Trolleybuses in former Soviet Union countries

Trolleybus

A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...

vehicle in Russia

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

was built in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

in 1902 at Frese machine-building factory. It utilised a carriage-type current collector

Current collector

Electric current collectors are used for trolleybuses, trams, electric locomotives or EMUsto lead electrical power from overhead lines or electrical third rails to the electrical equipment of the vehicles....

like the early von Siemens prototypes. There was no attempt to organize passenger or cargo services at this time.

The first operational trolleybus service was introduced in 1933 in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. In Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

cities with underground metropolitan railways

Rapid transit

A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...

, trolleybus systems were intended to replace tram

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...

cars. In reality such plans were partially performed in the 1950s rather than in the 1930s. The first Soviet-made passenger trolleybus LK-1 was named after Politburo member Lazar Kaganovich

Lazar Kaganovich

Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich was a Soviet politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire...

. It was a dangerous and unreliable vehicle, quickly replaced by more advanced YaTB vehicles. These cars, both passenger and cargo, were the mainstay of the Soviet trolley fleet before the World War II. At this time new trolleybus systems were opened in Leningrad

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, and a few other major Soviet cities.

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, new trolleybus systems were opened in the Soviet Union. The need for mass transit in cities away from the front was urgent, but construction of tram lines was too expensive and time-consuming. Buses were largely mobilised to the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

as staff and medical vehicles. The remains of the bus fleet quickly stalled due to fuel shortages. The trolleybuses proved a good solution. Some vehicles, wires and other equipment were evacuated from Moscow in 1941; these materials were used for erecting new lines and systems in other cities. In the front-line city of Leningrad, trolleybus service ceased operations in November 1941 and was not restored until the end of the war. City trams were relaunched in April 1942 and performed without interruption under siege conditions. This restored Soviet plans of mass transit development in the form of co-existence of subways, trams, and trolleys.

The postwar period saw an explosion of development and expansion of trolleybus systems in the Soviet Union. Many cities and towns introduced passenger and cargo trolleybus services, sometimes interfering with tram operations. One of the most notable of these new trolleybus systems was the Crimean Trolleybus

Crimean Trolleybus

Crimean Trolleybus Line in Crimea, Ukraine is currently the longest trolleybus line in the world. It is long, and runs between the autonomous republic's capital, Simferopol, and the coastal city of Yalta on the Black Sea....

, currently the world's longest trolleybus line. Production at the time was limited to the monopoly Zavod imeni Uritskogo (ZiU, named after Moisei Uritsky

Moisei Uritsky

Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia.He was born in the city of Cherkasy, Kiev Governorate, to a Jewish family. His father, a merchant, died when Moisei was little and his mother raised her son by herself.Moisei studied law at the University of Kiev...

). It produced thousands of MTB-82, ZiU-5

ZiU-5

The ZiU-5 is the Soviet trolleybus. The ZiU acronym stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo The ZiU-5 (in Russian ЗиУ-5) is the Soviet trolleybus. The ZiU acronym stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo The ZiU-5 (in Russian ЗиУ-5) is the Soviet trolleybus. The ZiU acronym stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo...

, and ZiU-9

ZiU-9

ZiU-9 is the Soviet trolleybus vehicle. Other names and indexes for the same vehicle include ZiU-682 and HTI-682 . The ZiU acronym stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo, which means plant named after Moisei Uritsky, the Russian revolutionary...

passenger trolleybuses for domestic purposes and for export. ZiU-5s and ZiU-9s were sold to Greece, Colombia, Argentina and Eastern Bloc countries. Three ZiU-9 cars were on loan in 1973 for testing purposes in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

, Finland.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to insufficient funding for many municipal trolleybus systems, but they proved more resilient than municipal tram or bus operations. Within the area of modern Russia, there is only one closed trolleybus system, in Shakhty

Shakhty

Shakhty is a city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the southeastern spur of Donetsk mountain ridge, northeast of Rostov-on-Don. Its population was 240,152 per the preliminary results of the 2010 Census; up from 222,592 recorded in the 2002 Census....

(whose operations ceased in October 2007). The suspended trolleybus operations from October 2006 in Archangelsk were reactivated in December 2007. The trolleybus system in Grozny

Grozny

Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...

was completely destroyed in the First Chechen War

First Chechen War

The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996...

; reconstruction is in planning. There is also one system with uncertain futures, in Voronezh

Voronezh

Voronezh is a city in southwestern Russia, the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast. It is located on both sides of the Voronezh River, away from where it flows into the Don. It is an operating center of the Southeastern Railway , as well as the center of the Don Highway...

. In other cities the development of trolleybus passenger services continues. Two new systems were introduced in Moscow suburbs Khimki

Khimki

Khimki is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, situated just northwest of Moscow, at the west bank of the Moscow Canal. Population: 207,125 ; 141,000 ; 106,000 ; 23,000 .-History:...

and Vidnoe in the second half of the 1990s. ZiU, now named Trolza, has lost its monopoly in producing trolley vehicles. Today a number of domestic factories offer trolleybuses for the Russian market.

Books

Murray, Alan (2000). World Trolleybus Encyclopaedia. Reading, Berkshire, UK: Trolleybooks. ISBN 0-904235-18-1.
Straßenbahnatlas ehem. Sowjetunion / Tramway Atlas of the former USSR (1996). Berlin: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Blickpunkt Straßenbahn, in conjunction with Light Rail Transit Association, London. ISBN 3-926524-15-4.
Tarkhov, Sergei (2000). Empire of the Trolleybus: Vol 1 - Russia. London: Rapid Transit Publications. ISBN 0-948619-02-3.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

See also

Books