse are reminiscent of the unrealized Suhl trolleybus. The only operation planned at the time was the Hoyerswerda trolleybus . It was opened on October 6, 1989 - that is, one day before the originally planned opening date of the company discussed here - and closed again in 1994.
vehicles
In 1990 the Hungarian manufacturer Ikarus sent five articulated trolleybuses of the type 280.93 to Suhl. These cost around 3.5 million GDR marks and were delivered by train on May 1, 1990, that is, at the same time as construction work was stopped. The five cars were handed over to the Weimar trolleybus in May 1991 without being used , where they were added to the inventory under road numbers 214 to 218. After Weimar operations were stopped in 1993, cars 214 and 215 came to Chelyabinsk , Russia , and cars 217 and 218 were handed over to the Timișoara trolleybus in Romania. Car 216, however, was scrapped in Budapest after his time in Weimar .