# LODZ | Public Transport



## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Rombi said:


> Aren't all these cars on the left parked on pedestrian area?
> What is police doing about that?


I don't understand these things. Why doesn't it work in some cities or even countries? Checking the correct parking of cars is something that can be done cost neutral, it may be even yielding some surplus. And once its checked properly people won't ignore it anymore as they can expect a hefty fine. And in severe cases, like parking on a sidewalk or in a pedestrian zone, cars can also be moved to some parking lot with an even heftier fine if the car driver wants to have his car back. 

So what's the poblem?


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Rombi said:


> Aren't all these cars on the left parked on pedestrian area?
> What is police doing about that?


I don't understand these things. Why doesn't it work in some cities or even countries? Checking the correct parking of cars is something that can be done cost neutral, it may be even yielding some surplus. And once its checked properly people won't ignore it anymore as they can expect a hefty fine. And in severe cases, like parking on a sidewalk or in a pedestrian zone, cars can also be moved to some parking lot with an even heftier fine if the car driver wants to have his car back. 

So what's the poblem? Please don't tell me that it is actually allowed to park there.


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## 0tomek0 (Apr 8, 2013)

UPR20 said:


> Is the new PESA tram air-conditioned?


Yes, it is (and the whole order of 22 is getting A/C)


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

Well, are any cars incorrectly parked at all?

If you look at the picture rather close to the camera, just right to the "end of cycle lane" sign you clearly see some kind of road connecting the area where the cars are parked to the lane to the right near the camera with seven cars. There is no reasonable explanation for that connection unless you are supposed to drive a car, lorry or similar from the area with the parked car to the lane with the driving cars.

It could also be that the area with the parked cars are intended as a kiss-and-ride area or a taxi area, but with all construction work going on it is used as a parking place until some kind of permanent parking space outside of the cameras view is ready.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

ufonut said:


> Pesa tram in Lodz - one of the new 22 (?) trams started running in the city center,


Not yet started, this is still a test, but in a short time it should start. The second of them is just about to come. The third and the fourth one are also ready (at least according to what people are writing in the manufacturer's thread in the Polish section of SSC). From 005 to 011 are under construction, from 012 to 022 - the construction hasn't started yet. A crazy thing here is that theoretically all of them have to come to Łódź before 2015, December 31st to ensure the EU funding 

Also 40 new Solaris Urbino buses (20 single, 20 articulated ones) are currently coming to Łódź from the manufacturer.



Rombi said:


> Aren't all these cars on the left parked on pedestrian area?


This is a parking lot symultaneously - oficially. You can see a parking ticket machine there.

Interestingly, there is a publically accessible big underground parking space directly under the buildings visible at the left edge of the picture - but people tend to avoid it since it's much more expensive. Apart from the situation when you are going to watch a movie in a cinema located in one of these buildings (the other institutions are a hotel and a bank), with a cinema ticket the parking is free of charge for a few hours, but many people don't know about it, it's almost not advertised at all.

But regardless of that, the parking in illegal places is a real problem in Łódź. In Piotrkowska street (the main shopping/entertainment street, which is something like a pedestrian area) there is a problem with illegally parking taxi drivers. They are allowed to parked there only within a limited time, to wait for the customer who ordered the given cab, but at night they often treat the street as a taxi rank. The result are difficult to remove oil spots on the new street surface made of granite bricks.

People and NGOs are trying to point out the problem, but until now the only what the authorities were doing, were "show" actions, when the municipal police ("straż miejska" - funded by the city, their priviliges are somehow limited with respect to the state-funded "policja", but illegal parking is one of the issues they are supposed to be dealing with) was really fighting with them, but for only on one night or one weekend, and after that the previous situation every time returned. Recently, I have read that something began to change. We need to observe the situation.

Penalization of illegally parking drivers is something what is done in Łódź - usually not by taking a car to a police parking lot (it happenes only in the worst situations, like when someone blocks trams by wrong parking), but by installing a lock on a car wheel, which is also painful for the driver (he needs to wait for the police to come and to remove the lock). But what is done is not enough.

And there exist some strange cases like this street: https://goo.gl/maps/HndE43UiRC32

It's located in the neighbourhood of one of the two main universities in the city. In this photo it's empty, because it was taken in the holdays time. But normally, during the academic year, there is a lot of cars parked in this street, exactly behind this "parking prohibited" sign. And noone is doing anything with that.

What is more, noone is paying there for the parking, although this street is located within the paid parking zone (people are thinking that when there is no ticket machine, they are not obliged to pay - which is theoretically not true). And noone gets a fine ticket for that. Neither for illegal parking, nor for not paying.

The reason behind that seems to be the sign unter the one which prohibits parking: "Internal street, belongs to the municipal office". It's oficially not a public street (even though it's open to anyone and belongs to the city). And normally the highway code doesn't hold in such places, exactly like it doesn't hold on a backyard of any private house. But there are two exceptions from that in the Polish law. The first one is the case when breaking the highway code leads to a life danger, the second one is when there are road signs. And here we have a road sign...



An article from before about an our - just on time for the discussion 
http://www.expressilustrowany.pl/ar...na-taksowkarzy-posypaly-sie-mandaty,id,t.html
It's a local tabloid paper, but they are usually the fastest of all the local papers with any "tiny" informations, and this seems to be just an informative article.



> *Police hunt on taxi drivers - a lot of them fined*
> 
> Twenty seven fines, up to 500 zł (about 120 euro), was given today by the police on the taxi drivers in Piotrkowska street - Marzanna Boratyńska from the road traffic department of the police headquarters in Łódź informs.
> 
> ...


But it was during the day and the problem is mainly at night... As it can be seen in the photo.


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## sunnywander (Nov 27, 2015)

*Konstal 805Na tram*


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## sunnywander (Nov 27, 2015)

*Konstal 805Na Classic tram*


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Still the foundation of public transport in many Polish cities. Especially in Łódź.

But the tracks in Narutowicza street are renovated and they look really good


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## dexter2 (Apr 5, 2009)

New Pesa trams in Łódź


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

More on new Lodz Fabryczna:



JanVL said:


> *Lodz station*
> 
> 
> 
> ...





JanVL said:


> misiek-lodz said:
> 
> 
> > .
> ...


..



JanVL said:


> misiek-lodz said:
> 
> 
> > .
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Stable for unicorns:






This nickname has probably first appeared on SSC, and it's now used by all the local media (only one local tabloid wanted to create its own name, but they didn't rather succeed in that) and by the people living in the city.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Łódź Fabryczna and Kilińskiego street:



misiek-lodz said:


> .
> To jeszcze dla równowagi przeciwległy front robót  Zdzisie:
> 
> 1.
> ...


The other side - Nowotargowa, Tramwajowa and Węglowa streets - the works aren't so advanced yet:



misiek-lodz said:


> .
> To jeszcze dla równowagi przeciwległy front robót  Zdzisie:
> 
> 1.
> ...


POW street - fragment of a new tram line to the station:



phl said:


> 13. a tu P.O.W. ogrodzili nieprzebudowany dotąd fragment przy skrzyżowaniu ze Składową
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

A city bike system has started its operation.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Taken from Polish railways thread:



JanVL said:


> *Lodz Fabryczna by Tomzaw999*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Taken from Polish railways thread:



Kpc21 said:


> More Łódź Fabryczna:
> http://gtlodz.eu/img-wezel_multimodalny_w_budowie,38003.html


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Łódź Fabryczna from July 9th, A.D. 2016:


Grzechu_G said:


> Dokumentacja z dnia 9 lipca Roku Pańskiego 2016, ale ino z punktu


Ctd.:


Grzechu_G said:


> cd.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

^^

How will the tram track layout work?

It seems like trams from the lower right in the picture can't go to upper left, but every other direction is possible. Why?


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## Scizoid.Trans.Prog. (Mar 25, 2006)

Some moderator should change this thread title. In Polish language we use these specific letters which are for example "Ł", "Ó" and "Ź". To express some emotion or name things as they really mean something, you have to use these symbols, because there is no city called "Lodz". That is an example.
So moderator, please change the title of this thread to: "ŁÓDŹ | Public Transport".
Thank you.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

It looks like all the other cities in this forum don't have language-specific characters, so it's not such a problem. 
And adding them will not help the foreigners know how to pronounce this name 



MiaM said:


> ^^
> 
> How will the tram track layout work?
> 
> It seems like trams from the lower right in the picture can't go to upper left, but every other direction is possible. Why?


Well... The city decided to do it in the most stupid way possible. They are building tracks not knowing yet, 
how the tram network will look like after opening this new small piece of the network.

See:










The green lines is the current tram network, red are the tracks currently being built, and blue are the tracks
that are going to be built in the near future (within a few years; I am not sure about the correctness of the
connection with the red part).

It seems that there is no line planned, which would turn right from the Kilińskiego street (the middle vertical green line)
to the southern side of the park and then left along the park.

The opposite direction will be still useful, because thanks to it, a tram coming along the Kilińskiego street from the south,
in an emergency situation, will still be able to make a loop around the park and turn back.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Kpc21 said:


> It looks like all the other cities in this forum don't have language-specific characters, so it's not such a problem.
> And adding them will not help the foreigners know how to pronounce this name


Unless it has internationally-recongnised writing and pronunciation


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Ok, thanks for adding the proper spelling to the title 

About the internationally-recognized pronounciation, I haven't met a foreigner yet, who would know, how to pronounce this name correctly. Most of them really think it's pronounced "Lotz". Or, in the best case, using Polish spelling, "Loć".


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## Chris80678 (Sep 2, 2007)

I pronounce it as always WOODGE according to how native Polish people I have asked say it and my GCSE Polish background

If any native Polish speakers wish to correct me please do


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Yes, you are doing it right. But some native Poles told it to you, so you don't count 

Actually English doesn't distinguish between Polish "dż" and "dź", both of which are pronounced more or less like "dge" or "j" in English. Go to Google Translate, type Łódź in (or just copy it from here, typing Polish-specific letters might be difficult without a Polish keyboard layout set up), and press the listen button. Then type Łódż in and press the listen button. You will hear the difference. For "dź" you must keep your tongue more to the back, for "dż" closer to your teeth.

And actually it's more like Wooch rather than Woodge (although Woodge is the pronounciation equivalent to the Polish spelling), because this cosonant is at the end of the word and in such a case it "automatically" shifts to its "weaker" equivalent, since its difficult to pronounce it in the "proper" way. Most of the Poles don't even notice that, but it is so. Łódź and łóć (there is no such a word, but if it existed) are not different in pronounciation. The difference is only in the declination forms, for example "in Łódź" is "w Łodzi" - "v Wodgi" (dź is no more at the end of the word, so it's pronounced in the normal way), but if there existed a city Łóć, "in Łóć" would be "w Łoci" - "v Wochi".

Pronouncing it really as "Woodge" and not "Wooch" is hypercorrectness.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Wow, this is some hardcore proncounciation debate here. 



> Well... The city decided to do it in the most stupid way possible. They are building tracks not knowing yet,
> how the tram network will look like after opening this new small piece of the network.


That is a clever way indeed. What is the problem? Why can't they think of a new network before starting construction of new tracks? Are there some factors involved they can not foresee?


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## micro (Mar 13, 2005)

Scizoid.Trans.Prog. said:


> Some moderator should change this thread title. In Polish language we use these specific letters which are for example "Ł", "Ó" and "Ź". To express some emotion or name things as they really mean something, you have to use these symbols, because there is no city called "Lodz". That is an example.
> So moderator, please change the title of this thread to: "ŁÓDŹ | Public Transport".
> Thank you.


On international websites it's just nonsense to use country-specific characters, as not all browsers on all operating systems and in all locales will be able display the special characters. 

In the case of your "ŁÓDŹ", many readers will just see something like "??D?" or "[][]D[]" (rectangles that replace non-displayable characters), and the people will not figure out what is meant. So for an international English-language audience better stick to the English name, to "LODZ" or to a transcript in normal latin letters, if there is any.

Remember, this sub-forum is an English-language one.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

micro said:


> On international websites it's just nonsense to use country-specific characters, as not all browsers on all operating systems and in all locales will be able display the special characters.
> 
> In the case of your "ŁÓDŹ", many readers will just see something like "??D?" or "[][]D[]" (rectangles that replace non-displayable characters), and the people will not figure out what is meant. So for an international English-language audience better stick to the English name, to "LODZ" or to a transcript in normal latin letters, if there is any.
> 
> Remember, this sub-forum is an English-language one.


OK, I understood, so therefore thread title changed back to LODZ. I'm sorry Scizoid.Trans.Prog.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Slartibartfas said:


> That is a clever way indeed. What is the problem? Why can't they think of a new network before starting construction of new tracks? Are there some factors involved they can not foresee?


From the beginning of 2001 the concept of the city tram network was vastly changed. The number of tram lines got reduced and the frequency of departures increased, so that there is fewer direct connections than before, but thanks to that, the time needed to go from the point A to the point B was actually reduced (because of shorter waiting for the tram). There was, however, no big changes in the bus network. And since then, the idea of similar changes in the bus network was coming back a few times, but it was never realised. One of the reason is that one of the concepts was to get rid of buses using the same streets as trams, as in the modern city public transport systems usually the trams are the backbone of the system and the buses play only complimentary role. But this couldn't be popular among the citizens in the situation when the buses are simply much more reliable and comfortable than trams. Also the concept of fewer tram lines with high departures frequencies broke down, as from year to year the city was just decreasing the frequency of the tram departures due to financial reasons.

A few years ago, due to new central regulations about the organisation of the public transport, the city had to prepare a plan, how the public transport is going to work within the next years. And the city came with an idea, that it's actually a good time to make bigger changes in the public transport network.

I still don't understand that, because it happened anyway after start of the construction of the station. Maybe the thing is that the start of the construction was actually a surprise, people didn't really believe that it will be possible. The plans of rebuilding the Łódź Fabryczna station and connecting it with the Łódź Kaliska station existed already for years, such plans were even before the World War 2 (but there have always been obstacles, if not technological, then financial or political). And now it finally happened to be possible. And, by the way, Poland is just not good in planning. We are not Germans. It often happens that there are some plans, and then a new people come to the government, and they say they see everything in a totally different way, they always want to make a revolution instead of reasonable changes, and the old plans are no longer up to date.

Anyway, the company who gave the cheapest offer to make this public transport network plan was from Cracow, and they didn't really have any idea how the public transport in Łódź works, they didn't do enough surveys as well, and the plan they proposed, which was quite a big revolution, wasn't received well neither by the citizens, nor by the city council. Actually, in a few days, a non-governmental organisation created much a better plan - just to show that the company from Cracow didn't do a good job (if they did any job). Another issue was that the plan of the Cracow company was just impossible to introduce with the current financial assumptions and with the current rolling stock of the city public transport operator. The problem is especially with trams, which are mostly old, and, because of that, not only not really comfortable, but also they are just so used up that most of them actually have to be taken out of service.

