MTB-82
The MTB-82 is the designation of a type of Soviet trolleybus. The rigid buses were initially developed and manufactured by the Zavod No. 82 armaments plant in the Moscow suburb of Tushino. In 1951, series production was transferred to the civilian company Zavod imeni Uritskogo, which was located in the Saratov Oblast, RSFSR. This company currently operates under the name Trolza.
The series designation is composed of the abbreviation for Moscow Trolley Bus and the number of the developer company. The employees of the transport company have colloquially designated these trolleys "Emtebeshka," a diminutive of the abbreviation in Russian.
The Zavod No. 82 designed the model in 1945 to meet the needs of Soviet transport companies for trolleybuses. In terms of contemporary vehicle construction, the MTB-82 featured conservative or partially outdated technical solutions. These included the heavy load-bearing floor frame with removable body and the non-automatic contactor control. The series was considered uncomfortable for drivers and passengers. Conversely, the vehicles were constructed in a simple, robust, and durable manner and were reliable if the requisite maintenance was carried out correctly. These characteristics, in conjunction with the vehicle's widespread use and long service life, contributed to the design's economic success. Following the resumption of armaments production at Plant No. 82 in 1951, the ZiU continued to manufacture the MTB-82. In 1960, this manufacturer was able to complete work on the successor model, the ZiU-5. Subsequently, production of the MTB-82 was terminated in the same year.
In total, both manufacturers constructed approximately 5,000 MTB-82s, with 3,746 units designated as ZiUs. These vehicles were deployed in numerous Soviet cities and exported to select Central and Eastern European countries. Approximately ten years after the conclusion of series production of the MTB-82, the number of operational trolleybuses of this type began to decline rapidly. The delivery of numerous ZiU-5s, and later ZiU-9s and Škoda 9Trs, rendered the maintenance of the obsolete vehicles superfluous, resulting in the MTB-82s being phased out of service by 1975. A few examples were preserved as museum vehicles or technical monuments.
History
Previous history
The Soviet Union's inaugural trolleybus network commenced operations in Moscow in 1933. This novel mode of public transportation rapidly garnered recognition from both the state leadership and passengers. Even before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in June 1941, trolleybuses were introduced in Leningrad, Rostov-on-Don, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Kharkiv, and Stalino. Even the onset of the war did not impede this development. During the war years, new trolleybus operations were established in the cities of Baku, Kuybyshev, Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Alma-Ata, and Odesa. The vehicles of the YaTB series manufactured in Yaroslavl constituted the foundation of the Soviet trolleybus fleet. Their official designation was the abbreviation of Yaroslavl Trolleybus. Four models were produced in series: YaTB-1, YaTB-2, YaTB-3 and YaTB-4. The YaTB-1 and YaTB-2, as well as the most commonly produced YaTB-4, were conventional single-deck vehicles, whereas the YaTB-3, which was manufactured in limited quantities, was a double-decker. Additionally, the Moscow trolleybus company owned a few imported vehicles of British origin, as well as vehicles from the earlier LK series. The latter was the inaugural trolleybus design developed and manufactured in the USSR, and it was plagued by numerous technical deficiencies.During the war years the entire trolleybus production was stopped and the new companies used vehicles withdrawn from Moscow. The former manufacturer of the YaTB series in Yaroslavl was converted to the production of engines and artillery tractors with the outbreak of the war. In 1943 an air raid almost completely destroyed the production. When the war ended, the rebuilt plant did not return to trolleybus production, but the transport companies that had opened in large cities had a great need for vehicles. As a solution to this problem, the state leadership issued an order to organize the production of trolleybus vehicles at Plant No. 82 in the Moscow suburb of Tushino. In peacetime, this factory was temporarily without orders - the Soviet Air Force had a sufficient number of piston-engine aircraft, but the necessary jet aircraft were still in the early stages of development and not ready for series production. This decision helped the industry in two ways: On the one hand, it made it possible to build new trolleybuses, while at the same time keeping the factory workers employed.
Development
The development of civilian vehicles resumed as early as 1944, with models from the United States exerting a strong influence on the thinking of Soviet designers. The large deliveries under the loan and lease laws during the war, the licenses acquired in the United States for engines and other equipment for their own automotive industry, as well as the many specialists working there, resulted in a very strong orientation to the American school of engineering. Many special features of the vehicles from the United States were adopted by the Soviet industry. US trolleybuses were also the subject of intensive research. In particular, the most advanced models had spacious, self-supporting all-metal bodies and electrical equipment with automatic contactor control. However, the Soviet Union wanted the simplest and cheapest solutions that could be put into production in a short time. As a result, the chassis of the slightly modified pre-war YaTB-5 prototype went into series production at Plant No. 82. The changes in the design of the floor frame, suspension, and power transmission compared to the original design were intended to accommodate a new body. The non-automatic contactor control remained unchanged in its operation, as it had already been implemented in the YaTB-4. Overall, the combination of these technical components can be regarded as a conservative or outdated design, but for the Soviet trolleybus construction it had an advanced component - the all-metal body. The pre-war models, such as the YaTB-4, were equipped with a wooden body, which wore out quickly. The exterior design was based on the YaTB-4 with its sloping double-edged front resembling an iron.The sides with two rows of windows and the rear were similar to those of US buses or PCC trams of the time. However, the foreign influence on the exterior design remained limited. The body was made of a lightweight frame and riveted steel plates. The first series-produced MTB-82s left factory no.82 in 1945.
