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Potsdam Babelsberg. Obus 978, Route B,Jan 1990

A very dull and wet day in Potsdam....the trolleybus system here ended four years later in January 1995. Only two lettered routes were operated, the A and B, loops around Babelsberg, quite some way from the tourist trail in Potsdam. Construction of the high-speed ICE rail link to Berlin caused services to be trunkated before the level crossing in 1993. The poor condition of the stock and infrastructure caused the final abandonment. (i.e. underinvestment)

The Skoda 14TRCar no 978 (formerly 408) was new to Weimar in 1983, and was later in service in service in Almaty Kazakhstan as no. 1218, later 3052 until the end of 2005, after a spell in Ostrava.. Identical Potsdam car no 976 is preserved in Berlin. These 1983-4 vehicles were purchased for the 3 remaining DDR trolleybus systems of Potsdam, Eberswalde and Weimar due to fears relating to the oil crisis of the 1970s. Eberswalde is now the only system still operating in the former GDR territory.

The sad end of 978 can be seen here. It seems that there is quite a bit of local interest in transport in in Almaty..The site can be explored from these links.

Potsdam 14Trs no 972/974/973 became Zlin 402/4//3 and eventually Chernivtsi 333-5 in Ukraine.

Another slide taken near here at the same time is here

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Uploaded on February 5, 2009
Taken on February 5, 2009