Trolleybuses in Chisinau, Moldova

[Eugen1985]

Hello to everyone on this forum. My name is Eugen and I live in Denmark but originally I come from Moldova, a former soviet country situated between Romania and Ukraine. Within cities Moldova has 2 kinds of public transport buses and trolleybuses. Today Moldova has 4 trolleybus cities: Chisinau, Balti, Tiraspol and Bender. The last 2 cities are situated on the other side of Moldova called Tranistria which is a break away republik, oficially still a part of Moldova. Chisinau, the capital of Moldova which I come from had also trams. Sadly during the second World War the tramway network was heavily damaged. After the war it was decided to replace the trams with trolleybuses and the first trolleybus route opened in 1949.

Today Chisinau has the biggest trolleybus network in Moldova with 32 trolleybus routes and a fleet of over 300 trolleybuses distributed over 3 trolleybus depots which serves various parts of the city. The company which operates the trolleybus network is state - owned. Various types of trolleybuses are in daily service, both traditional trolleybuses and newer lowfloor trolleybuses which are wireless and can work both with and without overhead wires. With this generation of the newest lowfloor trolleybuses it has been possible to expand the network to the parts of the city were there are no overhead wires but also to connect Chisinau to neighbouring villiages. Like for example the trolleybus route 30 which connects Chisinau to Chisinau International Airport. In addition to the new lowfloor trolleybuses, several second hand lowfloor trolleybuses have been aquirred from various countries like Latvia, Switzerland and Austria.

Most of the models of the trolleybuses in service are lowfloor. However a few older highfloor trolleybuses are also in service like for example the YUMZ T2 trolleybuses.

In addition Chisinau has also 2 museum trolleybuses which are preserved in working condition. And there are also plans to preserve a model of each trolleybus for the museum as well in the future after retirement from service, of the models of trolleybuses which are in service today. Chisinau has also a small transportation museum located in Trolleybus Depo number 4 which was once a tram depo and is used now for assembling new trolleybuses and to repair and modernize older trolleybuses. The museum is free of charge and worth visiting. From next year there are plans to remove all the museum trolleybuses which are now stored in various trolleybus depots, to this depo next to the museum.

During the years and recently in 2023 I was on vacation in Moldova and I have various pictures of both buses and trolleybuses in Chisinau, Moldova which are mine and which I want to share on this forum. I hope it will be interesting for other people to read. I have also pictures of buses from Chisinau and other transportation pictures from other countries which I visited which I will also upload on this forum but I will make other threads for this.

Questions are always welcome :-)

[Eugen1985]

This MTB - 82, the first Museum trolleybus in Chisinau preserved in working condition. This is one of the six trolleybuses which in 1949 - 1950 opened the first trolleybus route in Chisinau. The pictures are from 2017 and I have also pictures of this trolleybus from 2023. This trolleybus is preserved in the first trolleybus depot.

MTB-82 is a Soviet high-floor trolley bus of medium capacity for intraurban passenger transportation, serially produced from 1946 to 1961. The total number of produced MTB-82 exceeds five thousand trolley buses. This allowed MTB-82 to occupy a dominant position among the models of trolley buses that operated in the USSR in the 1950s. The majority of trolley buses of this type were decommissioned in the late 1960s - early 1970s. The last MTB-82 was suspended from work with passengers at the end of 1983 in Kutaisi. Several MTB-82 are preserved in various soviet cities. Initially, the MTB-82 was launched at the plant No. 82 of the People's Commissariat of the USSR Aircraft Industry in Tushino outside Moscow (currently the Tushino Machine-Building Plant). In 1951, production was moved to the Uritsky plant in the city of Engels, Saratov region (currently CJSC "Trolza").
MTB-82 was centrally supplied to the overwhelming majority of those who worked in 1946-1960. Trolleybus companies of the USSR. Since at that time there were no other domestic manufacturers of trolleybuses, except Plant No. 82 and since 1951 ZiU, until the withdrawal from production, MTB-82 was an uncontested option. In the already existing by 1946 trolleybus companies, MTB-82 worked together with the pre-war YTB vehicles, and in the newly created until 1960 they were the pioneers of the movement and occupied a monopoly position - there were simply no other brands of rolling stock. Even after the mass release of ZiU-5 began, the share of MTB-82 remained significant for a long time. MTB-82 worked in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Gorky, Krasnoyarsk, Chisinau, Baku, Kuibyshev, Kharkov, Voronezh and many other cities of the USSR. After the end of the mass production of MTB-82, they worked for a long time on urban routes and were often written off not because of technical condition (it more than allowed for further operation), but as morally obsolete machines. Due to the supply of more numerous ZiU-5, and later ZiU-9, there was no point in trying to keep the old cars. Therefore, mainly by 1970-1975. MTB-82 disappeared from the streets of USSR cities, and a few remaining trolleybuses of this brand became official or museum cars. In some trolleybus companies of Georgia MTB-82 worked until the beginning of the 1980s, there were some cases in other trolleybus systems when MTB-82 "were delayed at work". For example, in Gorky (1947-1971), extremely narrow and small depot rooms No. 1 in the Upper Part of the city could not serve the ZiU-5 overall, so until 1971 it operated only with the MTB-82, while in the Zarechnoye ZiU-5 they completely superseded. MTB-82 also worked in several foreign countries of the socialist bloc: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia.

