Worlds Longest Trolleybus Line
In Vancouver, we think of trolleybuses as a holdover from the streetcar days; a sort of green transit system used primarily in Vancouver and a few other cities in North America. What was once the replacement for the streetcars, are themselves seeing waning days.
Not so in Russia, where trolleybuses are seen as a work horse transit mode, with the flexibility to both carry passengers and freight and over long distances too.
The Crimea, which has been in the news recently also hosts the longest trolleybus route in the world, the 86 kilometre Simferopol to Yalta line.
From Wikipedia:
Managed by the public transport company Krymtrolleybus, it was built in 1959 in the Ukrainian SSR as an alternative to extending the railway line in Simferopol over the mountains to the coast. It opened in two parts: Simferopolai??i??Alushta in 1959 and Alushtaai??i??Yalta in 1961. The journey time to Alushta is about 1A? hours, to Yalta about 2A? hours, and the fare is about 15 hryvnias
It passes through the Crimean Mountains across the Angarskyi Pass, reaching 752 metres (2,500Ai??ft) at the highest point, then descends to the resort town of Alushta on the coast. The remaining distance to Yalta is 41 kilometres (25Ai??mi) and winds around the mountains above the sea.
Ai??koda 9Tr and Ai??koda 14Tr vehicles are used, being replaced from 2010 by Bohdan T601-11 trolleybuses.
From the Gulf News.
http://gulfnews.com/news/world/other-world/world-s-longest-trolleybus-route-rolls-on-in-crimea-1.1314770
“Not so in Russia, where trolleybuses are seen as a work horse transit mode” – do I understand you correctly, does Rail for Valley support Russia’s annexation of Crimea? Please comment.
Zwei replies: As Russia has a lot of trolleybus operations, including the longest trolleybus route, it is only natural to write a post. RftV takes no political stand in the Crimean fiasco, nor will we as we only do stories on transit, nothing more.