TT Class 8
Encyclopedia
TT Class 8 are the only remaining tram
s used on the Trondheim Tramway
. Built by Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB) in 1984–85, they replaced the aging Class 7
trams used by Trondheim Trafikkselskap
(TT). Of the eleven built, nine remain in service on the Gråkallen Line operated by Veolia Transport Bane.
power each of the end bogies, while the center bogie is unpowered.
and Essen
. By 1 December, eight bids had come in:
Only LHB and Valmet could deliver the special 260 cm (102.4 in) wide trams used in Trondheim. The bid from Tatra was the cheapest (at NOK 2.2 million per tram), but 33 units would be needed, since they would have to run as double units. An alternative with using ten of the newest trailers. The committee instead chose to the articulated, six-axle, tram from LHB as the Class 8. For both lines, trams would be needed, costing NOK 80 million. Various suggestions were made to avoid a full load financing. This included using NOK 20 million from the parking fund, but despite the matter being considered by the government, the money was never used.
The first articulated tram came to Trondheim on 29 July 1984. It was stored at Voldsminde, while part of the track through the city center was removed for maintenance. The first test run was on 22 August, and the last tram was delivered on 4 January 1985. The track on the Gråkallen Line was replaced, and a new packing machine was bought. The platforms on the Gråkallen Line had to be rebuilt to a lower platform height. The trams started on a 10-minute headway along the remaining part of the tramway, from Lade to Lian
.
The Class 8 had severe problems with water leaking into the gear oil. When discovered in January 1985, all the trams were grounded. The old trams were put into service, and LHB sent technicians to locate the error. After this was fixed, test runs were done and the trams put back into service. This proved to not be sufficient, and further tests were performed by the Norwegian Institute of Technology
. Eventually the problems were fixed.
was considered as a possible purchaser, but then the trams would have to be rebuilt, costing NOK 1.9 million per unit. Also, Oslo Sporveier had slightly larger trams, and felt the Class 8 was too small for their needs. Conservative chair of Oslo Sporveier, Haakon Magnus Preus said live at a public meeting for the labor union in January that they did not want the trams. TT still felt that it would be possible to sell the trams for NOK 45 million.
After the decision to close the Trondheim Tramway in 1988, the last tram ran on 12 June, carrying about 20,000 passengers throughout the day. All the trams were then parked in Voldsminde Depot, while the heritage trams were moved to Munkvoll. The Gråkallen Line, including the Ila Line and the St. Olavs gate loop, would be spared, and would become a heritage railway, with a railway museum at Munkvoll. The Class 8 trams would be stored at Voldsminde until a suitable purchaser could be found. At Voldsminde, located just beside the Nordland Line, they could be freighted away by train. To ensure that the tramway could not be opened again, the tracks through the city center were removed on 14 June.
On 22 June 1989, the city council voted to re-open the line from St. Olavs Gate to Lian. A private company, Gråkallbanen, had been founded to operate the trams without subsidies. Agreements were made to take over seven of the trams from Trondheim Trafikkselskap. The trams would remain owned by the municipality, but rented free of charge to the new company.
After all the agreements were in place, TT announced on 30 December 1989 that it had found a new buyer for the trams. An agreement had been made with the Copenhagen
-based Unimex Engineering, who would sell the eleven trams to the Cairo Tramway. On 2 January 1990, TT sent a letter to Gråkallbanen giving them the option to purchase the trams for the same price as the Egyptians, at an estimated NOK 17–20 million. However, Gråkallbanen pointed out to the politicians that is was possible to purchase used articulated trams for DEM 20,000 from the Stuttgart Stadtbahn
. The company took the press with it to Stuttgart to negotiate the agreement, and the following Adresseavisen
presented the cities new trams to the people. However, by the time the delegation had returned, they were informed that the deal had been annulled. Adresseavisen tried to locate Unimex in Copenhagen, but it turned out to be a company that had never sold a tram. At a press conference in Trondheim, the director of TT blamed Arbeider-Avisa
's journalists for the deal not going through. When asked about the matter, representatives from the tramway company in Cairo said that the deal did not go through because the trams did not fit.
Tram
A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...
s used on the Trondheim Tramway
Trondheim Tramway
Trondheim Tramway located in Trondheim, Norway consists presently of one 8.8 km tramway line, Gråkallbanen, from St. Olav's Gate in the city centre through Byåsen to Lian Station in Bymarka...
