Light Rail Atlas

All texts and photos Kiev: (C) Light Rail Atlas, December 2000
Russian names converted from thet russian alphabet according to the english convention.

Update, June 2004
Bad news from Kiev - According to our LRTA-source, on the 9 of June, a large section of the Kiev tram lines (from Square of the Great Patriotic War to the Leningradska sq., route # 21, 27, 31) were suddenly abandoned. The decision to abandon the tram lines was taken by the city mayor without notification to passengers. The last tram with passengers passed the Paton bridge at 20:00. Immediately after that workers began to remove rail tracks from the bridge.

New metro, old trolleybus and new bus-taxis
Photo: (C) Light Rail Atlas/Rob van der Bijl; Kiev, August 12, 2001

Update, March 2002 The performence of many of the tramways in the former Sovjet Union is not very well. There is a lack of money; insufficient maintainance and new investments. In many cities private bus-taxis compete with the trams, for instance in Kiev. The director of the tramway in Vladivostok has been murdered in the summer of 2001 by the mafia bustaxi-operator after she had planned to reorganize the bustaxi in her city in order to end the rivalry.
Kiev has planned a new Light Rail line from Vatutinsky in the northeast to the centre. However, the construction has been postponed for at least two years due to money spending for a new national monument in de centre of Kiev. Recently a plan is revealed to close a large part of the tramway system.
After years of delay a new Kiev-metro extensition is opened in 2001. A year later such extensions came into operation in Novosibirsk (Russia) and Tashkent (Uzbekistan).
Some tramway routes has been abondened in the inner city of St.Petersburg. Some routes in other cities are also closed.
Nevertheless there is some good news as well. Moscow renews the tramway and introduces new trams (KTM19). In some other cities new Tatra-trams has been introduced as well, for example in Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine) and Tashkent (later this year).
The Moscow-metro is extended substantially. New designed Light Rail lines in the periphery of the city will be used as feeders to the metro.

Kiev The city of Kiev in the Ukraine owns a large tramway network (1892). Since 1979 Kiev built a small network of 'express tramways', which earns - despite its simple form - the predicate Light Rail.

The trams of type T3, built in Prague, run on the city network, as well as on the express tramways of the Light Rail-system. It is no big deal for the ordinary public. They just wait for the (next) tram.

There is a complicated system of city transportation functioning in Kyiv [Kiev]. The transportation of passengers in the city is done by subway, tramways, trolley-buses and buses as well as by automobiles. In 1991-1996 special attention was paid to the development of such kinds of transport as subway and high-speed tramway [Light Rail; LRA].
The most important part of the transportation network of Kyiv of those built recently is Siretsko-Pecherska subway branch along with the Pivdenniy bridge across the Dnipro river built for both subway and automobiles.
In the southern part of the left bank, in Troyeshchina, there is the construction of the first high-speed tramway complex going on, and the branch of this tramway is connecting the largest district of the city with the subway branches and the central regions of the left bank. [however, the progress is unclear; LRA]
During the last five years, despite the lack of funds, the pace of the construction of the subway in Kyiv tripled from 1 km to 3 km per year.
The big problem for the city is the rapid growth of the number of cars. At the beginning of the year 1997 (according to the Kyiv Municipal Statistics Department) the number of cars compared to the beginning of 1991 increased more than 1.5 times and made 333.5 thousand of cars or approximately 127 cars per 1000 people. There is an expanded electric transportation network (26 tramway and 34 trolley-bus lines) that has a lot of problems as well.

Light Rail in Kiev The system is built between 1967 and 1978. It is an enlargement of the city network at the west and southwest side of the urban area, connecting a huge new housing site with the centre of the city. It is operated by three lines. Line 1 (opened in 1980) starts in the centre (Palats Sportu) and shares the first few kilometers with some conventional tramways. At the edge of the centre (Pl. Peremogy) the actual Light Rail-alignment commences. At that location the terminus of 1K and 3 (opened in 1979) is situated.

City (grey) and express network (red) Kiev
Map: (C) Light Rail Atlas, December 2000

The Light Rail-system contains about 14 kilometer segregated double track; the complete network (1994) contains about 120 kilometer of double track. At the edge of the urban era the express tramway splits into two branches; line 3 runs straight on for 1 kilometer, while line 1 keeps a southern direction for some kilometers. A depot is connected to this later branche.

A TramTrain containing 3 Tatra T3's of line 3 on its way to Kil'tseva Doroga is just passing the division of the two branches.
The system is elaborated soberly. Stops and viaducts are materialized in rough concrete. The shape of the system looks reasonable, that is, compared to the general state of infrastructure and public transport in the Ukraine. Tracks, vehicles and amenities are well kept.

Officially the Light Rail-systeem is still under construction. The current network should be extended to Troyeshchina, a large district on the left bank, in the southern part of the city. For long time however there isn't any news on progress of this project.
In the meantime the metro is enlarged continually, officially about 1-3 kilometer each year.

Light Rail in the former SU As Light Rail is concerned the company of Kiev is not unique. Since 1969 in the former Sovjet Union many of this kind of systems are opened. All of them shares the characteristics of the one in Kiev. This applies for the type of vehicles and the form of the infrastructure.
Striking is the fact that for Light Rail-systems, or in the russian langage 'express-tramways', no new vehicle types are designed.

