Nizhny Novgorod tram

Nizhny Novgorod tram

Basic information
Country	Russia Russia
city	Nizhny Novgorod
opening	May 20, 1896
operator	MUP Nischegorodelektrotrans
Infrastructure
Route length	76.5 km
Gauge	1524 mm
Power system	600 volt DC overhead line
Depots	3
business
Lines	15th

The Nizhny Novgorod tram now operates a total of 16 lines on a broad-gauge rail network in the city .

history

No 1236 ( KTM-19 ) of the Nizhny Novgorod tram

No. 2904 ( Tatra T6B5 ) of the Nizhny Novgorod tram

UTM-7 in Nizhny Novgorod

The history of the tram began with an unofficial competition between three companies. On May 15, 1895, Hartmann & Co signed a contract with the city for the construction of two lines. In the summer of the same year, Siemens & Halske also negotiated a contract with the city. Then there was the company Podobedow & Co , which also built a railway. Siemens was the first to complete the line on May 20, 1896 and opened it on June 21. This track, which led to the site of the All-Russian Industrial and Craft Exhibition, was closed again after the exhibition ended. However, a year later, after the tracks and overhead lines had already been dismantled, it was rebuilt in the same place, but not quite as far as the exhibition grounds at the time.

Also on June 21, 1896, Hartmann & Co opened their two meter-gauge lines from Minin-Poscharski-Platz to today's Gorki-Platz. The line in the upper town was 3.7 km and that in the lower town 1.4 km. Both lines were connected at their end stations with two elevators, the Kremlewski elevator and the Pochwalinski elevator . The train from Podobedow & Co with a gauge of 750 mm traveled the curved section through the exhibition grounds.

On June 16, 1897, Siemens & Halske were the first to cross the Oka . This route with a gauge of 1520 mm had a length of 3.5 km and ran from the Moscow train station to today's Skobe.

In 1897 the Hartmann railways were renamed the Russian Society for Electric Railways and Lighting . In 1898 it also took over the railways from Siemens & Halske and was thus the sole operator of the trams in Nizhny Novgorod.

Tatra T3 in Nizhny Novgorod

PTMS 71-153 of the Nizhny Novgorod tram

In 1901 the line between Pochwalinski and Ostrohnaya and in 1902 between Kremlewsko and Monastyrnja was opened. The line in the upper town was also extended to 11.5 kilometers. Since the railways had two different gauges, it was decided from 1910 to switch all lines to the Russian broad gauge of 1,524 mm. This work was completed in 1923 and also included the horse tram operated between 1908 and 1918 .

On October 8, 1914, the city bought the railway for 1,200,000 rubles . With the October Revolution on May 1, 1919, the railway ended for the time being. Operations could only be resumed on August 3, 1923. On October 10, 1927, the connection between the railway in the lower and upper town was closed. The network had grown to 21.3 kilometers.

The tram ran with the car from the very beginning until 1930. Only this year 30 new vehicles were purchased from the Mytishchi plant near Moscow (today: Metrowagonmasch ). 24 more cars followed in 1932.

That year, the Gorkowski Avtomobilny Sawod , which still exists today, was built in the city in cooperation with Ford . On April 1, 1933, the seven-kilometer route opened there. By 1935 the network had grown to a total of 98.5 kilometers.

With the invasion of the German Reich on the USSR most employees train were drafted into the army. Their places were taken by women. Then there was the general energy shortage. So you were forced to turn off the heaters in the vehicles. None of the nine air strikes on the city caused damage to the tram.

post war period

After the end of the war, the network continued to grow in the 1950s. By 1960 a further 31 kilometers of routes had been built and the route network expanded to 18 routes. By 1965 the network was expanded to 160.3 kilometers. In addition, a new depot was opened on December 20, 1968, which could accommodate most of the vehicles that had been in existence until 1971.

From this point on, the tram started to feel the competition from the bus . No more new lines were built and a crossing already under construction on a new bridge over the Oka was not completed. From 1977 onwards, the metro was added as a further competitor. New building projects were started again from the 1980s. Then, with the onset of perestroika, new, mainly economic, problems arose . With the redesign of the network in 1992, this could be countered in wide areas, as it was possible to reduce the necessary number of wagons.

Today the tram has around 5000 employees and has a network with a length of about 198 kilometers, which is used by 387 vehicles. In order to improve the financial situation of the company, almost all cars are used for advertising purposes. In order to keep costs as low as possible there, too, the carriages are hand-painted by employees.

See also : List of cities with trams

Web links

Commons : Nizhny Novgorod tram - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Unofficial site of the Nizhny Novgorod tram ( Russian ), ( English )