Trolleybus Solingen
| Trolleybus Solingen | |
|---|---|
_-_geo.hlipp.de_-_3823.jpg) Car 73 on July 29, 1986 in Wuppertal-Vohwinkel
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| Number of pieces: | 80 |
| Manufacturer: | Self-made public utility company Solingen |
| Years of construction: | 1968-1974 |
| Years of use: | 1968-2010 |
| Length: | 12,000 mm |
| Width: | 2500 mm |
| Empty mass: | 11,340 t |
| Axes: | three |
| Top speed: | 60 km / h |
| Hourly output : | 105 kW |
| Auxiliary drive: | Yes |
| Seats: | 28-35 |
| Standing room: | 105-124 |
The Solingen trolleybus - TS for short - is a former German trolleybus type. The total of 80 three-axle and two-door solo cars were built between 1967 and 1974 by Stadtwerke Solingen (SWS) for the Solingen trolleybus . The body comes from the Essen-based body builder Gebr. Ludewig , and the chassis is based on standard components from Krupp trucks. Including the fist axle at the front, the double axle assembly from the LF 380 front hood at the rear, steering, push rods, shock absorbers and other small parts. The folding doors were supplied by the Uerdingen wagon factory , the motors by Garbe-Lahmeyer and the electrical equipment by Kiepe .
The self-built TS came about primarily because there were no series-produced trolleybuses available in Germany after 1962, but the first Solingen trolleybus generation from the 1950s had to be replaced urgently towards the end of the 1960s.
description
The Solingen trolleybus was subdivided into the three sub-series TS 1, TS 2 and TS 3 and - depending on the variant - had 28 seats and 124 standing or 35 seats and 105 standing. Due to the comparatively high proportion of standing room, in one version the standing room area was twelve square meters, the transport capacity roughly corresponded to an articulated car or a one - and-a -half-decker . The access at the front of the TS 1 was stepless, with the TS 2 and TS 3 a low step had to be overcome. At the back there were two slightly higher levels for all three variants. In the interior, a step had to be negotiated between the front and the rear of the vehicle for all cars. The TS 1 was thus partially low-floor , i.e. it corresponded to today's low-entry concept .
The rear double axle assembly, unlike the double tires customary on high-floor vehicles , also allowed the largest possible passage width between the wheel arches in the rear area . The seats, upholstered in red synthetic leather, were arranged in an ascending order and in the low-floor area were partly mounted on pedestals . With the TS 1, double seats were found on the door side and single seats on the window side, with the TS 2 and TS 3 it was the other way round.
The three-phase motor developed 105 kW or 136 hp. A special feature of the TS series was its double-axle drive. The double rear axle, also known as the tandem axle, was specially designed with a view to the steep routes in Solingen . In addition, the vehicles had a 30 hp auxiliary drive from Volkswagen , which was a boxer engine . The TS type was 12,000 millimeters long and 2,500 millimeters wide, and the maximum speed was 60 km / h. Each car weighed 11,340 kilograms, the maximum permissible total weight was 22,000 kilograms.
The production of each vehicle cost the Stadtwerke Solingen an average of 165,000 German marks . This made the TS even cheaper than the diesel buses offered at the time. The main reason for this was the continued use of the electrical components of a large part of the 67 wagons of the previous series ÜHIIIs . This included, above all, the main engines and the compressor units. The public utilities acquired the missing electrical equipment second-hand from other transport companies.
Outwardly, the three sub-series differed only slightly from one another. Among other things, they could be differentiated in terms of their front or rear design, the height of the windows in the low-floor area, the number of seats and the type of door used in each case:
| Subtype | number | Installation | Company numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| TS 1 | 14th | 1968 1969 |
1-5 6-14 |
| TS 2 | 31 | 1970 1971 1972 |
15-18 19-34 35-45 |
| TS 3 | 35 | 1972 1973 1974 |
46-47 48-63 64-80 |
Use in Solingen
The first planned use of a TS took place on March 13, 1968, and the new cars gradually replaced the 79 predecessor vehicles of the series ÜHIIIs (67 units) and HS 160 OSL (six units) and OSL-G (six units). However, the TS could not initially be used on line 3 to Burg an der Wupper , so the complete generation change dragged on for a while. It was only when the Unterburg turntable there received an extension attachment in 1974 that they could freely be used in the entire route network. On average, they covered 42,500 kilometers a year, and for ten years the entire SWS trolleybus fleet consisted exclusively of the series discussed here.