[Eugen1985]

This is the second part of my pictures of the soviet MTB - 82 museum trolleybus from 1950 preserved in working condition in Chisinau, Moldova

[Eugen1985]

This is the final part of my pictures of the soviet MTB - 82 museum trolleybus from 1950 preserved in working condition in Chisinau, Moldova

[Fazer9553]

A lot of detailed information there.
The vehicle looks to be low and wide.....

[Eugen1985]

Originally Posted by Fazer9553

A lot of detailed information there.
The vehicle looks to be low and wide.....

It is low because on the day when I visited the trolleybus depo were this museum trolleybus is stored the front tire on the left side had deflated and the person who was responsable for maintaining this trolleybus was trying to inflate the tire back again. Later during the day the tire was inflated and the trolleybus was not low.

[Eugen1985]

A few months ago I was on vacation in Moldova for 2 weeks. During my vacation I took pictures of various trolleybuses in Chisinau, Moldova and visited all 3 trolleybus depots. Also the depo were this museum trolleybus is preserved. There are plans to move next year in the 4th trolleybus depo next to the transportation museum.

[Eugen1985]

This is the last part of the pictures from 2023 with the 1950 MTB - 82 Museum trolleybus in Chisinau, Moldova

[Eugen1985]

This is 1966 ZIU - 5D, the second museum trolleybus in Chisinau.

The pictures are from 2023.

It is the second museum trolleybus in Chișinău and was restored in 2012. It is in working condition and used for special occasions or trips with tourists. On the side the word excursie which means excursion in english. And once again I was able to take pictures inside the trolleybus. It is stored outside in the second trolleybus depo in Chișinău because there is not enough space in the garages in the depo. During summer it is very warm in Moldova and even though it has been painted the paint had faded. Before being used for special occasions or on trips with tourists it is painted fresh like on the first picture. In general It was built in the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1958. It was produced in mass production from 1959 to 1972 at the Uritsky plant in Engels, Saratov region (after the collapse of the USSR - Trolza JSC). The total number of produced ZiU-5 trolleybuses exceeds 16,000 units. This allowed ZiU-5 to occupy a dominant position among the Soviet-era models of trolleybuses. The last ZiU-5 was written off from work with passengers in the mid-late 1980s (the exact date varies from city to city). One of the last cities of the USSR, where ZiU-5 (late modifications of ZIU-5G and ZIU-5D) operated, were: Zhitomir, Dnepropetrovsk , Minsk , Moscow , Odessa and Leningrad were (the last ZIU - 5 trolleybus was in passenger service, according to various sources, until 1993 or even 1994. Local repair plants allowed longer lasting trolleybuses of this brand to last longer than in other places, thus their service life was extended to 16-17 years instead of the required 14 years. One of the last ZiU-5, actually working, and not being in the museum, was burnt in Kharkov in the spring of 2005. It was the laboratory of the contact network. A small number of preserved running ZiU-5 in the 1990's and 2000's became museum exhibits. and are now preserved in various museums. Trolley buses ZiU-5 were also sold for export to Budapest and Bogotá. In Budapest in 1966-1969, a total of 100 trolleybuses of this type were delivered. The first write-off occurred already in 1975, the last trolleybuses left the lines in 1982. Budapest drivers were unhappy with the fact that because of the unsuccessful placement of the cabin and doors, they had a poor overview on the right. In order to eliminate this drawback, in 1971-1975 the front door of all ZiU-5 was converted from four-leaved to tri-fold (the front leaf at the same time turned into a "window"). From this landing and landing in a trolley, already without sufficient number of doors at its capacity, even more lengthened. The electrical equipment of the first ZiU-5 decommissioned in Budapest (until 1978) was installed on early copies of Hungarian trolleybuses: Ikarus -260T and -280T.

[Eugen1985]

This is the final part of the pictures of ZIU -5D, the second museum trolleybus in Chisinau from 1966 in working condition. The pictures are from 2023.