. Built by Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB) in 1984–85, they replaced the aging Class 7
TS Class 7
TS Class 6 was a series of 28 trams and 15 trailers built by Strømmens Værksted for Trondheim Sporvei. They were delivered in two slightly different batches; ten in 1948–49 and six in 1955....
trams used by Trondheim Trafikkselskap
Trondheim Trafikkselskap
Trondheim Trafikkselskap or TT was the city public transport company for Trondheim, Norway between 1974 and 2001. It operated both the city buses, and the Trondheim Tramway until 1988. The company was owned by the city council....
(TT). Of the eleven built, nine remain in service on the Gråkallen Line operated by Veolia Transport Bane.
Specifications
Class 8 is built for the unique combination of meter gauge and 2.6 m (8.5 ft) wagon width of the tramways in Trondheim. 19.9 m (65.3 ft) long, they have a capacity of 53 seated and 85 standing passengers in a 2+2 configuration. With a single driver's cab, all but 4 seats are forward facing. Two 150 kW motors from SiemensSiemens AG
Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....
power each of the end bogies, while the center bogie is unpowered.
Operation
Four trams are needed to serve the Gråkallen Line on a 15-minute headway. With one in spare, five trams are in regular service. On 8 April 1997, trams no. 91 and 98 collided front-to-front. Both were put aside, and were scrapped in 2000. Ten of the trams have been taken into use by Gråkallbanen, and only no. 7 is still put aside at Munkvoll.Bids
In 1979, TT started working on the process of ordering new trams. The whole fleet of Class 7 trams was from 1958, and these would soon need replacement. Invitations to tenders were sent in July 1980. A study trip was taken by seven people to the factories of ČKD Tatra in Czechoslovakia and Düwag in Germany. They also looked at the tramways in BrnoBrno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
and Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
. By 1 December, eight bids had come in:
| Manufacturer | Type | Axles | Width |
|---|---|---|---|
| Düwag | Stadtbahn M6 | 6 | 250 cm |
| La Brugeoise et Nivelles La Brugeoise et Nivelles SA. La Brugeoise et Nivelles SA , later BN Constructions Ferroviaries et Métalliques was a Belgian manufacturer of railway locomotives and other rolling stock; it was formed by a merger of two companies La Brugeoise et Nicaise et Delcuve and Les Ateliers Métallurgiques de Nivelles.The Bruges factory... |
Charleroi | 6 | 250 cm |
| Linke-Hofmann-Busch | Braunschweig | 4 or 6 | 260 cm |
| Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft , or SIG, is the former name of SIG Holding AG, a Swiss company that has been active in various businesses during its more than 150 years of operation. Since the year 2000 the Society has undergone strategic refocus, concentrating on its core compentence in... |
Tram 2000 Tram 2000 Zurich Tram 2000 is a type of tram rolling stock that was first designed for the Swiss city of Zurich. Variants of the type have also been built for other cities.-History:... (Zürich) |
6 | 250 cm |
| Strømmens Værksted Strømmens Værksted Strømmens Værksted A/S was an industrial company based in Skedsmo, Norway, specializing in the production of rolling stock. Founded in 1873, it remains as a part of Bombardier Transportation... |
SL79 SL79 SL79 is a class of 40 articulated trams operated by the Oslo Tramway of Norway. The trams were a variation of the Duewag trams that had been developed by the German manufacturer since the 1950s. The six-axle vehicles are unidirectional with four doors on the right side. The trams can seat 77... (Oslo) |
4 or 6 | 250 cm |
| Valmet Valmet ' was a Finnish state-owned conglomerate. Valmet was formed in 1951, when the state of Finland decided to group their various factories working on war reparations to the Soviet Union under one company... |
Nr II Valmet Nr II Nr II is a class of articulated six-axle , chopper-driven tram operated by Helsinki City Transport on the Helsinki tram network. All trams of this type were built by the Finnish metal industry corporation Valmet between the years 1983 and 1987.Between 1996 and 2005 all trams in the class were... (Helsinki) |
6 | 260 cm |
| Waggon Union Waggon Union Waggon Union was a German manufacturer of rail vehicles and bus bodies, that was also known as Deutsche Waggon und Maschinenfabrik or DWM.... |
Darmstadt | 6 | 250 cm |
| Pragoinvest/Tatra CKD A knock-down kit is a kit containing the parts needed to assemble a product... |
T5C5 Tatra T5C5 The Tatra T5C5 was tramcar built by ČKD Tatra in Prague in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1978, two prototypes were tested in Prague and Budapest. They differed in many ways to earlier Tatra products, most notably that the vehicle was controlled by a hand lever rather than a foot pedal... |
4 | 250 cm |
Only LHB and Valmet could deliver the special 260 cm (102.4 in) wide trams used in Trondheim. The bid from Tatra was the cheapest (at NOK 2.2 million per tram), but 33 units would be needed, since they would have to run as double units. An alternative with using ten of the newest trailers. The committee instead chose to the articulated, six-axle, tram from LHB as the Class 8. For both lines, trams would be needed, costing NOK 80 million. Various suggestions were made to avoid a full load financing. This included using NOK 20 million from the parking fund, but despite the matter being considered by the government, the money was never used.