So the city decided to organise huge public consultations, based on online poll and workshop meetings in each small district of the city (there is 36 of them). They actually did so, collected the opinions and actual needs of the citizens, and now they slowly start to introduce them, in cooperation with the non-governmental organisation mentioned before. But now the concept is not to make it a revolution, but rather to focus on making small changes that will actually improve the public transport system in the city.

It's more about buses than about trams, but it shows, how complicated task it actually is to design a public transport network, or to make sensible changes in it. And the station had to be built, not to waste the opportunity, when the political situation allowed to start the construction.



micro said:


> On international websites it's just nonsense to use country-specific characters, as not all browsers on all operating systems and in all locales will be able display the special characters.
> 
> In the case of your "ŁÓDŹ", many readers will just see something like "??D?" or "[][]D[]" (rectangles that replace non-displayable characters), and the people will not figure out what is meant. So for an international English-language audience better stick to the English name, to "LODZ" or to a transcript in normal latin letters, if there is any.
> 
> Remember, this sub-forum is an English-language one.


We are in 2016 and nowadays it's no longer a problem. Unicode is in common use, also in SSC, and the modern operating systems deal with the language-specific characters without any problems. I would understand it maybe still 5 years ago - but not now.


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## micro (Mar 13, 2005)

Kpc21 said:


> We are in 2016 and nowadays it's no longer a problem. Unicode is in common use, also in SSC, and the modern operating systems deal with the language-specific characters without any problems. I would understand it maybe still 5 years ago - but not now.


Even if that's true, most people are not up to date with their hardware, OS, or software. Many people surf with old browsers on old computers.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

I can assure you that surfing with such an old browser which would have problems with displaying Polish characters is simply impossible in the current times. Even if you use old versions of Firefox (not to mention Internet Explorer), many modern websites are just displayed incorrectly, or sometimes they even crash the browser. And they could perfectly deal with displaying UTF-8 characters for language-specific letters.

For eastern-Asian languages it was a little bit different. In Windows XP you had to additionally install the support for them (or select a proper option during the OS installation). But not for Polish. If someone uses such an archaic browser that it's unable to display UTF-8-encoded letters, he is just a masochist, because it's virtually impossible to use the modern Internet with such a browser.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

An actual problem with language-specific characters is that foreigners may have a hard time searching through text. If you don't know how to type in those characters it becomes hard to do a search. For example using latest Firefox searching for "LODZ" on this page only get matches for "LODZ" but not "ŁÓDŹ".


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

@kpc21

Thanks for that fairly detailed insight. Sounds like a bloody mess. But it sounds good to me that they are now rather in for gradual change with well measured changes instead of a terribly planned revolution.


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## micro (Mar 13, 2005)

Kpc21 said:


> For eastern-Asian languages it was a little bit different. In Windows XP you had to additionally install the support for them (or select a proper option during the OS installation). But not for Polish. If someone uses such an archaic browser that it's unable to display UTF-8-encoded letters, he is just a masochist, because it's virtually impossible to use the modern Internet with such a browser.


Don't forget we have users here from all parts of the world, from modern regions as well as from developing countries where not everyone has high-end equipment available. 

As well as you had to install Eastern-Asian languages support, people in East-Asian countries may have to install support for Western languages. Some people may have configured other encodings than UTF-8 for whatever reason. ŁÓDŹ is an especially delicate name as it has 75% special characters in it, which completely messes up when displayed incorrectly. 

And so on. There may be dozens of reasons to keep it a bit safer and stick to the 26 Latin letters at least for thread titles. Just my opinion


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

The question is which is the correct name *in english*?

Many places have english names that differ much from the local names. For example Gothenburg (english) in Sweden is called Göteborg in Swedish. Other examples are Munic/München, Rome/Roma, Hague / den Haag, Antwerp / Antwerpen.

To make things even more complicated sometimes some foreign languages share the same non-local name (for example Szczecin is called Stettin not only in german but usually also in Swedish) but it's not consequent.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

MiaM said:


> The question is which is the correct name *in english*?


May this answers your question?
http://en.uml.lodz.pl/


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

MiaM said:


> The question is which is the correct name *in english*?


There is no special, specific English name.

Germans used to call the city Litzmannstadt during the WW2, but it was a name invented by Germans (exactly - Nazis), having nothing in common with the original name. It came from a German general and it was introduced by Hitler. It was a nazi name and it's not used any more after the WW2, even in German.

The name is Łódź, the spelling without Polish characters is Lodz, and that's all.

On the English version of the city website you once see Lodz and once Łódź.



> Other examples are Munic/München, Rome/Roma, Hague / den Haag, Antwerp / Antwerpen.


Those cities have also other names in Polish: Monachium, Rzym, Haga, Antwerpia. As well as many other popular cities in the world, for example London is in Polish Londyn, or New York is in Polish Nowy Jork. Łódź is not such a worldwide known city.


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## micro (Mar 13, 2005)

MiaM said:


> The question is which is the correct name *in english*?


You really got to the point, it's the only question that matters. And since English doesn't have special characters they shouldn't be used.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

micro said:


> You really got to the point, it's the only question that matters. And since English doesn't have special characters they shouldn't be used.


Except that english does have a few special characters   :nuts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)#English
naïve

But to the point, english doesn't have those specific characters that are used in the polish spelling of Lodz


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

And it says:


> The grave accent and the diaeresis are the only diacritics native to Modern English (*apart from diacritics used in loanwords*, such as the acute accent, the cedilla, or the tilde).


That's why there is nothing wrong in using those characters in English texts.

When I use German geographic names that don't have Polish equivalents, I usually take care of all the specific characters. But typing them might be difficult for others, and that's why I understand when someone omits them.

I spell it Łódź and I will continue doing so, you can spell it Lodz (as long as you remember how to pronounce it correctly  ) and everything is fine.

See that for example Russians often write foreign names using Latin alphabet, without converting them to Cyrylic. On the other hand, when they do it (I mean, convert to Cyrylic), they do it phonetically, which makes it looking really funny. Like, for example, they write (in Cyrylic) Nyu-York.


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## FrankYCH (Jan 26, 2015)

Many thanks for all the pictures of the interesting tram system of Łódź, especially the remarkable Piotrkowska Centrum tram stop.

As a lover of both trams and Gothic architecture, I think that Piotrkowska Centrum is one of the most beautiful examples of modern architecture, especially that associated with transport.

There are some good "driver's cab view" videos of Łódź trams on YouTube, from "esbek2" and "Tramwajem Przez Galaktyke". Does anyone know of other such videos for Łódź?


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

From Rail Journal:



> http://www.railjournal.com/index.ph...r-lodz-agglomeration-railway.html?channel=529
> 
> *More Stadler EMUs for Lodz Agglomeration Railway*
> Friday, September 16, 2016
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The difference between Stadler and Newag was very small.

We hope that there will be no appeals from the side of Newag and Pesa, and therefore no delays. But it can always happen.

Flirts of Stadler are very good trains and ŁKA does it very well ordering the trains together with long-term service.

I have once used a Flirt of Deutsche Bahn (DB Regio) from the "Süwex" project and their condition is very bad compared to those of ŁKA.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

fRegarding the new ŁKA trains, they cancelled the choice of Stadler because they found some errors in their offer, and it turned out that actually the offer of Newag was better.

Stadler has appealed and their appeal will be judged probably on Wednesday.

It turned out Stadler had some errors in their offer concerning the energy consumption.

According to a local newspaper: http://www.dzienniklodzki.pl/komuni...iagi-impuls-ktore-wyprodukuje-newag,11420983/


> The purchaser asked an independent expert in power electronics for an opinion. After analysis of the tender documentation, the expert stated there were errors in both the offer and the explanation filed in by Stadler. Those errors concern the calculation model of the energy drawn for the traction and non-traction purposes, which was the basis for calculating the cost efficiency coefficient, subject to assessment according to the criteria of the tender.


Newag is a producer which is cooperating with Stadler, for example the Stadler Flirt trains for PKP Intercity were assembled by Newag - so the result should be positive anyway.

Meanwhile, the new Łódź Fabryczna station, which will be used also by ŁKA, and which involved new sections of tram tracks being built as well, is gonna open in only 2 weeks and one day!

I will quote my post from the thread on railway in Poland:


Kpc21 said:


> The new Łódź Fabryczna station is gonna open in 2 weeks and 1 day only!
> 
> Many photos here and on the previous pages:
> 
> ...


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Taken from Polish railways thread:



ufonut said:


> First train at Lodz Fabryczna station
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Ghostpoet (Nov 29, 2016)

When is the opening of the new station?

Thnx!


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Ghostpoet said:


> When is the opening of the new station?
> 
> Thnx!


Planned for 11th December


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

First tram on relaid tracks near Lodz Fabryczna station:
https://www.facebook.com/mpklodz


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

It has already appeared in the Polish railways thread, but here it's actually more proper.

Trams:










Buses:










The appeal of Stadler about the trains for ŁKA is still not resolved, unfortunately.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Maybe not everyone follows the railway division of SSC...

Tomorrow opening!

Fabryczny live: https://go.toya.net.pl/25/13758/4444137585/play https://go.toya.net.pl/25/13758/4444137584/play

People already passing by.
Cars already driving by.
Trams not yet. But wait just a few hours.

It's a great moment for Łódź.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Tram interchange at the new Łódź Fabryczna - photos by the Łódzka Inicjatywa na Rzecz Przyjaznego Transportu (Łódź Initiative for the Passenger-Friendly Transport) association:
































































As for now, it seems that it takes too much time for the trams to wait for a green light at the new intersections (4 minutes of total waiting time, 4 intersections where the trams turn instead of 2 intersections where they go forward) and they have problems with catching up with the timetable - but we all hope it will be corrected. There is really no reason for such a long waiting time, as all the tracks next to the station are in public-transport-only areas.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Updated tram map on urbanrail.net, with changes around Łódź Fabryczna station:
http://www.urbanrail.net/eu/pl/lodz/lodz.htm


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

There will be a change from Monday 19th December.

The lines: 9A, 12A will no longer go through the new tram interchange stop next to the station, they will go forward Narutowicza street instead, as before the station opening.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Finally there is the court sentence concerning the trains for Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna (Łódź Metropolitan Railway) - they will be delivered by Newag.

Source: http://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/final-sporu-stadlera-i-lka-79550.html (PL)


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

From Monday 9th January also the line 9 omits the new stop in front of the new Łódź Fabryczna station and goes just forward the Narutowicza street.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The trams and buses (mostly buses, small changes in trams) are going to be rerouted from 2nd April 2017.

The new routes of:
- trams: http://uml.lodz.pl/get.php?id=21133
- buses: http://uml.lodz.pl/get.php?id=21083
- night buses: http://uml.lodz.pl/get.php?id=21132

The bus map in fragments: http://uml.lodz.pl/lodzlaczy

The lines and their frequencies in minutes (and reasons for such routes - but in Polish): http://uml.lodz.pl/get.php?id=21080

The idea is to make the public transport system based more on trams than on buses, and make buses serve the residential areas better.

I don't know if it's a good idea because the trams on the main routes are already overcrowded - and there is not enough rolling stock to increase their frequency.

But we will see how it will work. A revision of the new routes is planned for the autumn, once the passengers will have a chance to get used to them.

For comparison, the current routes:
- trams: http://www.mpk.lodz.pl/files/tramwaje_roboty.pdf (with temporary changes because of tracks renovations)
- buses: http://zdit.uml.lodz.pl/files/schemat_linii_autobusowych_wazny_od_01_08_2016r_f69d60c1.pdf (without changes after opening the Łódź Fabryczna station)
- night buses: http://www.mpk.lodz.pl/files/autobusy_nocne_od_03_12_2007.pdf


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Easy solution: get more rolling stock. It does seem like a lot of the corridors could handle higher frequencies. 

Of course, they may not have the money for it, but if you you want to enlarge PT service, this can't be done for free.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Easier said than done. We have to exchange the old rolling stock first of all since it's in bad technical condition. There are orders for brand new trams being prepared (over 40 or even 50 units in total - first such a big rolling stock purchase in the city for years) and we hope to manage to get some trams withdrawn by Germans because of problems with bogeys of axles (they can be used with a limited velocity, but those limits are anyway rarely exceeded in Łódź) - but this is still too few.

And the length of trams cannot be increased because of the length of the currently built stop platforms.

When I travel by trams in Łódź, in probably 45% of cases I meet:










Konstal 805Na renovated. Their technical condition is usually not so bad because they underwent a renovation, but the comfort in them is anyway low and they have very draughty doors. They don't fulfill the modern standards.

In 40% of cases I meet:










The same problem as with the renovated version + their technical condition is usually bad, they have much corrosion. And they are noisy because they still use rotary DC-to-DC converters (built up of a DC motor and a DC generator connected by a shaft). Some of the renovated ones also do, but they usually have electronic ones.

In 10% - one of those:




























In 5% of cases I meet one of those:










The new version of the Konstal 805Na renovation. They have tight doors and the interior is designed better.

So it looks:










For comparison, the old renovated version:










Rarely:










Most rarely (rather because they occur only on specific lines, I don't usually use):


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Vienna just recently placed an order for up to 165 new trams between 2018 and 2026 

No seriously, I do get it that rolling stock is a challenge for in cases like these where the rolling stock needs serious updating while at the same time one could make use of an enlarged rolling stock. Add to that that the financial means are probably already stressed and you get to a situation which I would not like to be in. However, if you redesign the PT network, shifting importance from busses to trams, while you have no created the means for the tram network to cope with that change, you are heading for problems.


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## 0tomek0 (Apr 8, 2013)

Of course, money is the major problem but it's also about the scale of rolling stock exchange.

If you take a look at mentioned Vienna, it has been replacing outdated E1/E2-type trams for several years now, purchasing ULFs. Recent contract for the tram purchase is a continuation of this. Same will concern major western-european networks like Berlin (replacing CKD T6 and KT4s by GT6N and recently by Flexity trams), Munich and Amsterdam.

Łódź, however has purchased very few new modern trams between 1992 and 2014 - 25 units that is. 22 trams purchased in 2015/16 were not only a replacement for 805Na cars but also a necessary fleet addition due to opening of a network extension.
This means that replacement of old models hasn't been functioning for several years and Łódź will have to face a huge fleet renewal program within next years.

Similar cases occur in most networks of Poland, though Łódź has purchased the smallest ammount of new rolling stock out of the large networks in Poland within 8-10 years time.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

What is the age range of the major bulk of tram vehicle in Lodz? 

You are of course right that the challenge may bigger for Lodz as finances are tight, yet the demand for replacement of vehicles alone is greater.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

It's difficult to say because the 805Na trams were being delivered from 1977 to 1990.