The last years the development has come to a standstill. Nevertheless Light Rail in the former Sovjet Union got clearly its place. New systems were opened since 1974, while extisting tramway networks were enriched with Light Rail-branches. An overview:

Barnaul, Russia/Siberia (1985)

Cheryomushki, Russia/Siberia (new, 1991)

Zhevsk, Russia/Ural (1982)

Kiev, Ukraine (1979-1980)

Krivoy Rog, Ukraine (1986)

Mozyr, Belarus' (new, 1988)

Novopolotsk, Belarus' (new, 1974)

Saratov, Russia/Volga (1974)

Staryi Oskol, Russia/Volga (new, 1981)

Ust-Llimsk, Russia/Siberia (new, 1988)

Volgograd, Russia/Volga (1972-1984)

In Krivoy Rog and Volgograd the Light Rail-system uses tunnels.
Completely new systems, like Mzyr, are built and operated by industrial companies. The youngest system, that of Cheryomushki (1991), is built by a hydropower station. The almost 6 kilometer of Light Rail uses a former railway track. Three type LM-68M trams are used (produced by the Petersburg-factory).

A lot of the new Light Rail-companies are owned by the local industry. Recentely it has become clear that many of this industries want to get rid of their tramway. The local municipalities are not very eager to take over the tram. So, the future for many companies is rather unsure.

Metro station in Moscow
Photo: (C) Light Rail Atlas/Johan Meijer; Moskou, January 1995

Moscow (1935) and Saint-Petersburg (1955) posses large metro systems. Generally their tunnels are located very deeply. Usually central platforms are connected directly via rapid escalators and elevators to a station building on the surface. The average distance between two stations is 1-1.5 kilometer. Surface alignments are rarely.
These special properties of the Moscow and Saint-Petersburg metro apply for all other metro systems in the former Sovjet Union: Baku (1967), Dnepropetrovsk (1995), Khar'kov (1975), Kiev (1960), Minsk (1984), Nizhniy Novgorod (1985), Novosibirsk (1986), Samara (1987), Tashkent (1977), Tbilisi (1966), Yekaterinburg (1991) and Yerevan (1981).
Since the opening of the metro in Dnepropetrovsk (1995) some new lines and systems are built or planned (for example in Kazan). However the development is very slow indeed. Recently a new line is opened in Saint-Petersburg, but delayed at least several years. In the meantime in the same city part of a northern line is floaded for years now. This represents the current depression.
The Sovjet-metro technology is exported to different countries. Examples are the metro of Prague, Sophia and Warsaw.

Trams in the former SU The amount of tramways in the former Sovjet Union is large, namely 113 (in 1995). The social-economic situation in Russia, Belarus', Ukraine and the other states however gives good reason to be pessimistic. There is nearly no income; the cost-effectiveness is sometimes less than 20%.
By improvisation only the tramway companies manage to survive. In Odessa for example one won't succeed since free public transport has ruined the company; however LRA noticed busy tram traffic during the summer of 2000. In Dnepropetrovsk things are getting along; recently a new tramway is built over the Dnjepr river. But this is an exception. The bad maintainance of the old Sovjet-systems is generally striking. One can examine this in Saint-Petersburg, but also in smaller cities in the Ural, or in the southeastern Ukraine where the mine-industry is collapsing.
Private public transport grows rapidly. Each town got one or more private bus services. The nice tramway of Krasnodar in the North Caucasus operates besides the regular network - via a new undertaking - a private tramway network in order to avoid the obligate free transport for many categories of people (like elderly).

Vehicles in the Sovjet Union were standardized strongly. The most well known type is the KTM5. The Ust-Kataw factory produced more than 14.000 of these trams. The KTM8 is its modern successor. One is working on a complete new type of KTM, numbered 16, but its success is unsure. A new 'Sovjet'-tram should be capable of running on bad tracks. And moreover: there is no money in the cities to buy expensive trams.

Type Tatra T3
Photo: (C) Light Rail Atlas/Rob van der Bijl; Moscow, January 1995

A second group of trams is built by the famous Tatra factory in Prague. The T3 is the most common representative of this group. About 12.000 cars of this type were delivered.

Currently in Dnepropetrovsk the Tatra-Jug (T3M/T6) is assembled. Most tram cities lack the money to buy this new type of Tatra. Since 1997 some cars of this type run in Dnepropetrovsk.

Upto 1988 the russian tramfactory in Riga have built more than 6000 trams of the type RVZ-6. These trams looks as if they were all built in the fifties. They run for example in Kolomna. It's nice to see this scenic tramway landscape. A RVZ-6 is on its way to a mediaval nucleus in this russian town southeast of Moscow. There is no street, but there is a tramway; the snow covers everything!

Type LM-68M
Photo: (C) Light Rail Atlas/Rob van der Bijl; Sint Petersburg, January 1995

Saint-Petersburg got its own tramfactory. Upto 1995 2500 trams of the type LM-68M (including several variants) were deliverd for the city solely.
There are some other tram types in the former Sovjet Union (for example the East-German Gotha cars), but only in marginal numbers.

Kiev:
info on traffic and transport
general info on the city

Moscow:
http://tram.ruz.net

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All texts, maps, and photos:
(C) LRA/RVDB
Amsterdam 1999-2004

Special thanks to Johan Meijer, Anna Pargomenko, Light Rail Transit Association and Blickpunt Strassenbahn.