One of the biggest railway events in Slovakia, Rušňopárada, took place in Košice on the weekend of 24-25 May 2024. The main event took place in the railyard, but there were also some accompanying events. On Saturday morning, for example, the Pantograph electric multiple unit made its last round trip after half a century, marking its retirement.
The event was joined by DPMK, who on Saturday ran the Tatra T2R heritage tram number 212 on Line 6, with 7 rounds. Unlike the previous event, this one was at last properly advertised on their sites, and a poster of the event was placed at all the stops covered by the service. So of course I didn't miss this opportunity, chasing the T2 all day 🙂
The line 6 is very advantageous from a photographer's point of view, by the way, as the two ends are the same as the line 2. However, while the middle section of the 6 takes a big detour towards the housing estate, the 2 cuts through it on a short route. So tram 2 could easily overtake the Tatra, allowing two shots to be taken in one run. But in some cases lines 1, 4, and 7 could also be used for this purpose. That's what you get when you have a well-organised, extensive tram network in a city.
A total of 771 Tatra T2s were produced between 1955 and 1962. Not too surprisingly, it was the successor to the Tatra T1 and the predecessor to the Tatra T3. The T2 was a rather larger, more massive tram than the T1, closer in dimensions to the T3. However, it was also significantly heavier than the T1, so the main concern in developing the T3 was to lighten the bodywork, which had to be completely redesigned.
The modernisation of the T2 was the T2R in the 1970s. This involved the installation of electrical equipment similar to that in the T3, the replacement of the leather seats in the passenger compartment by the plastic seats familiar from the T3, and the installation of dual headlights in some cases.
The model in Košice, built in 1960, is 64 years old this year. It originally ran in Ostrava with the number 619, from where it arrived in February 1998 to be restored and become part of the city's nostalgia fleet.
It was interesting to ride the tram, as some things worked differently here than on the normal daily trams. The most noticeable was that the tram did not have a device to adjust the switches, so in addition to the tram driver, there was another crew member who would get off at each intersection and manually adjust the switch.
The second is that the tram does not have stop request buttons. So at stops where there were no passengers waiting for the tram, the passengers were watched very carefully to see if anyone wanted to get off. Where there were no passengers wanted to get off, we passed without slowing down.
As the saying goes, what can go wrong, will go wrong. The T2 was no different, but fortunately it did so late enough. After its last lap, it was just about to go to the depot when something went wrong. So this last run, which was originally scheduled for passenger service, could only be completed with the Tatra towed behind a Vario.
All in all, it was a good day, I hope I'll have the chance to ride the T1 one day 🙂
Content:
0:00 Outside filming
7:52 Interior shots
8:10 Short riding scene
10:48 Outside filming
11:36 Short riding scene
12:39 Outside filming
12:59 Towing to the depot
13:46 Closing screen