But even though they were delivered till 1990, they were already an outdated construction in these times. It's basically a developed version of Konstal 13N, which was a copy of Tatra T1.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

1977 to 1990? 27-40 years, doesn't sound too terrible to be honest. As long as the vehicles were properly maintained of course. And old models are usually designed in a fairly sturdy way, the major problem being of course the lack of low floor facilities. Other than that however they usually do a pretty decent job. That age does mean however that replacement on a large scale is due I suppose. So you certainly have a point there.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Slartibartfas said:


> As long as the vehicles were properly maintained of course.


Well, this is a problem even with the new vehicles. A few Bombardier Cityrunner and Pesa 122N trams have been out of order for years. Some of them were being taken to pieces to get spare parts for the other units, others weren't repaired after accidents.

Now, they are trying to get all of them back running.

And also, the condition of the tracks at most part of the network was very bad. There are still some sections where the trams have a speed limit to 10 km/h - but currently, there is much fewer such places than before. The trams were largely underinvested after 1990.

At the beginning of this movie, you can see a ride on one of the worst sections of tracks in Łódź: 





(this is an 805Na modernized tram)

Especially from the 3rd minute. See how the 1st waggon moves with respect to the first one and how slow the tram drives. And at the condition of the track for the opposite direction.

Within the last few months, they finally decided to renovate it (and extend a few hundred meters to Inflancka street, where there is a new metropolitan train station).

Such bad state of the tracks also didn't have a good effect on the rolling stock.

Now, most of the tracks are already renovated, but some sections renovated after 1990 need a renovation again.

See the map (created by SSC users):









Bigger map

Green - tracks in good state
Yellow - tracks which are not so bad or were renovated after 1990, but also need renovation
Red - tracks in bad state, need immediate renovation
Blue - currently in renovation

And the tracks that will be renovated in the most near future - in pink:










By the way, here is a Pesa Swing ride (the newest tram type in Łódź) on the East-West route, one of the biggest infrastructure investments in the city of the last times: 






See also this - the newest route next to the Łódź Fabryczna station:


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

Kpc21 said:


> Now, most of the tracks are already renovated, but some sections renovated after 1990 need a renovation again.


Here in Berlin especially crossings have to be renewed at least after 20-25 years. Obviously everywhere, where tracks are crossed by other vehicles or at aharp curves with very small radi, renovation is a never ending story. Additionally, as long as tram-tracks are not build to same standard as railway-tracks, they have to be renewed more often. Ballasted tram-tracks of the 80s with concrete-sleepers and own right-of-way are very solid. I saw those tracks in Poznan, they still work ok without much maintainance.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

On the other hand, on some streets we have a track technology called by us "Hungarian board" (no idea if it has actually anything to do with Hungary):










This is how such a track is constructed:



















It was supposed to last long and when it's worn out, it should be enough to remove the rails from the board and insert new ones.

The problem is, the lifetime of those concrete boards is actually shorter than the lifetime of the tracks, and it's not the rails what needs an exchange now, but the whole concrete part.

And, by the way, a common problem with this technology are the rail "erections" in summer when the track has a few years already. Not only we have this problem, but also Cracow.










In Cracow:










It has happened also in Bydgoszcz:


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

Kpc21 said:


> On the other hand, on some streets we have a track technology called by us "Hungarian board" (no idea if it has actually anything to do with Hungary):


Yes it, does. It´s a system invented in Budapest. You can see this in Vienna and some east-german cities, too. In german it´s called GVP (Großverbundplatte). In Germany it failed too for the same reasons as in Poland. Maybe not that dramatic damage, but those plates tend to move against each other. This causes very much noise driving on them. Nowadays they build a concrete slab and than pour asphalt to the street-level above it. Those system was very common in socialistic countries as the industry for pre-fabricated concrete parts was well developed.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

In Poland, it gained popularity after the fall of communism.

We had also something called "Łódź board" or "Łódź plate" - probably a locally developed technology.

See here (copy the link and replace the space with a dot): http://gtlodz eu/img-plyta_lodzka_zostaje,16303.html

Seemingly, it's something you can see here: https://goo.gl/maps/yNBExiJeXg82

It was largely undurable.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

From Metro Report

http://www.metro-report.com/news/ne...w/view/pesa-to-supply-more-trams-to-lodz.html

*Pesa to supply more trams to Łódź*
13 Feb 2017










POLAND: Pesa submitted the best offer to supply 12 trams to Łódź, city transport operator MPK Łódź announced on February 10.

The Bydgoszcz-based supplier is to supply five-section trams from its Swing family for 99·6m złoty, with deliveries due to be completed before the end of September 2018

...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Old bus photos from Łódź - from http://lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/13,979...h-zdjeciach-autobus-mknie-ulica-quiz.html?i=0

Hungarians will like some of them  Although most are Polish buses.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

Ikarus!!!


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Well, we still used them in September 2015  Very durable buses.

Only quite noisy, high-floor, and the gauntlets in windows were usually missing, so the vibrating windows were making even more noise.

A video from the goodbye event made by a local TV:






In Polish, but you still see them


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

From Railway Gazette

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/europe/single-view/view/newag-signs-lodz-emu-contract.html

*Newag signs Łódź EMU contract*
28 Feb 2017










POLAND: Łódź suburban operator Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna signed a contract on February 28 for Newag to supply 14 three-car Impuls 2 electric multiple-units for 236·8m złoty, and maintain them for 12 years at a cost of 1·476 złoty/train-km.

Stadler supplied ŁKA’s current fleet of 20 two-car Flirt3 EMUs and had originally been named preferred bidder for the latest contract in September 2016, with an offer of 260·9m złoty and 2·214 złoty/km, which beat rival proposals from Newag and Pesa. Newag successfully challenged this decision, and an initial appeal by Stadler was rejected. Although the Swiss company has a second appeal underway, this does not prevent the contract from being signed


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

I am wondering if such news shouldn't rather go to the [Poland] Railways thread. Regional trains are still trains.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

tunnel owl said:


> Yes it, does. It´s a system invented in Budapest. You can see this in Vienna and some east-german cities, too. In german it´s called GVP (Großverbundplatte). In Germany it failed too for the same reasons as in Poland. Maybe not that dramatic damage, but those plates tend to move against each other. This causes very much noise driving on them. Nowadays they build a concrete slab and than pour asphalt to the street-level above it. Those system was very common in socialistic countries as the industry for pre-fabricated concrete parts was well developed.


I have never seen anything like that "track erection" in Vienna, nor have I ever read about such a thing. 

Also, the above pictures look to me like a different system. In Vienna tracks are built as metal construct and the two tracks are crossconnected by metal beams every few meters. Concrete plates are than either put on top of that metal construct or a solid concrete plate is poured on top. 

This is how it looks like without the concrete during maintenance / reconstruction:










To get a "track erection" with this system, welded metal connections would have to break or the metal beams would have to break through solid concrete. As I said, I have never seen such a thing or heard about it.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

http://www.transport-publiczny.pl/wiadomosci/lodz-m8c-wycofane-z-linii-pabianickiej-54461.html

Translation.



> *Łódź: M8C withdrawn from the line to Pabianice*
> Author: Kasper Fiszer
> Date of publication: 2017-03-01 11:26
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The new public transport scheme in Łódź from 2 April:

- trams (and buses including the stops)
- buses overlaid on the city map
- night buses

- the new ticket pricing
- the new timetable template










The new marking of the stops:





































(the maps in the citylight are there only temporarily - in the final version, they will be only inside the shelter, on the rear wall)

Source: uml.lodz.pl/lodzlaczy


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The most picturesque and unusual line in the Łódź tram network is now endangered.





































The reason is a track washout which happened a month ago. The traffic hasn't been restored until now. And it seems, the municipality of Konstantynów Łódzki (on the area of which the damage happened) has no money for the necessary repairs.

And it turns out that the replacement bus service is anyway about 10 minutes faster than the tram was.

http://www.transport-publiczny.pl/w...mwaju-andrespol-z-autobusem-nocnym-54679.html (translation by me)



> *Łódź: Lutomiersk without tram, Andrespol with a night bus*
> 
> Author:
> Kasper Fiszer
> ...


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## rakcancer (Sep 2, 2010)

I was always amazed how well developed out of town tram network Łódź has. No other city in Poland can compare to Łódź, not counting Upper Silesia if someone want to take it under consideration but that is different story.
In my opinion Łódź is a tram capital city in Poland...
I cross my fingers for that endangered line to Lutomiersk because it could be a beginning of permanent closure.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Those suburban trams began as something closer to a commuter railway. Initially, the trams on some of the lines were pulled by steam locomotives. The company operating those trams was called Łódź Narrow-Gauge Electric Commuter Railway. It was separated from the city tram network, it got connected with it later.

A similar history has the Warsaw Commuter Railway (WKD), but the WKD operates now as a railway. It has even converted from the voltage of 600 V (typical for trams in Poland) to 3 kV (typical for railway) recently. Meanwhile, the suburban lines in Łódź operate as trams.

The problem is that the Polish law doesn't actually assume existing anything which could be called "light rail". There are two categories, totally separate from each other: tram and railway. So the WKD must adhere to all the rules for the heavy railway, concerning the safety or signalling, while the suburban trams in Łódź are endangered, because they have to be maintained by small towns or village municipalities, which simply have not enough money for that.

It's also interesting that there have never been horse trams in Łódź. The city trams opened on 23 December 1898 and they were electric from the very beginning. Actually, if I am not mistaken, the trams had the first power plant in Łódź. Or one of the first ones.

The first suburban lines were to Pabianice (opened on 17 January 1901) and to Zgierz (opened 2 days later). And they were electric too, each of them had its own power plant.

But, for example, the route between Zgierz and Ozorków was opened on 9 April 1922 "under steam", and electric power was introduced on it in 1926.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

Could it be possible to get some EU funding for the more rural tram lines?

IMHO especially the Silesia network should get some cultural funding. Except for the Belgian coast tram I believe that Poland is the only EU country with such rural and interurban tram lines.

P.S. There are more countries that only has two juridical kinds of rail networks. For example Sweden has one for typical heavy rail and one for trams and metro systems. I don't think that there are any problems with those laws. In general the state owns almost all "heavy" rail lines except for connections to industries, some museum lines, the narrow gauge local railway "Roslagsbanan" in Stockholm and so on, but all light rails are owned by local municipalys or similar.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

There is many such lines in Germany. One that I know - S2 in Karlsruhe. While most "S" lines in Karlsruhe are railway or tram-train lines, this one is a totally ordinary tram line.

It was possible to get EU funding for that by means of creating so called metropolitan area - by all the municipalities the line belongs to together. The PO government was going to create a few such areas in Poland, and one was supposed to be Łódź with the surrounding area. Unfortunately, after the elections, the new PiS government resigned from most of the metropolitan area, except for one for the Upper Silesia.

Because those tram lines in Łódź area cross multiple municipalities and multiple counties, in my opinion, the region (voivodeship) should participate in the costs and organize everything - but, unfortunately, they are not interested in it.

In Poland, it's also so that the state owns almost all the "heavy" rail lines. There are some exceptions. For example, the Mścice - Mielno railway line, which was bound to be closed and on which the passenger traffic was suspended in 1994, got overtaken by the city of Koszalin in 2008, and from that time, there are trains on this line each year - unfortunately only in the holiday period, but it's anyway much since Mielno is a holiday resort. By the way - this line was also originally built as a tram line.

Łódź used to have two more such suburban tram connections: through Ruda Pabianicka and Rzgów to Tuszyn and to Aleksandrów Łódzki. The first one of them to be closed was the section between Rzgów and Tuszyn in 1978. In order to give room for a double-carriageway road. The lines to Rzgów and to Aleksandrów became prays of the political transformation in the early '90s. It was a difficult time in Poland, with an economic crisis and hyperinflation. The municipalities of Rzgów and Aleksandrów had no money to maintain the tram, so the trams got replaced with buses.

Which is quite ironic, because while the line to Konstantynów Łódzki goes through rural areas on some section, the line to Aleksandrów Łódzki would go fully through urban areas.

It's how the network more or less looks like:










The net of urban trams is simplified on this schematic, not all routes (although almost all) are included.

You can see the suburban lines too. As well as the closed suburban lines - in red, and the section currently being endangered - in dashed green-red.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Photos of the MPK workshops in Tramwajowa street: https://www.facebook.com/pg/1000kominow/photos/?tab=album&album_id=429542887402847

(Zakład Techniki - Technical Department)


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## FrankYCH (Jan 26, 2015)

One thing I noticed on looking at recent Youtube videos on Łódź trams is that trams on routes 10 and 11 were showing route numbers 10B and 11B. What does this mean? Does it mean there have been route changes?


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

No, they changed the numbering system.

The previous system of numbering was that for example 10 was the full route of the line and 10A was its short version. Like 10 Retkinia-Augustów-Olechów and 10A Retkinia-Augustów (the line 10 had then the route Retkinia-Olechów only, but it's just an example how it worked with other lines). The problem was that when there was more versions of a line, it was not so consistent (like the line 60 - 60 was the longest, 60B shorter, 60A the shortest). And some people were complaining about that very often the version which was most frequent had a letter and the rare one (for example extended at one end to a factory, which needs to have good bus service only at the time of the shifts) had no letter.

So, it was decided that after the reform (the big reform described in one of the previous posts, the one from 2nd March), all the versions of a line which comes in many versions will have letters. In addition, some lines got grouped to work as a single line on important, central, fragments of the route, so that the letters will denote that they go in different directions at the and (for example, the lines 53/53A/53B, 67 and 94 got concatenated in such a way, and now there is a single line 53A/53B/53C/53D/53E).

With 10 and 11, it is so that the old 10 was Retkinia-Olechów and it was every 6 minutes. Now, the tram goes to Olechów every 12 minutes and its shorter version to Augustów - also every 12 minutes, so there frequency of the line 10 between Retkinia and Augustów is now still 6 minutes, but between Augustów and Olechów it's only 12 minutes now.

Concerning 11, it was (is I am not mistaken) every 12 minutes Helenówek-pl. Niepodległości-Chocianowice before, now it's every 6 minutes between Helenówek and pl. Niepodległości and only every 12 minutes (so like the whole route before) between pl. Niepodległości and Chocianowice.

The increased frequency of the line 11 between Helenówek and pl. Niepodległości replaced the deleted line 16.

Thus, we had 10 and 11 before, we have 10A/10B and 11A/11B now. On the other hand, for example, 85 or 99 had their "A" versions before, they don't have them now. Or the former 51/51A/51B line got split into three separate lines: 51, 61 and 67.

