Lviv is preparing to put the first trams on the road, which are being donated to our city by Berlin. Today, two cars are being refurbished in the car repair shops of Lvivelectrotrans.
One of them is almost ready and it is planned that it will be on the line by the end of June. Lviv has already received 7 trams. There will be 12 in total. All of them are energy-efficient.
Tram cars arrive in Lviv at the Lvivelectrotrans depot on Promyslova Street. From there, they are transported on trolleys to the company’s car repair shops on Horodotska Street. Here, the trams are converted to the Lviv gauge, some equipment is changed, and they are painted.
“In Berlin, the track gauge is 1435 cm, so we need to convert the cars to fit our 1000 cm gauge. To do this, we use bogies from our decommissioned trams and re-equip Berlin cars so that they can run on the streets of our city,” said Oleg Zabarylo, director of the Department of Urban Mobility and Street Infrastructure.
Volodymyr Kovaliv, head of Lvivelectrotrans, added that along with the replacement of the trolley, the cars are also being repaired.
“In particular, the craftsmen go through motors, gearboxes, electric brakes, shock absorbers, etc. It is also necessary to replace the pantograph parts. In other words, all the necessary work is being done to make the tram run on our track. In addition, the trams are painted,” said Volodymyr Kovaliv.
The first car is expected to be put on the line by the end of June. It is planned that Berlin trams will run on routes 3 and 6.
“Berlin wagons, which we received in 2018-2019, ran on these routes. They have already worked out a certain resource. We will gradually withdraw them to replace the equipment. Accordingly, the newly received trams will run on the lines instead,” said Volodymyr Kovaliv.
According to Oleh Zabarylo, the city plans to receive the remaining 5 trams from this batch in June – early July this year. Then they will be refitted in stages and put on the routes.
The official stressed that the availability of Berlin trams will allow for more energy-efficient use of rolling stock. “They consume 2-2.5 times less electricity than existing trams. This is a significant saving, given that electricity is quite expensive in Ukraine today,” said Oleg Zabarylo.
As a reminder, 12 KT4D work cars and spare parts are being donated to Lviv by the Berlin Transport Company.
In addition, between July this year and early next year, Lviv will also receive 11 used working trams, spare parts and equipment from Bern for free.
It is worth noting that the city has recently significantly renewed its electric transport rolling stock. Thus, in 2021-2024, with loans from the European Investment Bank as part of the Urban Public Transport of Ukraine project Lviv purchased 10 modern low-floor Electron trams. In addition, Lviv plans to modernise existing trams to adapt them to transport people with reduced mobility.