The City of Brno, together with the Brno Transport Company (DPMB) will deliver two trams and six trolleybuses to Ukraine. A part of the donation was symbolically accepted by the representative of the Kharkiv municipality, Alexey Yurievich Palant, on Komenského náměstí today. Photo credit: Marie Schmerkova
Brno, 2 May (BD) – Today, the Mayor of Brno, Markéta Vaňková, and a representative of the Kharkiv municipality, Alexey Yurievich Palant, performed a symbolic handover of trams and trolleybuses to the city of Kharkiv on Komenského náměstí. The vehicles will then be transported to the Kharkiv as soon as there is no threat of their destruction, as the city is still at war.
“War-damaged Kharkiv, which is our partner city, urgently needs to restore its infrastructure and public services,” said Vaňková. “One form of effective and quick-to-implement aid is the donation of trams and trolleybuses. So I approached DPMB to see if it could provide the vehicles that it is about to retire as part of its fleet renewal. As a result, we have two T3 trams and six 14Tr trolleybuses immediately available. At the same time, we have managed to agree with Gepard Express, the company that transported material aid to Ukraine, that it is able to provide transport within a week or so.”
“These are vehicles that are still in service with us, but we are able to let them go without affecting the quality of services. They undergo regular servicing, so even though they date back to the 1980s and 1990s, thanks to their good condition they can still be used for many years,” added Miloš Havránek, Director General of DPMB.
“We will again go to the town of Mostyska, which is 12 kilometres from the Polish border and about 60 kilometres from Lviv. Here, we will be reloading onto broad gauge wagons. The trams have to be taken to the workshops, where their gauge will be changed so that they can be used in Kharkiv, while the trolleybuses can theoretically start right away. It will also be discussed whether they will be temporarily used elsewhere in the meantime,” said Albert Fikacek, head of Gepard Express.