To be clear about the situation with 10 and 11. Most of the route of the line 10 is from the Retkinia residential area through the city centre to the Augustów loop in the Widzew Wschód residential area and this is the current 10A. 10B is the version extended from Widzew Wschód (Augustów) to another residential area, behind it going from the city center, called Olechów.

Similarly with 11. 11A goes from the Helenówek loop, serves the Radogoszcz and Julianów residential areas and goes to the city center. 11A has a loop at plac Niepodległości (Independence Square, don't mistake with plac Wolności - Liberty Square) at the other end of the city center. 11B goes behind the city center, serving the Ruda residential area, going to the Chocianowice loop.


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## FrankYCH (Jan 26, 2015)

Kpc21, many thanks for your detailed answer.

I wonder if people visiting Łódź might still be as confused as they were before!


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

It's interesting to compare this with Leipzig (in Germany) where all lines have different numbers but the grouping of lines in the central area is done by using the same line colour for every line within one group.

P.S. sorry for going slighty off topic, but if anybody decides to have a look at the Leipzig map you should also note that they use different width for lines with different frequency. Thicker lines means that the average waiting time is shorter than for thinner lines.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Łódź also uses colors after the reform. And... this is mainly thanks to the local SSC users!

See the schematic: http://test.uml.lodz.pl/files/do_pobrania/folder_1/schematy_transportowe/AUTO_TRAM-V53B.png

By the way, different line frequencies are indicated in case of the buses by slightly different shades of gray for the circle around the number. See the legend to the map.

In the last week it was decided to disable some traffic lights in the neighborhood of the new Łódź Fabryczna station - because of which the trams caught delays and it had to be decided to reroute some of them to go forward Narutowicza street instead of stopping right in front of the station. I hope, it will make all the lines return there.

Meanwhile... the topic of the NF6D trams from Bochum continued. The first tram, brought from Bochum some time ago (I reported about it here), undergoes homologation tests.






I am just preparing a transcript of this video translated to English, so that you can understand...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

A transcript of the video in English (unfortunately the option of adding community subtitles is not available, so it must be like this):



> It's dark, almost night and we are now - maybe you can't see it - in the MPK Technical Department, in the main hall, about which I will be telling you soon. One of the next episodes will be about the work of those workshops. Now, if you remember well, in one of the last Extra episodes, if not in the last one, I showed you and talked about the newly bought by us NF6D tram from Bochum.
> 
> Some time has passed. The tram was - also by the employees of this Department - being prepared to the duty, and tonight it will exit the gates of Tramwajowa for the first time. And I am here just to show it to you. So, if you want a short ride, be welcome!
> 
> ...


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## GEwinnen (Mar 3, 2006)

Kpc21 said:


> And one more video, by a local radio station:



2014-05-31 Gelsenkirchen by Klaus Schuchlinski, auf Flickr
:cheers:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

It seems, it will start carrying passengers on Saturday:










On the line 10.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

MGT6D premiere.









Source:

```
http://gtlodz eu/img-premiera_mgt6d,38647.html
```


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Source:

```
http://gtlodz eu/img-duewag_nf6d_1751,38648.html
```


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Probably not everyone knows that this was not the first line ride of this type of tram in Łódź, not even its first ride on the line 10.

Same tram, borrowed from Halle (Saale), was already tested in Łódź in 1996. Nobody expected in those times that this type of trams will finally appear in Łódź... bought second-hand.

Photos from the same place as the last photo above:



















As for now, the opinions about this tram are really good. It's silent and runs smoothly - it's even better than the modern Cityrunner and Pesa trams.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)




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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

http://www.transport-publiczny.pl/w...-testow-nf6d-ale-planuje-przerobki-55604.html



> *Łódź: The MPK satisfied with the NF6D tests, but plans modifications*
> 
> *The probability of getting the next 34 second-hands trams for Łódź from the German Bochum is increasing. After three-month tests a positive note was given to the first unit by both the MPK staff, as well as most passengers. Some of the passengers' remarks make, however, one of the basic advantages of a low-floor tram questionable – the access for the disabled people.*
> 
> ...


A few days ago, there was also an article in a local tabloid, with complaints about this tram: that it's stuffy inside, that it's not good for the Łódź tracks, which are still in bad technical condition in many places (and there is very few lines with tracks in good condition only) and that it has few doors.

But it's a tabloid, they always look for sensations, and even they admitted that it gathers good opinions from the passengers.

Adding a door in the driver's compartment is actually needed because there is still many manually operated track switches in Łódź - which means, the driver would have to walk to the first door of the tram, then back to its front on the outside to switch the tracks, and then back to his compartment through the part for passengers, which would cause delays and, which is probably more important, would be difficult to accept for the trade unions.

I don't really understand the idea of changing the propelling system. The one in those trams gathers good opinions, the ride is much more smooth than, for example, in the Konstal trams with an exchanged propelling system, or in the modernized M8Cs, where the original drive was also exchanged to a new Polish one.

Also the rearranging of the interior will probably mean replacing the current numerous comfortable seats with a small number of plastic chairs...


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)




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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

Kpc21 said:


> A few days ago, there was also an article in a local tabloid, with complaints about this tram: that it's stuffy inside, that it's not good for the Łódź tracks, which are still in bad technical condition in many places (and there is very few lines with tracks in good condition only) and that it has few doors.
> 
> But it's a tabloid, they always look for sensations, and even they admitted that it gathers good opinions from the passengers.


You should be careful about this. In Gothenburg the tracks has been worn out far faster since the newest all low floor trams begun service about 10 years ago. There are no exact figures for the track wear, but the wheels on the new all low floor trams, and for the 1990's low floor section of the 1980's trams needs maintenance five times as often as the wheels on the high floor sections of the 1980's trams and on the all high floor 1960's-1970's trams.



Kpc21 said:


> I don't really understand the idea of changing the propelling system. The one in those trams gathers good opinions, the ride is much more smooth than, for example, in the Konstal trams with an exchanged propelling system, or in the modernized M8Cs, where the original drive was also exchanged to a new Polish one.


Maybe it has to do with the price for and access to spare parts?

AFAIK this was one of the reasons Gothenburg opted for changing the electric parts of the traction in their 1980's trams. (Interestingly the old trams still in service that were made in the 60's and early 70's mostly still have their original electric system, but that's probably partially due to that atleast the 1960's trams have always been destined for "five more years in service", with this "five" always being counted from the current date, thus moving the end forward for each day :nuts: )


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

MiaM said:


> You should be careful about this. In Gothenburg the tracks has been worn out far faster since the newest all low floor trams begun service about 10 years ago. There are no exact figures for the track wear, but the wheels on the new all low floor trams, and for the 1990's low floor section of the 1980's trams needs maintenance five times as often as the wheels on the high floor sections of the 1980's trams and on the all high floor 1960's-1970's trams.


It also depends on the type of the bogeys. I have no idea about the English terminology, but there are two kinds. There are ones which can rotate with respect to the tram body - they are better for the tracks, but they occupy more room inside the tram. And there are fixed ones, which cannot rotate. They are worse, damage the tracks more, but they occupy less room inside.

It seems they are actually called fixed bogeys and rotating bogeys in English: http://tdu.to/154883.msg (although it's a translation from Czech, so I am not sure about it)

For example, from the Polish-produced trams, Pesa Swing has fixed bogeys and Pesa Twist rotating ones.

The thing we care more of in Łódź is the potential damage of the tram because of bad tracks, not the potential damage of the tracks because of bad trams. Although both issues should be taken into account.



> Maybe it has to do with the price for and access to spare parts?


Definitely. They don't want to buy expensive parts from Siemens, so they want to install much worse, but cheaper in maintenance, Polish drive from Enika or Woltan (both are companies from Łódź, by the way).



> that's probably partially due to that atleast the 1960's trams have always been destined for "five more years in service", with this "five" always being counted from the current date, thus moving the end forward for each day :nuts:


It's maybe a little bit off the topic, but it's why we still have a passenger information system based on punch cards, the only one in Poland, at the Łódź Kaliska station. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIHpVf_C4wU

But the spare parts for the old Konstal 805Na/105Na trams, which are still in majority in Poland, are actually cheapest, so it's not weird that the MPK doesn't really want to get rid of them.

And the construction is much simpler. You cannot repair a modern tram using just a hammer and a screwdriver.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

In-street tracks renovation in Gdańska street.

They were in what we call the Hungarian technology. The tracks were not very old, but a few times every summer there were rail erections. A typical way of repairing such an erection is cutting out a small piece of the rail, so as a result, those tracks had quite many breaks in rails.



scartout said:


> Gdańska :banana:
> 
> 1.Przy Struga kier. południe
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Bus and tram traffic supervision.


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## lalumking (Oct 31, 2014)

Kpc21 said:


> In-street tracks renovation in Gdańska street.
> 
> They were in what we call the Hungarian technology. The tracks were not very old, but a few times every summer there were rail erections. A typical way of repairing such an erection is cutting out a small piece of the rail, so as a result, those tracks had quite many breaks in rails.


The technology was developed in the 70s by BKV (Budapest Public Transport Company). The main advantage was the simple way to build and rebuild the tracks. But given the moral towards regular maintenance in Hungary (and probably in Poland as well, since our mentality is somewhat similar in many ways) those tracks have become terrible in the recent years. That's why new trakcs are built using different technology in Budapest and other Hungarian cities, though some smaller reconstructions still use that one. BTW, in Hungary we call itt "panel" or "betonpanel".


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

Kpc21 said:


> Anyway, the tracks also need to be exchanged, as the trams reach there absurd speeds of 10 or 20 km/h because of their condition.


Concerning the track-condition it´s worth to repeat the point of MiaM, saying that new trams cause more wear on rails than older ones. This is common in Germany, too. Older trams like Tatra have bogies whereas newer low-floor trams have wheels which cannot turn out in curves that much. Additionally we have the trend of multi-articulated trams. Those trams are designed for ideal LRT-like track-conditions but not for older networks. Sometimes between two articulated parts of the tram there is even no wheel-set, making the stress on the next wheel-sets even bigger. 

Suppliers advertise those trams as you get much tram for less money but the loss is often at the tracks and maintainance of the wheels. Meanwhile some operators tend back to buy trams with bogies having a low-floor-part of 70%, the rest is high floor. In Germany Dresden was one of the first cities going away from the 100% low-floor option.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The modern low-floor trams also occur in versions with rotating bogeys. They are less destructive for the tracks, but the cost is less space inside. Pesa Twist is such a kind of tram.

Although Łódź has bought only fixed-bogey low-floor trams until now. With an exception of the second-hand NF6D trams from Bogestra (which they are buying just now) - if I am not mistaken, they have rotating bogeys. And they are not 100% low-floor - the sections between the first and last door and the ends of the tram have higher floor.

Meanwhile, it's certain now that the lines 45 and 46 will be suspended and from Sunday, there will be no more trams in Zgierz and Ozorków. It is said to be a temporary suspension. It seems that Zgierz found some financing for the modernization of the tracks of the route 45. It's more difficult with the line 46 - while Ozorków declares they are able to find some money for the renovation of they section at any moment, the municipality of Zgierz (i.e. the villages between Zgierz and Ozorków) says they are unable to do it without voivodeship or governmental aid. But they are also for keeping the tram running and they will be trying hard to get it.


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

Kpc21 said:


> Meanwhile, it's certain now that the lines 45 and 46 will be suspended and from Sunday, there will be no more trams in Zgierz and Ozorków.


It´s sad to hear this but it´s unfortunately a common thing for those kind of interurban trams everythere. Small communities benefit from the tram but are not able to pay for maintainance. That´s one thing that once killed the interurbans in Belgium and Germany back in the 60s/70s.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

There is still quite a few small town tram networks in Germany, even just around Berlin.

The trams 45/46 will be replaced by the replacement buses Z45/Z46. Unfortunately, it will depart more rarely - each of the lines every 30 minutes, interchangeably (giving the common frequency of 15 minutes), when the trams were every 24 minutes, and still in the previous year - every 20 minutes.

And while between Zgierz and Ozorków, the tram in such a form didn't really make any sense (the travel time between the center of Zgierz and Ozorków - about 50 minutes, while for the replacement bus it's about 25-30 minutes), between Łódź and Zgierz it makes some sense as the main road is very congested, especially on a 2 km section with a single lane in each direction.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Zgierz says they will start the first renovation works on the line 45 next week.

From the website of the Zgierz public transport authority:

http://www.muk.zgierz.pl/698-rusza-remont-torowiska.html












> *In Zgierz the renovation of the tram infrastructure starts*
> 
> *One of the priorities of the town of Zgierz authorities* is improving the public transport, which will on one hand facilitate comfortable and fast moving within the town, on the other hand, getting to Łódź and back without problems. While in terms of the bus transport, the Mayor of Zgierz can quickly react to the problems of the inhabitants (the example of which can be opening new bus lines or adjusting the existing ones to the current needs), *the tram transport demands much more effort, preparation and money to realize the investment* and the success depends not only on the good will of the Zgierz administrators.
> 
> ...


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## nowy1212 (Sep 24, 2011)

A przetarg był? Bo może się okaże że teraz będzie demontaż, a prace rusza dopiero jesienią...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Pomyliły ci się wątki  To jest międzynarodowy, tu się pisze po angielsku.

Właśnie też się zastanawiam. Możliwe, że jest tak, jak piszesz.

A weird thing is that there was no tender yet.

Maybe it is so that they will do now some preparatory works, using their own (and the MPK's) workforce. In such a range, for which a tender is not needed.

It's also interesting that there hasn't been a message that they actually got the financing yet.

So it's a riddle just now.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

If someone wants to know what is going on with the GT series trams after they lost their job on the 46 line - this is the answer:



















Photos by Łukasz Stefańczyk, from the gtlodz dot eu gallery.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Photos from the last full ride from Łódź to Ozorków (not counting the night rides on a shortened route) - on a website of a local version of one of the biggest Polish daily newspapers: http://lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/5,35136,22980070.html


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Tracks exchange on the route between Szczecińska (Teofilów) and Chochoła (Kochanówka) loops.



Polopiryn said:


> No to lecimy od Chochola do Teofilowa. Jak widać Panowie dzielnie walczą w niedziele, ale strasznie dziwnie im to idzie, tu trochę, tam trochę. Grunt, żeby skończyli przed wakacjami
> 
> Na deser, świeże powietrze prosto z komina
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 6. Czekają, czekają
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 11. I tutaj tez pięknie ładnie, równo. Nic tylko drezyne puszczać.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

^^ Nice! Why is there a short section where both tracks are intertwinned with eachother?


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Because they are building a tram stop there. Before, there was no such a section, but the passengers were leaving the tram directly onto the carriageway. Compare with this: https://goo.gl/maps/VqBPxzCTDDo

Interestingly, until recently, this tracks section was said to be going to be demolished, now they renovate it.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

Oh, thanks!


