Gotha tram

Gotha tram
The KT4D is the standard vehicle on the Gotha tram
Basic information
Country	Germany
city	Gotha
opening	May 2, 1894
electrification	from beginning to
operator	Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha GmbH (TWSB)
Transport network	Verkehrsverbund Mittelthüringen (VMT)
Infrastructure
Gauge	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system	Overhead line , 600 volts =
Operating mode	One- and two-way operation
Stops	32
Depots	1 (on Waltershäuser Strasse)
business
Lines	5
vehicles	15 KT4D 3 GT8N 6 Be 4/8
Top speed	60 km / h
Route network plan, as of 2018

The Gotha tram is the meter-gauge tram system of the city of Gotha in Thuringia , it has existed since 1894 and was electrified from the start. The Thuringian Forest Railway , an overland tram into the low mountain range of the same name , is also integrated into the urban network . Today, all five lines are operated by the transport company Thüringerwaldbahn und Straßenbahn Gotha GmbH (TWSB).

history

For a detailed history of the Thuringian Forest Railway, see there.

As early as 1880, the up-and-coming industrial city of Gotha, which at that time was also the residence of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and had around 27,000 inhabitants, was considering building a horse-drawn tram from the train station in the south to the city center. However, these efforts initially fizzled out. On May 24, 1893, the city council decided to build an electric tram. The construction was carried out by Union Electrizitäts-Gesellschaft in Berlin, and the railway was initially owned by Elektrizitäts-AG, formerly W. Lahmeyer & Co. (EAG) in Frankfurt am Main . The line was completed in the spring of 1894, so that it could be opened on May 2nd by the Duke of Saxe-Gotha. The route led from the main train station through the city center to Waltershäuser Strasse and was 2.7 kilometers long. The trip cost ten pfennigs for an adult and five pfennigs for a child.

Later the tram passed into the possession of the EAG, which now wanted to build an overland tram network, for which it received ministerial approval in 1897. Around 1900 the following connections outside the city of Gotha had been considered: a route to Siebleben , a route via Waltershausen and Tabarz to Winterstein with branches to Friedrichroda and Schmerbach , a route to Uelleben , a route to Günthersleben and Wechmar , a route via Remstädt to Goldbach and a stretch via Molschleben to Töttelstädt . Ultimately, only the route via Waltershausen to Tabarz was to be implemented.

In 1902, a route south of the city center was put into operation in addition to the already existing one running north, making ring traffic possible. However, it was closed in 1916 due to the First World War and operations there never resumed. In 1912 the tram became the property of a subsidiary of AEG . In the same year the new depot was built on Waltershäuser Straße, which replaced the old one at the main train station. In 1914, the construction of the Thuringian Forest Railway via Waltershausen to Tabarz began, but had to be interrupted in 1915 because of the First World War and its consequences. It was another 13 years before construction work on this route resumed. In 1929 it could then be put into operation, including the Waltershausen branch line.

Gotha cars, including multi-part cars, shaped the Gotha tramway in the GDR era, along with Tatra cars

As a result of the Second World War , operations were inactive for a few months in 1945. In addition, the rubble of a motorway bridge lay on the tracks, so that the Thuringian Forest Railway was interrupted until 1947. In 1948 the tram operation became state property and was subordinated to the municipal utilities before it became its own company in 1951. Now new rolling stock was also procured, which replaced some of the vehicles from the early days of operation. From 1954, the cars came from Waggonbau Gotha , which was the only tram manufacturer in the GDR , until production was discontinued in the mid-1960s in favor of imports from Czechoslovakia. The first type G4 articulated wagons followed in 1965 . Thereafter, ČKD Tatra temporarily delivered a T2D / B2D replica of the Gotha two-axle vehicle and from 1981 Tatra KT4D multiple units. The KT4D still operate today in a modernized form. Between 1982 and 1988 there was also freight traffic on the Thuringian Forest Railway .

Duewag GT6 No. 442 on line 3, 2011

In 1990, in the course of the turnaround , the VEB became an operator. In addition to the cities of Gotha and Waltershausen, the communities Friedrichroda and Tabarz, as well as the district of Gotha, became shareholders . The car park was founded in 1991 by six vehicles of the type GT6 from the tram Mannheim increased, in 1993 followed another four such cars. However, all ten were gradually replaced by the addition of used, but considerably newer Tatra KT4D tram from Erfurt .