Initial service
Lian, Norway
Lian is a recreational area located in the border between Bymarka and Byåsen in Trondheim, Norway. The place was taken into use in 1933, when the Gråkallen Line of the Trondheim Tramway was extended there. It remains the terminus of the only tram line in Trondheim.With the arrival of the tramway, a...
.
The Class 8 had severe problems with water leaking into the gear oil. When discovered in January 1985, all the trams were grounded. The old trams were put into service, and LHB sent technicians to locate the error. After this was fixed, test runs were done and the trams put back into service. This proved to not be sufficient, and further tests were performed by the Norwegian Institute of Technology
Norwegian Institute of Technology
The Norwegian Institute of Technology, known by its Norwegian abbrevation NTH was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 85 years, after which it was merged into the University of Trondheim as an independent...
. Eventually the problems were fixed.
Sale attempt
After new trams, track and depot were in place, the tramway debate started again. In 1985, the city council voted for a full economic analysis of the costs of trams versus diesel buses. The question was if it would be possible to sell the trams to other cities. Trondheim had chosen an unusual combination of meter gauge and 260 cm (102.4 in) wide wagons. Oslo SporveierOslo Sporveier
Kollektivtransportproduksjon AS is a municipal owned public transport operator of Oslo, Norway, the name meaning simply "public transportation producer". It operates the trackage and maintains the stock of the Oslo Metro and Oslo Tramway, as well as owning eight operating subsidiaries...
was considered as a possible purchaser, but then the trams would have to be rebuilt, costing NOK 1.9 million per unit. Also, Oslo Sporveier had slightly larger trams, and felt the Class 8 was too small for their needs. Conservative chair of Oslo Sporveier, Haakon Magnus Preus said live at a public meeting for the labor union in January that they did not want the trams. TT still felt that it would be possible to sell the trams for NOK 45 million.
After the decision to close the Trondheim Tramway in 1988, the last tram ran on 12 June, carrying about 20,000 passengers throughout the day. All the trams were then parked in Voldsminde Depot, while the heritage trams were moved to Munkvoll. The Gråkallen Line, including the Ila Line and the St. Olavs gate loop, would be spared, and would become a heritage railway, with a railway museum at Munkvoll. The Class 8 trams would be stored at Voldsminde until a suitable purchaser could be found. At Voldsminde, located just beside the Nordland Line, they could be freighted away by train. To ensure that the tramway could not be opened again, the tracks through the city center were removed on 14 June.
On 22 June 1989, the city council voted to re-open the line from St. Olavs Gate to Lian. A private company, Gråkallbanen, had been founded to operate the trams without subsidies. Agreements were made to take over seven of the trams from Trondheim Trafikkselskap. The trams would remain owned by the municipality, but rented free of charge to the new company.
After all the agreements were in place, TT announced on 30 December 1989 that it had found a new buyer for the trams. An agreement had been made with the Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
-based Unimex Engineering, who would sell the eleven trams to the Cairo Tramway. On 2 January 1990, TT sent a letter to Gråkallbanen giving them the option to purchase the trams for the same price as the Egyptians, at an estimated NOK 17–20 million. However, Gråkallbanen pointed out to the politicians that is was possible to purchase used articulated trams for DEM 20,000 from the Stuttgart Stadtbahn
Stuttgart Stadtbahn
The Stuttgart Stadtbahn is a light rail system in Stuttgart, Germany. It is operated by the Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG , which also operates the bus systems in that city...
. The company took the press with it to Stuttgart to negotiate the agreement, and the following Adresseavisen
Adresseavisen
Adresseavisen is a regional newspaper published daily, except Sundays, in Trondheim, Norway. It is an independent, conservative newspaper with a daily circulation of approximately 85,000. It is also informally known as Adressa. The newspaper covers the areas of Trøndelag and Nordmøre.Adresseavisen...
presented the cities new trams to the people. However, by the time the delegation had returned, they were informed that the deal had been annulled. Adresseavisen tried to locate Unimex in Copenhagen, but it turned out to be a company that had never sold a tram. At a press conference in Trondheim, the director of TT blamed Arbeider-Avisa
Arbeider-Avisa
Arbeider-Avisa was a daily newspaper published in Trondheim, Norway, started in 1924 and defunct in 1996...
's journalists for the deal not going through. When asked about the matter, representatives from the tramway company in Cairo said that the deal did not go through because the trams did not fit.