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The current routes of the public transport after the changes from February 4th.

Łódź only: http://uml.lodz.pl/files/public/uploads/Schemat_Lodz_4.02.2018.pdf
Łódź + the suburbs (only the lines organized by Łódź, not taking into account the Zgierz and Pabianice local bus lines): http://uml.lodz.pl/files/public/uploads/Schemat_Aglomeracja_Lodzka_4.02.2018.pdf

Temporary changes:
http://uml.lodz.pl/files/public/uploads/Dabrowskiego_x_Kilinskiego_-_zmiany.pdf
http://uml.lodz.pl/files/public/uploads/Tomaszowska_etap_I_-_zmiany.pdf


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Lodz Metropolitan Railway depot by Niskopodłogowiec:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Condition and renovations of tracks in the city:



nowy1212 said:


> Mapka stanu obecnego - klik
> 
> Mniejszy rozmiar:


Basically: green - very good (like new or almost new), red - very bad, blue - in renovation.


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## metacatfry (Aug 13, 2012)

^^^what does the thickness of the lines mean? Traffic density?


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## Falubaz (Nov 20, 2004)

^^Just number of lines. Mostly it's same with density (bur not necessairily, since some lines are more frequent than the others).


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Tram tracks to nowhere, built in something like 1970s or 1980s - Dąbrowskiego street:



live_evil said:


> W piątek korzystając z chwili oczekiwania na stacji Łódź Dąbrowa uwieczniłem niedokończoną linię tramwajową na ul. Dąbrowskiego:
> 
> Dąbrowskiego-Wemanowej widok na zachód:
> 
> ...


The tracks were supposed to go to an industrial area. The problem is that nowadays it's not affordable to built a tram line that would service an industrial area only, which would be massively used only in a few short periods (like one or two rides each time) throughout the day - it was different in the past. It's better to service such areas with buses, some factories run also their own special buses for their workers.

So currently, those tracks are not likely to be finished.

The photos show also stairs from the partially built tram stop on the bridge over the railway tracks to the platform for train passengers - which also waited long from when it began being constructed in the 1970s or 1980s to 2013 when it was finally finished and opened.

See on Google Maps 3D view how it looks like: https://goo.gl/maps/Hb9z7mBnwUK2


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Meanwhile, the MPK rolling stock got enriched with... the GT8N party tram/culture tram from Helsinki!

See the photos here:

```
http://gtlodz eu/keyword-HKL166
```
 (put a dot instead of the space)


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The M6S 327 car (together with 10 805Na units) is being sold as decommissioned, for scrap. It has been used as spare parts donor and it's practically empty now. MPK leaves the bogeys for themselves.

Photo from 2012 by Łukasz Stefańczyk:










Other photos of this car - www gtlodz eu (add dots instead of spaces), enter its number (327) in the search field.

And here: http://phototrans.pl/15,139097,34.html


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The two new Bogestras are already in Łódź:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

There are media reports about them. What they say:

- 15 units will be brought to Łódź this year, there will be two new every month,

- the trams are in the MPK workshops in Tramwajowa street, awaiting obtaining the homologation, conversion of power systems (in Łódź we have -600 V DC, in Bogestra they had +750 V DC) and modifications of the passenger information system (to make it compatible with the one used in Łódź - produced by a Polish company R&G, not compatible with the German Ibis standard), they don't write about it, but probably also removing (and selling) the Scharfenberg couplings, which are not allowed in Poland for trams and most stops in the city is anyway too short for those trams to be used in sets of two,

- after introducing the first 4-5 units to traffic (so that they may do two trams at once), bigger modernization will start, it will include installing windows with big pieces which the passengers may open (nobody knows why but Germans always install windows with very small those parts which open, which results in that it's boiling hot in them in summer), installing ramps for wheelchairs in the doors, possibly also repainting them and, if it turns out to be feasible, installing direct doors from outside to the driver's compartments (it is necessary because we still have some track switches that have to be switched manually by the driver, the trams of this type in some German towns have those doors, so adding them should be doable),

- 5 of the trams (including one of those two which came now, the one with Sparkasse advert on it) will have to have the half-axles exchanged, but just now it can be used (even though in Bogestra they weren't using those trams because of that), they will also have to have the rims exchanged.

A video of a local TV station: http://tvtoya.pl/news/show/19039


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

^^
Interesting that you have reversed polarity. Afaik on most tram networks the wire is + and rails -. I guess that it's actually better to have - on the wire as galvanic corrosion affects the plus side and thus instead "eats" grounded stuff which could be made much thicker.

Do you know why Scharfenberg couplers aren't allowed in Poland?

I guess that the reason for small windows is to reduce the risk of someone hanging out and getting hit by some permanent fixture nearby the tracks, i.e. a traffic sign or similar. Maybe it's also to stop people from jumping out of the tram if there is ticket inspection.

Isn't there any air condition in theese units? Of course that would cost more to install but would be far nicer than changing the windows.


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## 0tomek0 (Apr 8, 2013)

^^
Scharfenberg's couplings are used in Szczecin with Tatra T6A2 and KT4D.
They problem is they are not compatible with Albert couplers used in Łódź (and in Poland generally) – therefore to maintain the same couplings on the whole network different couplings are used.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

No, they have no air conditioning. MPK said on Facebook that they will install air conditioning in the driver's compartment, but unfortunately not for the passengers.

The Cityrunner trams already had the windows exchanged to ones with big the part which opens because originally it was simply too hot in them in summer. At some moment, even a rule was introduced that those trams did not leave the depot above a specified temperature during the day (if I remember well, 25 degrees Celsius) because there were many complaints of the passengers that it's too hot in the trams.

The old Konstal 805Na were better in those terms because they have bigger opening parts in windows and also roof "windows" same as those which you see in buses. The roof "windows" are impossible to install in modern trams because they have a lot of electrical machinery placed on the roof and there is simply no room for that, while windows can be exchanged and this will be done.

Interestingly, even in case of the Ikarus 260/280 buses, those delivered to East Germany had windows with small opening pieces while those delivered to most of the Eastern Bloc had windows in which those pieces were big.

I think that with the risks of people hanging out through the window and being hit e.g. by a catenary pole it's exaggeration, in case of train carriages such windows were used for many years (to the moment of the introduction of air conditioning) and I haven't heard about accidents related to that. Also in a private car there is such a danger and nobody cares about it.

It's probably related to that Germans are simply less immune to draughts and they quicker get sick from being exposed to one  Also the air conditioning in the public transport in Germany is always set to much less power than, for example, in Poland, not to mention the southern European countries. So that sometimes you don't even notice it's working.

I once watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR9PQvsK5QI and from it comes my theory about the standards of windows and air conditioning in public transport in Germany.

Scharfenberg couplers are not allowed because they are a protruding part out of the vehicle and this is not allowed in road traffic.

The only city in Poland which uses them is Szczecin - in Tatra trams brought from Berlin. When they were doing their homologation, they applied for an exception from the rules and they got them. But Łódź is simply not planning to use those trams coupled so they didn't do it.

It's pity because you can see that trams on some lines, especially on two main routes, are overcrowded and they should be longer. But it would also demand rebuilding the platforms at the stops.

Concerning the reversed polarity, I don't know why it is so. If I am not mistaken, Łódź is the only city in Poland with reversed polarity in trams. Although I am not fully sure if it isn't so also somewhere else, in a smaller network.

---

Ok, I found out that apart from Łódź, they have reversed polarity in: Częstochowa, Elbląg, Grudziądz and Gorzów Wielkopolski. But all of those networks are small, only the one in Łódź is big and with reversed polarity.

Also most big tram networks in Poland use normal-gauge trams, Łódź is narrow-gauge.

Concerning the voltage itself, the standard in Poland is 600 V DC, even in the totally new network in Olsztyn they have 600 V; it's just the polarity that vary between the cities.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

Kpc21 said:


> I once watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR9PQvsK5QI and from it comes my theory about the standards of windows and air conditioning in public transport in Germany.


Oh, that is exactly how it's in Sweden. We have words with the same meaning, but instead of durschzug we have a word what litteraly would translate as "cross draught". If you open a window on a train you can be sure that some old lady will complain :nuts:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

But we also have a word for that in Polish and it literally translates to German as "Durchzug".

And while we are, seemingly, not so sensitive to draughts as Germans, it's also likely that an old lady may complain when you open a window on a train.

But if it's actually hot, most people will rather appreciate that.


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

Kpc21 said:


> And while we are, seemingly, not so sensitive to draughts as Germans, it's also likely that an old lady may complain when you open a window on a train.



To explain why german busses and trams have small windows it´s necessary to introduce another german word called: Gefährdungshaftung. Literally translated it means, that the operator is liable for any injuries as it´s open public transport and the operator should take into account any risk of injuries. You might say, that you can hold your arm, leg or whatever out of an open car-window as well and that people doing this in trams are stupid. Well, but in past german tram and bus-operators got seriously into trouble with law, as some persons have been injured by holding extremities out of that windows.


Maybe I could add something to the polartiy-thing. It seems to be somewhat philosophy for a civil-engineer like me. First. as MIa M said, for trams it´s probably better to have positive polarity at the overhead-wires. 

Berlin U-Bahn small-profile-lines have positive polarity, too. Later they changed to negative polarity on big-profile-lines. An electric engineer explained it to me, as it´s easier to lead the DC back to the converter (AC/DC) station, because resistance (Ohm) in the rails is lesser than that in the overhead-wires or third-rail. But this only really makes sense, if you can garant, that current is lead back to the converter-station via isolated rails correctly. I suppose it´s more difficult, if tracks are street-running like trams are operated in much cases worldwide.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

^^ Btw IIRC the east germans changed polarity on their small profile line, to be able to run the trains via the large profile line (switching between lines at Alexanderplatz) to reach the only U-Bahn depot that ended up in East Berlin.

I think you might be onto something re polarity. The wehicle won't care which lead the largest voltage drop is in, but it might have something to do with galvanic corrosion. If the feeding point is properly grounded then due to voltage drop other parts of the rails will have a slightly positive polarity compared to true ground. Thus galvanic corrosion will be a controlled problem on the rail, and not an uncontrolled problem on various metal stuff in the ground nearby, like water pipes and even worse gas pipes. The rails are thick enough to be able to withstand some corrosion, they are probably specified with enough material on their bottom part to withstand corrosion during their planned life length.

I guess that the tram or rail companies would be liable for lots of damages otherwise.

Not sure how it's with water pipes and other metal stuff in the ground in Lodz though.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

tunnel owl said:


> To explain why german busses and trams have small windows it´s necessary to introduce another german word called: Gefährdungshaftung. Literally translated it means, that the operator is liable for any injuries as it´s open public transport and the operator should take into account any risk of injuries. You might say, that you can hold your arm, leg or whatever out of an open car-window as well and that people doing this in trams are stupid. Well, but in past german tram and bus-operators got seriously into trouble with law, as some persons have been injured by holding extremities out of that windows.


What if you just put signs next to the window that it's forbidden to stick limbs out of the windows?

Because I think I saw such signs on public transport in Poland, although it's not very common. I think here it would be anyway obvious that it's the fault of the passenger. It's not like in the US where you put a wet cat into a microwave to dry it, turn the oven on and the cat dies, then you discover that there is no warning about not putting cats into the microwave in the user manual, you can sue the oven's manufacturer and you may win.

And even if you have a small window, you maybe won't stick your head out of it, but it's still possible with your arm.

Anyway, this is the balance between two things:
- what if someone gets it by external items because the opening part of window was too big and invited him to stick his body out of it, which results with an accident,
- what if someone faints in the public transport vehicle because it was too hot inside because it wasn't possible to open the windows in a sufficient amount.
In this situation I feel sorry for you Germans that you must travel in such conditions on the public transport because of a stupid law of the "state thinks instead of the citizen" type. At least in the old, not yet air-conditioned vehicles. And I am happy that in Poland it's perfectly legal to install "correct" windows.

I don't think the water pipes in the ground in Łódź are metal, I know they used to make it of asbestos and now as asbestos is forbidden, they are made of a kind of plastic. But maybe they were metal before asbestos (after all, they had to be made out of some kind of material, there was no asbestos yet and the technology of plastic was also not developed so well as now) and if so, then there will probably still be many of those metal pipes in the streets.

I found a presentation on the materials for water pipes: https://www.kierunekwodkan.pl/Resources/art/5776/bmp_517e3eb73f5df.pdf

The mentioned materials are:
- wood - one photo from a museum, another of the old pieces of pipes - an obsolete technology, probably no longer used anywhere (although still used in 18th century), problems with leakages
- grey cast iron - not recommended, no longer produced - too brittle and problems with leakages
- ductile iron - many advantages, used currently in practice, problems: expensive, heavy, susceptible to corrosion if the protective shell gets damaged (I don't know if this shell also isolates the pipe electrically but it's not unlikely)
- steel - recommended for some special cases, must be protected against corrosion by painting inside and outside, the paint must be certified for contact with drinking water
- lead - not recommended, bad for health, used in the past
- asbestos - not recommended, bad for health, used in the past
- PVC - not recommended, not durable enough
- PE - recommended but there are problems with locating the leakages and it's not certain if it's not bad for health
- stainless steel - recommended but too expensive - used at nodes

There are four materials currently in use:
- for linear applications: ductile iron and PE
- at nodes: steel and stainless steel


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

Kpc21 said:


> It's not like in the US where you put a wet cat into a microwave to dry it, turn the oven on and the cat dies, then you discover that there is no warning about not putting cats into the microwave in the user manual, you can sue the oven's manufacturer and you may win.



Well, here we are in Germany,too. It´s not a state-law it´s the lawyer. If someone falls on tracks because he is drunk we often have trouble beeing accused and have to prove that it was not possible to break (even if he/her falls direct before the train). But honestly until now transport-operators kept free from any penalty. The legal argumentation is the same as car against bike. Even if the cyclist did it wrong, car-drivers are accused at part because they simply have the more danerous vehicle.


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

MiaM said:


> ^^ Btw IIRC the east germans changed polarity on their small profile line, to be able to run the trains via the large profile line (switching between lines at Alexanderplatz) to reach the only U-Bahn depot that ended up in East Berlin.



Yes, they did so in 1977 and changed back in 1993, together with the reunification of U2.





MiaM said:


> The rails are thick enough to be able to withstand some corrosion, they are probably specified with enough material on their bottom part to withstand corrosion during their planned life length.



It´s not because the rails withstand galvanic corrosion better. He explained it to me, that electric-resistance on the way to subsbstation is lesser through rail and you have a controled point at the substation to handle galvanic corrosion better there with negative polarity. But this only works in a railway-like trackbed with good isolation. To my knowledge I would still prefer the positve polarity nowadays. At least I know not much cases because of galvanic corrosion on trams and metro here in Berlin, no matter which polarity. 