Depot

Construction of the final stop in front of Gotha main station

In the years 1994 to 2002 the depot was completely modernized, partially supplemented by new buildings in order to be able to carry out the maintenance and repair of the vehicles with modern infrastructure. The parking facility right next to Humboldtstrasse was dismantled, and a new workshop was built in its place for the operational maintenance and cleaning of the vehicles. The main workshop was lengthened, equipped with modern workshop pits and roof work stands, and lengthened overall so that longer vehicles could be used. All routes were renewed with partly different geometry, the storage hall in which the operational maintenance was carried out until the mid-1990s was also extended to be able to park all line cars and historic vehicles under the roof. In addition, the workshop pits built especially for the maintenance of the KT4D in the form of completely elevated tracks were removed and the hall floor raised.

In the route network, the infrastructure has been almost completely renewed since the early 1990s. The first renovation projects were the complete renovation of Waltershäuser Strasse, which began in the late 1980s, with completion before the 100th anniversary. As part of the expansion of the Halle – Bebra railway line , the railway overpass in Sundhausen was completely rebuilt. In the course of this expansion, the tram track was lowered from the intersection of Inselsbergstraße / Leinastraße (stop Inselsbergstraße, formerly HaWeGe-Markt) and moved to the side in the direction of Sundhausen. After this construction work, line 1 was extended to Sundhausen with two trips an hour in order to better connect the district to the city. An exclusive service only through line 4 was no longer appropriate. Since no turning loop could be built in Sundhausen, six six-axle two -way railcars were taken over from Bochum-Gelsenkirchener Straßenbahnen AG for this purpose . These vehicles could also be used to operate the shuttle car, which was then called Train 6, between Waltershausen station and Gleisdreieck, without having to make a turning trip every time at Gleisdreieck. These cars have now all been taken out of service, five out of six vehicles were scrapped in Gotha.

The line on Line 2, which was in danger of being discontinued after the turnaround due to a sharp drop in passenger numbers as a result of various company closings, was almost completely renovated due to heavily worn tracks and expanded to two-track as far as possible. Only the short section between the Hersdorfstrasse stop and the roundabout on Hersdorfplatz still has large composite panels from GDR production. A section of the route that has also been heavily worn in the meantime, Friedrichstrasse on lines 1, 2 and 4 between the main train station and the Huttenstrasse stop, has been completely renovated since 2014 as part of several construction stages. The last section will be completely renovated in 2019. The number of passengers on line 2 has leveled off at a higher level after the renovation of the route, this is also reflected in a more frequent frequency, at least in the rush hour, in which the trains sometimes run at intervals of 12 to 15 minutes to cope with the high passenger numbers to be able to. This development was u. a. benefited by the expansion of the vocational school in Kindleber Strasse, which is operated there by the school authority (district of Gotha). The number of jobs in the historically grown industrial area Gotha Ost has also increased again. The area of ​​the old Gotha wagon factory is still used by Schmitz Cargobull . There were also other industrial establishments on the site, including a. a manufacturer for crane booms and other small businesses. Even the transmission plant on Leinefelder Straße, which was sold to ZF Friedrichshafen after the turn of the century, was expanded in the years around the turn of the millennium and again offers more jobs than immediately after German reunification.

Gleisdreieck Sundhausen, Tabarzer Spitze

In 2002 the last new line went into operation, it leads to the Helios district hospital in Gotha / Ohrdruf - referred to as the hospital stop by the tram company . This route was the first expansion of the route network in several decades. It was connected via a triangular track in Sundhausen and ends in a turning loop, so that the hospital stop can also be served by trains to and from Bad Tabarz. There were projects for further expansions in the late 1980s, these are still possible by means of road clearance. A realization is currently uncertain due to the higher operating costs of the tram compared to the bus.

In 2016, an engineering office from Dresden presented the transport development plan 2030+ for the city of Gotha on behalf of the city of Gotha. This contains some suggestions for new routes and new stops in the Gotha tram network. Whether and when individual projects will be implemented is still completely open, and there is no public positioning on the part of the city of Gotha or the district of Gotha as the customer for the transport services, even almost three years after the report was submitted.

To enable passengers to get on and off barrier-free for the first time, another four used Duewag articulated trams , this time GT8N with a low-floor center section, were taken over by the Mannheim tram. A vehicle was dismantled in 2018 after an accident. Since 2019, the TWSB also has a driving school car of the type Düwag GT8N (ex Mannheim 5516). This vehicle has a connection for a driving instructor's desk to z. B. to be able to simulate faults in the vehicle.

At the beginning of August 2016, the bus company Steinbrück from Gotha applied to take over the Thuringian Forest and Tramway (TWSB) transport service with buses with a similar route. This was rejected by the state administration office in Weimar in October 2016. The bus operator was still trying to obtain a permit by appeal, which was also refused. In the meantime, however, due to his own insolvency, he has lost his line services to other companies.