In the mid-1980s, the Solingen trolleybus was successively replaced by the successor series MAN SG 200 HO (from 1984) and MAN SL 172 HO (from 1986); the last day of operation of a TS was July 7, 1988. When the TS was decommissioned At the same time, the Stadtwerke reduced their number of trolleybuses, the 80 old cars were replaced by only 67 new cars. The consequence was an occasional diesel bus service on trolleybus lines.
As a special feature, TS 44 was used temporarily as a work vehicle for overhead line de-icing in the winter of 1986/87 . He had the company number 99.
Sale to Argentina
Initially there were plans to deliver the retired TS to Mexico City or the People's Republic of China . In 1985 there were negotiations with the Bulgarian city of Pleven . This was considering removing 62 of them, but decided against this option due to the low capacity - at the time the intention was actually to procure articulated vehicles.
Finally, in late 1988, they were sold to the Argentine city of Mendoza . Only two TS did not make it to Argentina. Car 8 served as a training object for the Solingen professional fire brigade as early as 1986 and was then dismantled. Car 1 landed at a shipping company in Venlo , the Netherlands , and was also scrapped at the end of 1988.
In Mendoza, the local transport company Empresa Provincial de Transporte de Mendoza (EPTM) put 58 of the 78 vehicles back into operation. The remaining 20 cars - including all twelve TS 1s on site - were initially used as spare parts donors. Due to a network expansion, however, older cars were reactivated around 2005 after years of parking, so TS 1 was also used in Argentina for the first time. All TS were given new numbers in Mendoza, and from 1997 they were also painted blue. Because of their origin, the TS in Argentina were also called los alemanes ( the Germans ).
Car 37 had a special position; it was used for tourist city tours for a while. For this he had a modified interior and a special paint.
From April 2009, the Solingen coaches in Argentina were successively replaced by 80 used New Flyer coaches from the Canadian trolleybus Vancouver , at the beginning of March 2010 only eleven TS cars were still in use. On May 1, 2010, the last day of operation of this series was finally.
Museum car
Even before the end of the mission in Argentina, the Solingen Obus Museum decided to keep a Solingen trolleybus as a museum in Germany. On May 16, 2012, after lengthy negotiations, EPTM finally handed over car 51, a TS 3 that used to be number 68 in Solingen, to the club. This reached Solingen on September 18, 2014 and is currently being restored to its original state including operability.
The trolleybus museum Solingen has received the former Solingen trolleybus 10 (Mendoza 80) as a purely exhibition object that is not ready to drive. This TS 1 wagon was loaded on September 19, 2019 in Mendoza. After arriving in Hamburg on October 30th, the trolleybus was loaded onto a low loader on the morning of November 5th, which again reached Solingen that evening.
literature
- Ludger Kenning, Mattis Schindler (Hrsg.): Trolleybuses in Germany . Volume 2: North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse. Kenning, Nordhorn 2011, ISBN 978-3-933613-31-8 .
Web links
- The Solingen trolleybus on www.obus-solingen.de
- The Solingen trolleybus at www.obus-museum-solingen.de
- The Solingen trolleybus generations from 1952 to 2002
- Picture gallery on www.railfaneurope.net
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Jürgen Lehmann: General information about the trolleybus
- ↑ 25 years trolleybuses in Pleven
- ↑ www.trolleymotion.org: The end of the former Solingen three-axle vehicle
- ↑ Obus-Museum Solingen: Project TS ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
