Prague did not care about them, yet it did. Now the T6 trams in its streets have been running for more than a quarter of a century – ČT24 – Czech Television
What broke the neck of the T6 trams in Prague? After all, for a quarter of a century, there is no age for decommissioning of a rail vehicle, but rather for a thorough reconstruction, which may be followed by another fifteen or twenty years in operation. After all, the fact that the demand for discarded “six” came not only from Ukraine, but also from Bulgaria and Brno, which are quite promising vehicles.
The main problem was that they were already coming to Prague as conceptually obsolete. For comparison, proudly low-floor articulated trams from Adtranz have been to Berlin and Munich for several years in 1995. followed at that time by the reconstruction of older Konstal trams, which were given a low-floor part – but Prague has just begun to take over the “sixteen”.
In addition, during their delivery, extensive modernizations of older T3 trams began, which thus reached a standard comparable to T6 or even higher (new equipment, identical seats, in some cases a new, partially low-floor cabinet), the same applies to articulated KT8 trams and, in the new century, the desired deliveries of new low-floor trams also took place.
In the original version, the T6A5 trams are also expensive to operate. “Their electricity appliances are the most demanding of all other types of trams currently in operation,” said a spokeswoman for the transport company. Trams do not require so-called recuperation, unlike new vehicles and reconstructed “threesomes”. According to this transport company, possible modernizations would require large investments, as some parts used in electrical equipment are no longer produced.
There was relatively little T6 tram. In the sum of 75 thirty-meter sets (150 fifteen-meter solo cars) there is a fraction of the number of T3 trams, but also new low-floor thirty-meter Škoda 15T vehicles – 250 were received by the transport company (it is a replacement for up to 500 individual classic cars).
Nevertheless, not all T6 cars survived in operation. These trams suffered several very serious accidents, four cars had to be scrapped because of them, and because there was a problem with the availability of spare parts from the beginning, some trams were always shut down as their new source. As a result, the “six” were atypical for Prague (literally from the front coupler to the rear) and their further maintenance in operation did not pay off for the transport company.