In August 2018, Baselland Transport took over six articulated vehicles of the type Be 4/8 from the years of construction 1978/79, which were converted from Be 4/6 with an additional low-floor center section. These are intended to increase the proportion of cars with low-floor entry. Various work is required on the vehicles, such as changing the flashing light system (hazard warning function is missing in Switzerland), converting the lighting system and installing passenger information systems and systems for switch control, ticket sales and passenger information. In addition, the destination display must be rebuilt and the steps of the first and last door must be widened. The distance between the vehicle and the platform edge is according to BO-Strab to a maximum of 25 cm. The carriages are 2200 mm wide and are strongly tapered at the ends. Since the Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha have already expanded their network for the currently standardized vehicle width (for new vehicles) of 2400 mm, the distance between the platform edge and the vehicle door is even greater here. The first vehicle will be used from 2020.

Lines

line	course	length	Travel time	Stops	Clock Mon. / Sat.– Sun.
1	Central station - Myconiusplatz - car hall - hospital	6.1 km	23 min	14th	10-20 / 30
2	Central station - Huttenstrasse - Ostbahnhof	3.0 km	12 min	7/8	20/23 or 37
3	Wagenhalle - Myconiusplatz - Ostbahnhof	4.0 km	14 min	10	once or twice a day in each direction
4th	Central station - Huttenstrasse - Myconiusplatz - Wagenhalle - Sundhausen - Waltershausen - Reinhardsbrunn - Bad Tabarz	22.5 km	58 min	23	30-60 / 30-60
6th	Waltershausen Gleisdreieck - Waltershausen train station	2.4 km	7 min	5	30-60 / 30-60

• Since the timetable change on 13 December 2009, some use rates of the Line 4 in the off-peak hours also stop the hospital line 1 by means of random ride.
• Today's line 3 only runs one (Saturdays and Sundays) to three times (Monday to Friday) per day in each direction, these are outward and inward journeys for wagons on line 2. The Waltershäuser Straße stop , which is exclusively served by these journeys , the was in the turning loop opposite the car hall, will no longer be approached. The former line 3, however, led from Huttenstrasse with three intermediate stations to the main cemetery and was closed on June 30, 1985. From June 1, 1985 to 1991, an SEV line 3 ran from the old bus station to the main cemetery. Today the route is served Monday to Saturday by the city bus route F, Monday to Friday by the city bus route E and on Sundays by the city bus route B.
• Line signal 6 has only existed since August 30, 2007; before that, the trips to and from Waltershausen train station were integrated into line 4. Line 6 is the only one operated in two-way traffic. Although she has a turning option at both ends, the company saves the time-consuming turning at the Gleisdreieck in Waltershausen. Two bidirectional vehicles with doors on one side only are available especially for line 6 .

Vehicle fleet

Vehicles in regular service

	Numbers	piece	Manufacturer	Type	Years of construction	Remarks
	303	01	ČKD Tatra Mountains	KT4DM	1981	All modernized between 1997 and 1999; A control from Kiepe Elektrik was installed. The railcars 302, 305 and 306 were scrapped on August 25, 2017 and June 29, 2018, respectively; the Tw 301 was transported away for scrapping on April 11, 2019.
	304, 306 II , 307-317, 319	14th	ČKD Tatra Mountains	KT4D / KT4D-C / KT4D-C (ZR)	1981-1990	Taken over from the Erfurt tram from 2001 to 2008 , 307, 308 and 311 still have their accelerator controls , 309, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315 and 319 have been modernized, 316 and 317 were upgraded in 2010 and 2012 for bidirectional operation on the Line 6 rebuilt, number 310 II - the first car with this number was taken out of stock in 2006 due to an accident; Railcars 495 (built in 1986) and 518 (built in 1987) 08/2016 formerly EVAG Erfurt as a replacement for the Tw 306 - currently the preparation and preparation for the regular service of Tw 495 (future Tw 306 II ); No. 518 ex EVAG parked as a spare part dispenser. The KT4D-C have a chopper control from Cegelec.
	505, 508, 521	03	Duewag	GT8N	1962-1964	with low-floor middle section, used in 2011 from the Mannheim tram ; Car 522 scrapped after an accident with a city bus; 518 ex RNV , taken over as spare parts donor in 2019, cannibalized and transported away for scrapping on April 11, 2019.
	(204), (206), (221), (222), (223), (252)	06th	Schindler wagon	Be 4/8	1978-1981	with low-floor middle section, used in 2018 taken over by Baselland Transport AG . The preparatory and adaptation work for the line service has already started on the first vehicle shortly after unloading, the TWSB estimates the period until commissioning to be around one year.