The following year, the manufacturer switched to the next and final version, the MTB-82D. The steel body of the original MTB-82 was considered too heavy by the engineers, so a new, lighter version was developed with an aluminum paneling. The iron-like front section was replaced by a vertical and flat front. The power of the main engine was also increased and the contactor control system was adjusted accordingly. There were no further design changes until the end of production in 1960 or 1961.
Series production
Plant No. 82 quickly organized the production of bodies for the MTB-82, and by 1945 their number had already exceeded the number of chassis available for assembly. Therefore, fully assembled bodies were used for the conversion of pre-war trolleybuses of type YaTB-1, YaTB-2 or YaTB-4. The wooden body was removed and all mechanical, pneumatic and electrical equipment of the chassis was extensively overhauled. After this work the new body was mounted on the renovated chassis. The trolleybuses modified in this way directly from factory no. 82 received the designation MTB-82M. Externally they did not differ from the "real" MTB-82. Some of these bodies were sold to other transport companies for similar modernization of the old fleet or were delivered with state support.Another use for the body parts was found with the tram type MTV-82. The interior of the tram was fundamentally different from that of the trolleybus, which it resembled on the outside, and especially the MTV-82 was not developed on the basis of the MTB-82. In 1945, the Moscow car repair plant SWARS designed the underframe, the bogies and the pneumatic and electric systems of the MTW-82 independently of Plant No. 82. It was only later that the engineers proposed an unusual solution for using the large quantities of available MTB-82 car body parts for the new tram. It also promised a saving in manufacturing costs for both cars. The first experiences with an extended trolleybus body on a tram chassis were not very successful - the flat and wide nose led to difficulties when two vehicles met in the numerous curves of the old narrow streets of Moscow. To solve this problem, the most commonly built variant of the MTV-82 was given a narrower front with sloping surfaces towards the sides of the body. This reduced the number of common body parts. Nevertheless, both vehicles were built in Plant No. 82 and shared many components of the other equipment, such as the passenger seats, the electric heating, light bulbs along with ceiling lights, the pneumatic drive for the windshield wiper, some valves, the measuring devices and so on. This was a favorable factor for the above-mentioned savings.
At the end of the 1940s, Plant No. 82 achieved a stable production of tram and trolleybus vehicles. In view of the further expansion of both types of public transport during the post-war reconstruction, the Soviet economy's demand for such vehicles remained steady and increased. However, tensions in international relations between the former Allies during the Second World War increased. The Soviet government decided to return Plant No. 82 to the production of military aircraft and rocket weapons. Civilian production was to be transferred to other companies. Rīgas Vagonbūves Rūpnīca was awarded the contract to build the MTV-82. The resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1761 of February 28, 1950 obliged the Vagonostroitelny Zawod imeni Uritskogo in the city of Engels to organize the large-scale production of trolleybuses. In August 1951 the first MTB-82 built there were delivered to the customers. A total of 21 vehicles were produced that year. After the start of assembly line production, the plant, now renamed Zawod imeni Uritskogo, was able to fulfill its plans to build the required number of trolleybuses for export and for its own needs.
The design of the MTB-82 built by ZiU remained unchanged, only the T-shaped emblem of factory no. 82 was replaced by a five-pointed star. There were no further improvements to the design of the vehicle, all efforts were concentrated on the project of a successor type to be worked out by the ZiU engineering collective. The main innovations of this new development were to be a spacious, self-supporting body and an indirect, fully automatic contactor control system. This process went through several intermediate stages and was completed in 1959 with the ZiU-5 trolleybus. It was accepted by the state commission for series production, although the design had some teething troubles. These were solved during production on the assembly line, but the MTB-82 continued to be built until the ZiU-5 reached an acceptable level in mass production. In 1960 the order was given to switch completely to the production of the ZiU-5, but the operational process was "sluggish" in terms of consumption of previously manufactured and stored spare parts. Completed MTB-82 were also stored for some time and delivered to trolleybus operators even after the end of series production. The last ones were delivered in 1961. ZiU built altogether 3746 vehicles of this type.
The total number of MTB-82 built is not exactly known. The documents of the armament factory no. 82 are probably still classified, for the same reason that the tram and trolleybus vehicles built there did not receive a type plate with a factory number. Based on the low capacities and the production time of the factory No. 82 in comparison to the SiU, the total production is estimated at 5000 vehicles.