Changing polarity is not a matter anymore in Berlin, although new small-profile trains are equipped with that switch. Devil liles in the details because we already have severe faults in tests. Modern trains are much more complicated, so switching polarity is a mess compared to have 2-voltage-switch operation like 600V to 750 V DC.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

It makes some sense that the resistance is lower through the rails than through the catenary because rails are thicker than the catenary.

Although on the other hand, there are dilatation gaps in the rails which must be electrically bridged - and probably those bridges are the point about which most care must be taken to maintain this possibly low resistance path.

This is also important from the safety perspective, by the way - if the resistance on such bridge happens to be too high, not only it will be problematic for the trains to run at all, but there might be a difference of potentials on both sides of such a "resistor". When there is just a break... the train won't run at all (no current will be able to flow), but it will instead pull the voltage from the catenary to the rails, isn't it?

Looking at it from a different point - there are sometimes problems with a good electric connection between the catenary and the pantograph, e.g. if there is ice on the catenary. The ice is an insulator - in most cases, luckily, the voltage between the catenary and the pantograph is enough to cause an electric breakdown in it, which results with spectacular sparks (and melting down the ice), but you can hear from the work of the motors that the voltage they get is not too stable (because the resistance of the ice being melted and thus the voltage drop across it constantly change). So the resistance between the train and the substation through the catenary in some special cases (like ice on the catenary) might be not only quite high but also unstable, which rather doesn't happen with the rails (I assume much care is taken to keep those bridges at dilatation gaps in good condition since it's also a matter of safety).

And the connection between the train and the rails will be always good (as long as the train remains on the rails and the rails are still made of metal) thanks to the gravity.


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## tunnel owl (May 19, 2013)

Kpc21 said:


> This is also important from the safety perspective, by the way - if the resistance on such bridge happens to be too high, not only it will be problematic for the trains to run at all, but there might be a difference of potentials on both sides of such a "resistor". When there is just a break... the train won't run at all (no current will be able to flow), but it will instead pull the voltage from the catenary to the rails, isn't it?



Yes. It´s comparable to a typical problem occuring in autumn, if leaves from trees falling on the rails in such an amount and short time, that no current flows, but tram is under full-voltage. This happens not very often, but staff has to Keep in mind this danger.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

The voltage drop doesen't care which polarity is used, it's the same.

So it must have something to do with galvanic corrosion.

With minus on the wire and plus on the tracks it saves the tracks but causes corrosions to nearby metal water pipes and the large ground at the substation. 

With plus on the wire and minus on the tracks, i.e. the most common polarity, it causes corrotion to the tracks but everything else is saved.

P.S. the corrosion is of course only happening when there is enough moist in the ground to conduct enough current to cause the corrosion.

Btw the London Underground uses insulated rails for both plus and minus, i.e. a third and a fourth rail, to avoid corrosion to the tunnels which afaik are made of metal.

But I guess that the polarity mostly is an example of "this is how we always have done it, and we will conitnue to always do it this way"...


Btw re. a wehichle loosing it's ground throuhg the rails (in your case due to leaves): I've read a story about an electric shunter derailed somewhere around Stockholm Central, and to be able to easier get it on tracks again, the staff drove it directly on the macadam even though it had no contact to the rails, and this is with 16kV AC electrification! The person telling the story saw it from a distance, so maybe they had some ground wire from the shunter to the rails which he didn't see. Otherwise it seems really dangerous especially as staff were standing in the macadam nearby...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

So both in case of rails and in case of catenary, the cases of loosing good conductivity happen - at the rails because of leaves, at the catenary because of ice.

But those leaves (by the way, causing also other problems - with braking) are usually wet, so the problems with the current shouldn't be so big...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Update from Dąbrowskiego street:



Tomkisiel said:


> Przypadkiem przejeżdżałem obok X Kilińskiego - Dąbrowskiego, więc parę fotek uwieczniłem, bo zmiany delikatne zauważyłem.
> 
> Wlot od południa i sieć trakcyjne podczepiona pod nowe antracytowe słupy.
> 
> ...


(don't ask me what were those photos taken with, I have no idea)

And a new renovation - Narutowicza street:



Polopiryn said:


> No to na dzisiaj Narutowicza, zaczynamy od Kopcińskiego.
> 
> 1.
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 6.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 11.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The tracks are being renovated between Kopcińskiego street and the Radiostacja loop.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Building new hall in the Telefoniczna depot: 



Funky Koval said:


> Jedno zza węgła.
> Budowa nowej hali w zajezdni Telefoniczna.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The second NF6D - the first one from the actual purchase of MPK after the test one - had its premiere on Monday:



















The old and the new number:










As you can see, it seems that the German IBIS-compatible directional displays got adjusted to the R&G IBIS-incompatible system used in Łódź.

It probably also includes the on-board displays (they managed to do it in the first tram, the test one, even though the external ones got exchanged into original R&G ones), which is a kind of novice in Łódź, until now the on-board displays in the imported trams and buses were never used and the only ones in use in Łódź were fully R&G original.

R&G is a Polish company from the town of Mielec producing passenger information systems for the public transport.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Opening of the offers for the modernization of the tracks in Ksawerów and Pabianice.

The cheapest offer is about 30 million PLN (7 million EUR) higher than the budget:



> Budget of the investor (PLN): 145.429.050,00
> 
> Consortium of Progreg Infracity, Włodan and MPK Łódź - 173.772.114,17
> Consortium of Balzola and Mosty Łódź - 198.770.348,70
> ...


It seems that while Pabianice (population of nearly 65 986) will probably manage to find such an amount of money, it's nearly impossible for the municipality of Ksawerów (population of 7 705).

There will be negotiations between Pabianice and Ksawerów about what to do with it.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Dąbrowskiego str., intersection with Kilińskiego:



kukuss said:


> *ul. Dąbrowskiego X Kilińskiego*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is one of the most depressing regions of Łódź, one could make here a war film... Let's hope it will change.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Narutowicza and Dąbrowskiego renovations continued...

First Narutowicza and Radiostacja loop:



Polopiryn said:


> 1. Jak widać idzie do przodu
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 6.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 11. Święte Krowy Parkowania, po drugiej stronie gość stanął przed swoją bramą beszczelnie na trawniku i części chodnika. Czekał czy mu zrobie zdjęcie czy nie....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Second Dąbrowskiego and intersection with Kilińskiego:



Polopiryn said:


> 1. Tarcza skrzyżowania bez większych zmian
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 7. Cimność widzę.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Update from Kilińskiego/Dąbrowskiego:



Tomkisiel said:


> Dzisiaj byłem w okolicy Dąbrowskiego i Kilińskiego... i wrzucę trochę zdjęć
> 
> 1. Od Rzgowskiej
> 
> ...


A question from me: does posting updates from such simple track renovations here make any sense?


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

^^ At least the updates makes sense to me


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

New service hall at the Telefoniczna depot:



kukuss said:


> *Półmetek budowy nowej hali serwisowania tramwajów*
> 
> Przy ul. Telefonicznej powstaje nowoczesna hala, w której modernizowany i naprawiany będzie łódzki tabor.
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

MiaM said:


> ^^ At least the updates makes sense to me


So...

Dąbrowskiego continued:



Tomkisiel said:


> 11. Prawoskręt już w krawężnikach
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And update from Narutowicza:



Polopiryn said:


> Zaczynamy od Narutowicza
> 
> 1.
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 7.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

An interesting situation happened last night, today and is still happening in Łódź.

As I already wrote somewhere before, in Łódź we have two active tram depots: Telefoniczna and Chocianowice. Telefoniczna is newer and bigger, but Chocianowice is also a big depot.

Both depots are located so that there are connected with the city with practically single pairs of tracks.

And... it finally happened. A water pipeline failure which blocked the route between the city and the Telefoniczna depot.

Yesterday about 11 PM.

Some trams had already gone back to the depot, some were still in the city.

So... the trams that were still in the city got sent to three of the tram loops to spend the night there:









(photo: Toya Go)

Unfortunately, the trams that were already in the depot at the moment of the failure, couldn't start their service in the morning, so the tram services today morning were limited, many tram lines departed twice less frequently than normally.

After 8 AM, the MPK managed to arrange making it possible at least for the non-low-floor trams to go through the point of failure carefully and start their service.

But due to the proceeding repair works, today the trams again cannot be sent to the depot and have to spend the night at the loops.


A few years ago we still had one depot more (Dąbrowskiego), which was so luckily located that it was accessible from the city from three directions. But they decided to close it and sell its area... :bash:

----

One of the temporary "depots" for today:



Myszon_LODZ said:


>


This is the newest section of tram tracks in the city.

The trams of the line 4, which goes this way, are sent on a detour.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Dąbrowskiego / Kilińskiego intersection update. Kilińskiego starts to look like a road.

There was a lot of rainfall recently.



Polopiryn said:


> Tradcyjnie od Rzgowskiej
> 
> 1. W oddali nasza słynna nowa rzeka
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 7.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 13. Jak widać w oddali część już zabetonowana to rodzi nadzieje na powtórkę z Narutowicza
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 19.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If you ask about the situation with a cut-off depot, after that second night, it was repaired and the trams could return there.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Solaris won the tender for the delivery of 26 single (12-meter) buses and 20 articulated (18-meter) ones. Meanwhile, the tender for the delivery of 24 mini buses (from 8 to 8.5 m) is won by... Isuzu, with their new model NovoCity Life (now only a prototype).


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

CITY



Kilińskiego/Dąbrowskiego.

The intersection was open for traffic along Kilińskiego street on 11 August.

Photos from the post: https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=151273757&postcount=22895 (sorry, they are in a quote, so if I quote the post the standard way, they disappear):

- before the opening:


















(MPK's tracks and network workshops can be seen in the top part of the photo)









(here also with the workshops - the tracks leading there seen here will be cut off and the gate used by the technical trams will be relocated)










- after the opening:



























(building of the Dąbrowskiego depot, the depot decommissioned in 2011, unfortunately after selling and leaving it, most of its buildings, also having monument value, got destroyed in a sequence of fires and then they had to be demolished)

More up-to-date photos:



archysquito said:


> Kilińskiego / Przybyszewskiego [22.08.2018]




Narutowicza street - it will be open on 1 September:



Tomkisiel said:


> ZDiT informuje
> Ostatni spaw i szlifowanie. Ułożone zostało całe torowisko na Narutowicza.
> 1 września otwieramy ulice po remoncie.





MiBac said:


> Remont Narutowicza. Wrzucam bardziej poglądowo bo przez odległość (robione ze skrzyżowania Kilińskiego i Narutowicza) i przede wszystkim rozgrzane powietrze mało widać.




Rzgowska/Dąbrowskiego intersection.

At the moment of opening the Kilińskiego/Dąbrowskiego intersection for the traffic in the Kilińskiego street two weeks ago, the Rzgowska/Dąbrowskiego intersection got closed as the continuation of the Dąbrowskiego street renovation.

From this post: https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=151379633&postcount=22964







































Śmigłego-Rydza.

One part of the project is building new tram tracks in the middle of the road instead of the old, used-up ones. Another part is demolishing three bridges: one for each of two roadways for cars and one in between for trams - over an old and already demolished railway spur. The bridges for cars will be built new (so that the currently existing passage for the pedestrians under the road will remain) meanwhile the trams will be moved to the pedestrians' level.




























The works began on 19 August.

Photos from the city Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/lodzpl/


















(replacement bus service)




























This is a bus stop, but the tram stops in the middle of the road weren't accessible from the pedestrians' level, one had to go upstairs to the street level and cross the three-lane roadway to access the tram. Which resulted in one of the most dangerous tram stops in the city.






























New section of tracks between Kopcińskiego and Tramwajowa.

Another part of this big project (including the works in the Dąbrowskiego and Śmigłego-Rydza streets), co-financed with EU money, is a new section of tracks from Kopcińskiego to Tramwajowa street which is supposed to service the New City Center and play important role in the Expo Horticultural exhibition in 2024. It includes rebuilding the bridge of Kopcińskiego street over Tuwima street (and over former railway tracks which are now moved under the ground and new road is being built on the top), so that the trams in Kopcińskiego street will be moved to the level of Tuwima street (and of the new road being built).

The offers in the tender for this investment got open this month. However, they exceeded the budget very much (in one part - over twice, in the other - three times!), probably because of the skyrocketing prices on the construction market in Poland. The tender will be repeated with a division into smaller parts, so that also smaller construction companies will be able to make offers for it.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

NEIGHBORHOOD



Pabianice.

Unfortunately, the government did not agree to additionally co-finance the renovation of the tram tracks in Pabianice.

The town is determined to do that but they simply have not enough funds after it turned out that the offers in the tender exceeded the budget.

Now they are trying to decrease the costs of the investment by some kind of tax optimization. But this situation means that the future of the trams in Pabianice is becoming more and more uncertain.

On 21 October, there will be local elections in Poland. The main opponent of the current mayor of Pabianice seems to be not so much for the trams as him. Assuming that the current mayor wins, they will be probably trying to do everything to this investment. It is especially important for him taking into account that this project includes not only renovating the tram tracks, but also the streets in the center on which the tram goes - which would improve a lot the appearance of the town.

Furthermore, this project partially uses EU funds which will be probably lost if it gets cancelled.

Currently, after an exchange of the catenary a year ago, the trams service the route from Łódź to Pabianice and the tram seems to be winning with the commercial minibus carriers who are cancelling more and more connections (none of them is running during the summer holidays) - even though they service the town better than the tram. But many people also choose the railway connection to Łódź which is constantly improving - the train station is located next to the terminal of the trams. It might be also a result of introducing an integrated ticket which allows for transfers from the city buses in Pabianice (the town has a bus network that is independent of the one in Łódź) to the tram.

It happens even though the condition of the tracks is still bad and they urgently need renovation.



Zgierz - Ozorków.

In this case, let me remind that the tram traffic on this route got suspended around the beginning of this year and replaced with buses. From that time, some sections of the catenary got stolen by thieves to sell it as scrap metal, others got demolished by the municipality of Ozorków and the municipality officially sold it for scrap. It seems that the tram service to Ozorków might even be suspended forever because the municipality of Ozorków (located between the town of Zgierz and the town of Ozorków, I remind that the town of Ozorków is not a part of this municipality but is a separate one) doesn't seem to have enough money to make the necessary renovation.

Zgierz is applying for EU money for renovating their part of the network but whether they get it or not will be known in October. Even if they get the EU money, they may encounter similar problems as Pabianice do now. Apart from that, Zgierz doesn't seem to be willing so much to have the tram back as Pabianice will to maintain it.

Zgierz also possesses a part of the route to Ozorków. It doesn't really plan any renovation of it but it considers reopening the tram service on those tracks once they renovate their main route.