Railcar 317 with a fully-fledged driver's cab at the B end

The establishment of WiFi hotspots in the vehicles is currently being prepared. Car 313 serves as a WLAN test car. The KT4D (301–306) delivered directly to Gotha by the manufacturer ČKD Prague are to be withdrawn except for the motor car 304. Cars from Mannheim and Basel were taken over for them. The KT4Ds taken over from Erfurt are to remain in use for a few more years.

Special cars and historic cars

Traditional train, type T1 of the Gothaer Waggonfabrik , built 1928/29

ET 55 No. 39, 1991

dare	Type	Manufacturer	Construction year	comment
39	T 55 ZR	VEB Waggonbau Gotha / LEW	1955	Intermediate design ET 54 / ET 57
43	T 57 ER	VEB Waggonbau Gotha / LEW	1956	Historic railcar, general overhaul 1972 Raw Berlin-Schöneweide, prototype T 57
47	T 57 ZR	VEB Waggonbau Gotha / LEW	1963	Last built T57 in bidirectional design, shunting and towing trucks until 2016, 2017 transfer to the park of historic vehicles. From 2017 onwards in the VHS Bildungswerk Gotha, possibly from 2019 onwards as a historic railcar.
93	B 57 ER	VEB Waggonbau Gotha / LEW	1956	Historic railcar, general overhaul 1972 Raw Berlin-Schöneweide, prototype T 57
56	T 7	Bothmann / Gotha	1928/29	Traditional train, a listed building since 1989
82	B 7	Bothmann / Gotha	1928/29	Traditional train, a listed building since 1989
101	Baggage cart	Bothmann / Gotha	1928/29	Traditional train, a listed building since 1989
111	KT4D	ČKD Tatra Mountains	1985	Special equipment with bar, disco technology, guest tables, small kitchen, toilet; ex GVB 111, ex Berlin 4591, 9366, 219-366-0
215	G4-67	VEB Waggonbau Gotha / LEW	1967	Overland version

Work cars and special vehicles

Work vehicle 010 with generator trailerAtw 010 handed over to an association on April 11, 2019

dare	Type	Manufacturer	Construction year	comment
38	T 55 ZR	VEB Waggonbau Gotha / LEW	1955	Workshop trolley, refurbished and preparation for use, 2017 historic work trolley
5516 (516)	-	Düwag	1964	2019 ex rnv Verkehr GmbH, Mannheim, 1991 conversion ex 418 (conversion to GT8N); 2010 conversion to driving school car; Use only planned as a driving school car. Facebook message from the Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha GmbH. Retrieved February 24, 2019 .
117	-	Self-made TWSB	1982	Auxiliary bogie
118	-	Self-made TWSB	1982	Auxiliary bogie
119	-	unknown	unknown	Slab truck for DN aggregate
121	-	Self-made TWSB	1971	snow plow
123	-	Self-made TWSB	1977	ex Zwickau 107 (chassis), snow plow "JUMBO"
124	-	DR / Naumburg (Saale)	1978	SKL
125	-	DR / Naumburg (Saale)	1979	SKL
126	-	Self-made TWSB	1983	Kipplore (ballast distributor)

Former vehicles

• 

  ET 57 No. 46 and 47, 1989

• 

  G4 No. 213, 1991

Web links

Commons : Tram Gotha  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of the Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha GmbH
• Private website u. a. with historical images
• Vehicle overview on www.tram-info.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ without the Waltershäuser Straße stop, which has no regular service
2. ↑ Final report on the traffic development plan on the website of the Gotha city administration. Retrieved February 25, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Waldbahn in Gotha is supposed to continue - bus company has been discharged . ( thueringer-allgemeine.de [accessed on November 22, 2016]).
4. ^ Tram lines from Basel for Gotha. Retrieved May 10, 2020 . 
5. ↑ §31 (6) BO Strab. Retrieved May 10, 2020 . 
6. ↑ without the hospital stop, which is only served by a few trips
7. ↑ Timetable for route 3. November 6, 2018, accessed on April 1, 2019 . 
8. ↑ The Thuringian Forest Railway - get on and enjoy , local transport practice - issue 10-2013
9. ↑ Gotha: https://m.otz.de/web/mobil/suche/detail/-/specific/Gotha-bekom-Strassenbahnen-aus-der-Schweiz-2104015785 .
10. ↑ Gotha: 12,141 votes for trams instead of buses . ( otz.de [accessed on November 22, 2016]).