Andrzejów district and neighboring Andrespol municipality.

On 16 July started the renovation of Rokicińska street, which is the main road to exit the city to the east. The street got totally closed on the section from Malownicza to Gajcego street, later this section will be opened and the next section, from Gajcego to the borders of Łódź will get closed. It results in problems for the inhabitants of the Andrzejów district in Łódź and the neighboring Andrespol municipality with getting to the city.

The closed street is located in parallel with the railway line from Łódź to the town of Koluszki and further to Warsaw. Because of that, the city decided to order additional trains on the route to Koluszki from the train operator (normally, the city doesn't pay for any trains, so it's an unusual situation). In addition, the Łódź zone 2 tickets, which are normally valid on the city buses and trams out of the borders of the city but not on the trains in this area (the city public transport tickets of both zones: 1 and 2 are valid on the regional trains within the borders of the city only), will be valid on the trains out of Łódź at the section to Bedoń station in Andrespol municipality. It will be so from the beginning of October.

It is supposed to help the people living in the area cut-off by the road closure to get to the city - they will be able to use more frequent trains for the same price as the buses which are now sent on detours.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

I prepared a map showing the streets and routes mentioned in those two posts on the Łódź public transport map (source: https://test.uml.lodz.pl/files/public/uploads/Schemat_Aglomeracja_Lodzka_05.04.2018.pdf):


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## metacatfry (Aug 13, 2012)

I don't know much about building tram lines but I thought that they were simpler and cheaper to build than heavy rail, at least when not running directly on surface roads. this is because trams are relatively light and slow compared to trains, so the rails do not need to be built to the same tolerances and robustness. Nevertheless i think these pictures show some very substantial work and I'm curious if that's normal for tramlines or if for some reason this line is being built to some extra high standard? there are reinforced concrete as a base, then on top concrete ballast, and then the rails. just seems like you could get away with some savings in materials with little problem.

The cheapest offer on the line to Pabianice cost 17 million zl per km for renovation. Now, I don't know what that entails, whether there are any bridge structures involved, but as far as I can see the line mostly runs parallel to the road, not on it. could you not have some low budget renovation, with simple sleepers and track? That should be possible for much less. It might not last as long, but at this point it seems like there is a need to get what you can and ensure the the service is kept in action. 


Polopiryn said:


> 7.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

I think those structures are kinda standard for trams. And also remember that this is Łódź and for Łódź being a big city the costs are not such a big issue, it's better to pay more and get tracks that will be durable enough and prepared to the traffic that will take place there.

From what I normally see, when you have ties/sleepers, they don't lie directly on the ground, usually there is something called ballast in form of those little crushed stones. And in this case, they seemingly used another technology that replaces the ballast with those lines of concrete, on which the sleepers are placed. I am not sure if it's not because they want to make the tracks green (covered with grass) and conventional ballast would make it impossible. I am not an expert, this is just guessing. One would have to read the tender documentation to learn what kind of technology it actually is and what's its purpose. Or just be an expert.









http://www.railsystem.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/r1.jpg

Concerning the renovations in Pabianice, yes, it's possible to do it possibly low-cost, it is being done so throughout the years by Konstantynów and now the biggest obstacle of their route is... the section in Łódź, from the Zdrowie loop and park to the border of the city. Maybe Pabianice will also do it so if they will be determined and they won't manage to get funding for the currently planned project.

But applying such an approach, it's rather not possible to get any EU co-financing, so the costs wouldn't be considerably lower, maybe even higher. Although distributed across many years instead of one big project. So it seems to be better even to take a credit (but this has limitations and the budget takes it into account, it's really not possible for them to pay much more than they assumed) and do it the better way - if only it happens to be possible.

Maybe one of the reasons for such costs is that the whole project in Pabianice involves a big modernization of the whole street.

Also a modernization of the electrical system powering the trams is needed. Catenary will be exchanged again - because one of the demands of the EU co-financed projects is that they must be complete, it's not possible to make such a project for everything except the catenary. 

There will also be integrated bus+tram stops with passenger information system.

Maybe they really wanted too much and therefore it became too expensive. Although the actual situation is probably such that they actually assumed the proper budget for the moment when they were planning it and even it was less than a year ago, the prices on the construction market grew so much that now it became too expensive. Even though that year ago they could afford it.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

M8CN tram before vs. after modernization:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Photo day in MPK rolling stock workshops (Zakład Techniki): https://www.radiolodz.pl/posts/4680...e-techniki-i-napraw-mpk-w-lodzi-galeria-zdjec


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

One of the ex-Bogestra NF6Ds out of service:



Bartas2004 said:


>


By the way, you can see how rusty the old 805Na are.

Passengers seem to like those ex-Bochumers. In the Polish section, there are described cases of people who were first complaining about "buying German crap" but changed their opinions after having a ride.

In mid-September, there were already 11 delivered NF6Ds. Meanwhile, there are only 4 new Swings by Pesa yet to be delivered.

Because of construction works on the route of the line 14, on which the new NF6Ds and Swings were used (the detour route crosses the worst tracks intersection in the whole city and sending there low-floor trams would be a bad idea), the NF6D are currently running on the line 11, which is the main north-south backbone line - while Swings are shifted onto the line 12.




Construction in Dąbrowskiego str.:



lenin said:


> Ku lepszemu-Dąbrowskiego.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Building a new road to connect the new Fabryczna station with one of the main north-south city highways (Kopcińskiego) involves also rebuilding the bus terminus Wydawnicza:



karol.ldz said:


> 29.09.


Previously, there were railway tracks to Fabryczna station under this bridge. Now, they are under the ground.

Next, there will be a tram line built along this road. The tram line in the middle of Kopcińskiego street will be moved a level down and there will be an intersection of those two tram lines over there.

Compare the previous state: https://goo.gl/maps/AgUxGGUTWNm

More photos from today:



phl said:


> Wydawnicza / Kopińskiego / Tuwima: W częsci, która ma być oddana jako pierwsza (od ronda na wschód do końcowego odcinka Tuwima, na zachód łącznik do Kopcińskiego i na południe w Wydawniczą) widać na horyzoncie koniec prac. Praktycznie na całym tym obszarze, łącznie z rondem są już dwie warstwy nawierzchni, prace brukarskie na wykończeniu, dzisiaj asfaltują DDR-ki... Jakby się sprężyli, to za tydzień będzie gotowe
> 
> 1.
> 
> ...








I am not sure if writing about road infrastructure here is OK but I mentioned Rokicińska str. before, so let it be:



motrs said:


> Rokicińska
> 
> 1.
> 
> ...


Notice that the old asphalt was put directly on cobblestone. It was common in 1960s and 1970s when the streets in Poland were massively asphalted.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Łódź already has a complete number of the 12 ordered Pesa 122N. They are bought for the line 14 but are now assigned to the line 12 because of the detour of 14 through an intersection with very poor condition of tracks: https://goo.gl/maps/hsJK23U4QcJ2 (it is gonna be renovated in the near future) – because of the closure of the Rydza-Śmigłego street.

Unfortunately, similar trams bought in 2015 for the line 10 currently suffer big technical problems (they are serviced by the producer) and therefore, the 2018 Pesas have to replace them on the line 10, with only few of them servicing the line 12.


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## ArunasTravelPhoto (Dec 15, 2017)

*Duewag GT6 tram*


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The future of the trams to Pabianice becomes less and less certain.

https://www.zyciepabianic.pl/inform...-tylko-dotrzemy-autobusem-bardzo-mozliwe.html


> On today press conference, Grzegorz Mackiewicz [mayor of Pabianice] finally referred to the topic of the Zamkowa street and tram upgrade. Those problems troubling the town caused even that the administrators started talking about that maybe it will be a bus and not a tram going along Zamkowa. Anyway, the upgrade is to take place.
> 
> "Before we start the new tender or decide to realize the renovation of Zamkowa and Warszawska streets excluding trams, based on bus transport, we want to use all possible measures to realize revitalization or actually building the tram line from scratch", the mayor says.
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Finally, a wonder happened and *Pabianice got admitted the extra money from the government they requested*. It was not so likely because the mayor of Pabianice is from the main opposition party (PO), so the negotiations with government must've been hard for him, but after the last local elections, the voivodeship marshall is from the governing party PiS and it seems he managed to fight it out (and in general, as a party, PO has more of its electorate in cities, PiS in the countryside, so PiS might've been anyway more likely to support a smaller town).

Also the EU money Zgierz applied for got admitted. Of course, a tender must now take place and we will see if the story with the offers exceeding a lot the assumed price repeats – but it's not unlikely because during the last year, the costs in the construction industry in Poland simply skyrocketed.

Meanwhile, there are rumours that the trams between Konstantynów and Lutomiersk (the picturesque line through a bridge over the Ner river) might get suspended in the near future because of bad condition of tracks...



















Talking about Lutomiersk, they also have problems with the bus line which connects it with another region of Łódź. It was operated by the company PKS Łódź – a private company, a former local division of the state bus operator from the communist times, which got bought out by the employees. Those PKS companies are struggling in the whole country, which results in many local connections disappearing. The condition of PKS Łódź is not so bad because they also operate several intercity coach lines. However, it seems that their business decision is to phase out all the local lines they operate. Their line to Lutomiersk was previously partially subsidized by the municipality – but now, the company requested multiple times higher subsidy.

So now, Lutomiersk is going to select a new operator of this bus line to Łódź in a tender – but it will be probably more expensive for them than PKS was until now, so they will probably have less money to finance the trams.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

And it's confirmed – from March 4th no more trams to Konstantynów and Lutomiersk 

The official message from the authorities of Konstantynów : https://www.konstantynow.pl/asp/pl_...SBnfr3ePdp5Pg1JCh9M0gSEzorEeqUc1q5GoYIhFXJEng

My translation (sorry for quality, hope it's at least readable, having tried to do it possibly fast):



> *Information concerning the tram line in Konstantynów Łódzki*
> 
> On the day of 3 March 2019 the tram line 43 ends its operation. It's a decision of the Lodz Roads and Transport Authority. Thewasam network got as decided to be completely used up and the rides are not safe for the passengers. The only safe and possible solution is running replacement bus services.
> 
> ...


Who wants to have a last ride – has 3 weeks left.

An interesting fact about this route is that during the presidential campaign in 2015, the president who was then at office and wanted a re-election, was on this route in a vintage tram, which derailed in Konstantynów 

Photos and videos: https://dzienniklodzki.pl/tramwaj-z...oleil-sie-w-konstantynowie-zdjecia/ar/3819927


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Farewell to the trams to Konstantynów and Lutomiersk.





































Photos from www gtlodz eu – they are signed, so it looks OK from the copyright perspective if I post them here.

The voivodeship declared financial support for the renovation of tracks. But the municipality has to spend some money by themselves anyway. They don't have them in this year's budget although it's not unlikely they will have it the next year or in 2 years.

So we definitely say goodbye to this line for several years and what will come then – we will see. Maybe those are the last days ever of this tram line, maybe not.

A special tram for spotters (Konstal 803N) at the bridge in Kazimierz over the Ner river:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

And suddenly... another section of the Lodz tram network gets closed for unknown time, maybe even forever.

It's the section in Warszawska street to the Wycieczkowa loop.

The catenary in this street is in bad condition. The poles, to which the catenary is attached, are located on private land which MPK cannot access with their heavy vehicles. So making a simple refurbrishment of the infrastructure (which would involve just replacing all old elements with new ones, which doesn't require a design project) is not possible and a modernization is required – which costs much more and requires a lot of time for the preparation.

The line 3 will be shortened to the Skrzydlata stop, just behind the railway bridge. On that stop, MPK will install a passage between the tracks, so that the trams will be able to change the track. Because of that, the line 3 will require bidirectional rolling stock. The rumours are the MPK will shift the recently bought (and still being delivered) ex-Bogestra NF6D trams onto this line from 11A.

This will force some tram route changes in the southern part of the city. Currently, the line 7 (7A and 7B) ends at Plac Niepodległości (normally it continues along the Dąbrowskiego street to the Lodowa loop but Dąbrowskiego is currently being modernized and the route of 7 is shorted), the line 3 follows its standard route along Przybyszewskiego, Puszkina and Rokicińska streets to Widzew Augustów. However, 3 goes through the Przybyszewskiego/Kilińskiego intersection, which is in an extremely bad technical condition (it will be modernized soon but it has to wait for the works in Dąbrowskiego to finish) – so it's no way that the low-floor NF6D trams could be routed through there.

Because of that, the routes of the lines 7 (7A/7B) and 3 will be exchanged in the southern part of Lodz:










One good thing here is that a new street will have access to low-floor trams.

An article in Polish: https://www.tulodz.pl/wiadomosci,si...B7h9dnoPCbPqSIwGsr8ZTx_Ds6e0sCZ1jJLPBJxShiWz8


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

New end stop in the Lodz tram network – Warszawska/Skrzydlata, which replaces the Warszawska loop:



HollyLodz said:


> Kilka strzałów na nieczynną jeszcze nową "końcówkę" tramwajową w Łodzi - Warszawska - Skrzydlata
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

And we have it. Ex-Bogestra NF6D in MPK's livery. Now on the line 3, in Warszawska street, where only two-directional trams can go, after cutting off the Skrzydlata-Warszawska section.










Source: http://gtlodz [dot] eu/img-mgt6d_na_splocie_1,39676.html


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

This year seems to be worst ever for the trams in Lodz. MPK announced they want closing the line in Wojska Polskiego (east of Franciszkańska) and Strykowska streets – to the Doły terminus as its technical state is terrible.

Luckily, its modernization (with an extension to the Lodz Marysin train station and an underground pass under Inflancka street) is planned for the next years – but for those several years the trams will have to be replaced with buses.

A similar situation happened 10 years ago. In 2009, Limanowskiego street got closed for trams because despite extreme speed limits (down to 10 km/h), the trams were derailing. The modernization started in October 2010 and lasted over a year.

The upgrade of Wojska Polskiego and Strykowska is currently in the design phase.

I think I already posted a video from Wojska Polskiego somewhere in this forum section but maybe you haven't seen it yet...

So...






Go to 36:00, it's where the tram turns from Franciszkańska into Wojska Polskiego and heads towards Doły.

Watch with sound, you can hear how the vehicle reacts to the damaged tracks.

Or this video – the beginning:






From 22:00:






A video from inside – you can see how the other car rocks on uneven tracks:






We don't have a rollercoaster but we (still) have trams in Wojska Polskiego.



By the way...

A video from the new terminus in Warszawska street – the one mentioned in the previous posts:






The Isuzu Novociti Life buses, purchased a few months ago (which was their European premiere), on the streets of Lodz:






This Monday, their premiere in Lodz will have newly bought by MPK Solaris Urbino IV buses – the first ones in Lodz of the fourth generation.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

A small renovation of the tracks in Włókniarzy Avenue:



Canis Lupus said:


> Na Włókniarzy robota wre:
> 
> 1 z 9 - pojawiły się pierwsze podkłady:
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The current shape of the Lodz tram network, after the recent closures and taking into account the temporary closures due to track works as well as the service limitations due to the vacation:



Intermodalny said:


>


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The trams in Wojska Polskiego (east of Franciszkańska) and Strykowska streets will disappear in mid-August.

Through the second half of August, there will be track works at the intersection of Franciszkańska and Wojska Polskiego aimed at improving the condition of south-west arcs, which will be used by trams on detour. The switches will be removed and replaced with straight sections of rails, so that it will no longer be possible for trams to enter the tracks in Wojska Polskiego east of Franciszkańska.

For the next years, a modernization of those tracks is planned – with an extension to Inflancka street and with a terminus just next to Łódź Marysin train station. The tram will get quite decently integrated with the railway. But for now the condition of tracks is so bad that it's not possible to repair them any more.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

In one of the NF6D ex-Bogestra low-floor trams, MPK installed a ramp for wheelchairs:



mateeusz said:


> W NF6D 1953 MPK zamontowało pochylnie dla wózków inwalidzkich:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Small refurbishment of tracks at the Franciszkańska/Wojska Polskiego intersection – the tracks towards Strykowska street are cut off, the trams will be temporarily replaced with the bus line 59:



HollyLodz said:


>


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Dąbrowskiego str. upgrade near the finish:



Tomkisiel said:


> Krótka fotorelacja z przebudowy Dąbrowskiego od Kilińskiego do Rzgowskiej. Chyba niedługo otwarcie
> 
> 1. Na wysokości Lidla widok w kierunku Rzgowskiej
> 
> ...





Tomkisiel said:


> 11. Jest TOI-TOI jest budowa
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

^^
Why are they building those "combined tram stop and car lane" things when there seems to be plenty of free space on the outside of the pavement? It seems like there is enough room for a regular tram stop along the tracks, car lanes outside that and pavement (and bike lane?) outside the car lane. Sure, both the car lane and the pavement would have to make some bends/turns/twists but still...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

I think the area behind the stop may be private. Those weird poles made of bricks definitely aren't any municipal infrastructure. This land (one with the damaged billboard) probably belongs to a private higher school located over there.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The black series of track closures continues.

MPK is closing the tracks in Legionów street between Gdańska and Żeligowskiego:










As a result, also the tracks in Legionów between Żeligowskiego and Kasprzaka, as well as in Cmentarna, Ogrodowa and Srebrzyńska streets will get cut off from the network.

A renovation of those tracks is planned – but the offers in the tender were too expensive, so now there is a new tender, for the design only.

A (bigger) upgrade of the first NF6D has begun. The vehicle will get new windows with a big part that can be opened, a ramp for the disabled, new passenger information system, a dedicated place for bicycles, LED lighting, new upholstery, new system for driving the engines as well as air conditioning in the driver's cabin:



Myszon_LODZ said:


>


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## ExSkokieSwift (Oct 20, 2019)

It looks to me that the bogies(trucks in the U.S.) on the newer multi-unit trams have a longer wheelbase than the older trams. I remember reading that the reason the long gone Chicago, NorthShore, and Milwaukee railroad never bought the popular 4 wheel Birney Trolleys was that the long wheelbase damaged the track causing trouble for the rest of the fleet.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Those NF6D trams have rotational bogeys, so they are better for the tracks than the fixed bogeys used in all low-floor trams in Lodz until now (Bombardier Cityrunner/Flexity Outlook, Pesa Tramicus and Pesa Swing).

Currently, there is a tender for brand-new trams in progress, and they will be buying ones with rotational bogeys again.

The drawback of rotational bogeys is that they take up more space in the interior of the tram.

By the way, some Pesa Tramicus and Pesa Swing trams are now... out of service, because they have issues with their bogeys, and Pesa refused to deliver replacement ones. So now the city is trying everything to exclude Pesa from the new tenders.

It's quite likely that the new trams will be therefore bought from a new player on the Polish market, or from one which wasn't very active here before. Maybe it'll be Hyundai, which recently won a tender in Warsaw, or Durmazlar from Turkey, which recently delivered trams for Olsztyn. It might be also Skoda, although throughout the last years, they were rather expensive.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

New Dąbrowskiego str. upgrade photos + extra: some parking ignorants:



Polopiryn said:


> No to zaczynamy, jeżeli nie oddadzą chociaż torowiska na 1.11 to uważam, że to będzie kolejna porażka po stronie władz miasta. Zwłaszcza, że torowisko jest gotowe od połowy września?
> 
> 1. Spójrzmy w lewo, jak pięknie wypasają się 4 kołowe motory napędowe dla ludzi z problemami z chodzeniem.
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 11. I tutaj też przy Killińskiego
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

Kpc21 said:


> By the way, some Pesa Tramicus and Pesa Swing trams are now... out of service, because they have issues with their bogeys, and Pesa refused to deliver replacement ones. So now the city is trying everything to exclude Pesa from the new tenders.


Seems like Gothenburg, Sweden, did a great job to exclude AnsaldoBreda from their latest tender. Maybe something can be learnt from that tender?


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Kpc21 said:


> Currently, there is a tender for brand-new trams in progress, and they will be buying ones with rotational bogeys again.
> 
> [...]
> 
> It's quite likely that the new trams will be therefore bought from a new player on the Polish market, or from one which wasn't very active here before. Maybe it'll be Hyundai, which recently won a tender in Warsaw, or Durmazlar from Turkey, which recently delivered trams for Olsztyn. It might be also Skoda, although throughout the last years, they were rather expensive.


So... the offers are opened!

Bozankaya – 263 mln zł (61 mln EUR)
Modertrans – 268 mln zł (63 mln EUR)
PESA – 332 mln zł (78 mln EUR)
Stadler – 339 mln zł (80 mln EUR)

But the weight of the price is only 60%.

So it seems that Bozankaya or Modertrans will win.

Modertrans is a Polish company that actually belongs to city public transport operator from Poznań (MPK Poznań) and which was created on the basis of the MPK Poznań department responsible for rolling stock repairs and upgrades. Until recently they were only modernizing old trams (Konstal 105/805Na – under the name Moderus Alfa and Düwag N8C/M8C – Moderus Beta, the latter with adding a low-floor section in the middle, similarly to the M8CN modernized by MPK-Łódź) or building new ones with a low-floor section based on the obsolete construction of 105/805Na (also under the name Moderus Beta; those were probably the last produced trams conceptually based on the American PCC construction) for Poznań and other Polish cities. In 2016, its premiere had the first fully low-floor tram made by them – Moderus Gamma. They are now delivering those trams to Poznań, MPK Poznań being until now their only customer for this product.

Bozankaya is much more of a mistery to me but from what I read, they, for example, recently won a tender for the delivery of trams for a Romanian city of Timisoara, they are also delivering metro trains for Bangkok in cooperation with Siemens. They also delivered trams for the Turkish city of Kayseri.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Today offers in another tender got opened.

After the city resigned from the services of the Koro company which for years operated the city line 58 (which was a remnant of the situation from the early 1990s, when the city could not afford operating some bus lines servicing the suburbs and gave them to private companies – although for years this line was back a part of the Łódź public transport system and the city fare system was normally valid there) a few years ago, all the city bus lines in Łódź are operated by MPK. The only exception are two suburban lines that connect Łódź and Zgierz: 6 and 61, operated by Markab, the municipal public transport operator from Zgierz. Within the borders of Łódź, the Łódź fare system is valid on those two lines.

Now this is gonna change because – probably due to the shortage of drivers as well as the need to provide tram replacement bus service in many places – the MPK wants to rent several bus lines to external operators. The tender is divided into four tasks:

– Task 1 – lines Z45 and Z46 (the replacement bus service to Zgierz and Ozorków)
– Task 2 – lines 43A and 43B (the replacement bus service to Konstantynów and Lutomiersk)
– Task 3 – line Z41 (the replacement bus service to Pabianice, the modernization of this suburban line will start soon and for its time it'll be closed)
– Task 4 – lines 53 (A, B, C, D and E – suburban bus connections servicing the districts of Sikawa, Nowosolna and, beyond the city limits, the Nowosolna municipality) and 60 (A, B, C and D – suburban bus connections servicing the districts of Rogi, Imielnik and, beyond the city limits, the Stryków municipality)

The tasks 1, 2 and 4 are for 36 months, the task 3 is for 24 months.

The offers are (all prices gross):


1. Task 1 (Z45, Z46):

the budget: 31,988,241 PLN

a) the consortium of Transport Infrastructure Management from Warsaw and Kris-Tour from Tuszyn (Kris-Tour operates on some private suburban lines around Łódź as well as on free bus lines organized for workers and for supermarket customers) – 21,709,166.40 PLN

b) BP Tour from Bełżyce near Lublin (a company known for operating on intercity bus lines to Lublin) – 18,404,118 PLN

c) Arriva – 22,123,562.40 PLN


2. Task 2 (43A, 43B):

the budget: 16,311,645 PLN

only one offer from BP Tour – 11,356,059.60 PLN


3. Task 3 (Z41):

the budget: 9,727,455 PLN

only one offer from BP Tour – 8,873,895.60 PLN


4. Task 4 (53, 60):

the budget: 54,488,877 PLN

only one offer from Arriva – 48,645,638.64 PLN


All the offers are below the budget, even though for most tasks there are only single offers. Most attractive for the companies was the replacement for trams to Zgierz and Ozorków.

If everything goes well (some time ago there already was a tender for Z43 and Z46, however, only BP Tour was interested and because of some formal problems, their offer was invalid), it means that:
– the suburban replacement tram services will be operated by BP Tour,
– the lines 53 and 60 will be operated by Arriva.



It was officially announced that the tracks in Legionów street will get closed on November 4th. It seems that they decided to keep those tracks open on the All Saints Day because this line services one of the most important graveyards in the city (and November 1st is a very special day as practically all the people in Poland visit graveyards on that day or around it).

Map of the changes:










The trams in Legionów and Srebrzyńska will be substituted with an extension of the bus line 73 as well as by the rerouted line 87.




There is also good news – it is confirmed that the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Marshall Office (the regional government) of the Lodz Voivodeship will subsidize the town of Zgierz with about 11 million PLN, so that it will be able to perform the modernisation of the closed tram line.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

I don't understand why the tickets have to follow who operates the lines?

Why can't the city just hire bus companies to run the lines while still using MKP tickets?

This is the way most of the local public transit works in for example Sweden.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Do you mean the same tickets being valid e.g. in Lodz and in the neighboring Zgierz?

Those are two separate towns, two separate municipalities, so it's difficult to organize such a thing – both sides would have to actively want it.

Anyway, there is a slow progress towards that. Not so long ago they introduced a special ticket that allows to travel between Lodz and Zgierz with the lines 6 and 61 without validating the ticket of the town you enter at the border.

Meanwhile, on the lines Z45 and Z46 only the Lodz tickets (on the whole route) are valid, the Zgierz tickets aren't.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. When I recently wanted to make a table that would sum up all the types of tickets (single and long-term ones) valid in the public transport in Lodz and the neighboring towns in both the city transport and the railway in a spreadsheet, with ticket types in columns, i reached the columns marked with double letters (up to AD)! It's something about 30 different ticket types.

Unfortunately, this progress with extending the validity of fare systems in the Lodz urban area leaded to a situation with such a big number of various tickets valid in various types of vehicles and operators.

The travel between Lodz and Zgierz is, I think, the most prominent example.

If you travel between those towns:
– by the bus Z45 or Z46 (tram replacement) – you can use only the Lodz city public transport tickets (there are also railway zone tickets that are also valid in the city PT within Lodz – but not out of the city borders),
– by the bus 6 or 61 – you use the Lodz city PT tickets within Lodz and Zgierz PT tickets within Zgierz or the special integrated ticket (which is, however, in many cases more expensive than two separate tickets); you also cannot use the railway zone tickets,
– by a train of the ŁKA operator – you can use railway zone tickets of ŁKA or PR (both are also valid in the city public transport within Lodz) but not the city public transport tickets (the Lodz PT tickets are also valid in ŁKA and PR trains within Lodz – but not in Zgierz),
– by a train of the PR (Polregio) operator – you can use railway zone tickets of ŁKA or PR (both are also valid in the city public transport within Lodz) but not the city public transport tickets (the Lodz PT tickets are also valid in ŁKA and PR trains within Lodz – but not in Zgierz).

With long-term tickets, there are some more options, but fortunately, it is actually possible to buy one ticket which covers all those means of transport.

But still the integration of the fare systems between trains and the city public transport in Lodz is the best developed one in Poland. In no other city in Poland you can ride a train with a single bus/tram ticket (in some you can with 24h and longer ones) or a bus/tram with a single train ticket.


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## MiaM (Jul 2, 2010)

^^

Oh, I got the impression that the tendered bus lines will have the tendering bus companies/operators own tickets, not MKP tickets.

The situation that you describe seems to be common in a bunch of places around the world. It usually affects the people living/travelling near/across the administrative borders. Even in places where most tickets are integrated, like for example Stockholm, Sweden or London, UK, there are some bus lines that belong to neighbouring administrative divisions that in some cases have separate tickets. I would say that Germany seems to be one of the best role models on how ticketing for local public transit should work. In most areas the same tickets are valid on all lines except long distance trains and buses. (However I'd say that the smaller cities and rural areas of Germany are definitively no role model at all regarding when and how often the lines run, with many places closing all public transport at about 20 / 8PM or similar like if we were still living in a society where electric lights hadn't been invented yet)


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

> Oh, I got the impression that the tendered bus lines will have the tendering bus companies/operators own tickets, not MKP tickets.


No... actually, they will be contractors of the MPK – unlike, until recently, the Koro company I mentioned, which had a contract directly with the city (only in the last months, they were a contractor of MPK). Koro was issuing their own tickets in the initial period, in the early 1990s.

Talking about UK... I was recently in Edinburgh, and there, the ticket integration practically doesn't exist. The city bus lines in Edinburgh are operated by a single company (if I remember well – Lothian City) and it has its own tickets – but the suburban ones, while they theoretically could also be used by the passengers within the city, were operated by two other ones (Lothian Country and First), both with incompatible tickets. And all those lines accumulate in the city center, on a single street, which is on some section available only for the public transport, it even has two lanes in a single direction (have you ever seen a double bus lane? this is what they effectively have) – but it's anyway totally congested. With buses only.

I wondered why double-decker buses are such a thing in the UK, but seeing that I realized that with articulated buses instead, those bus traffic jams would become twice longer...

I lived on a campsite in the suburbs, near the airport. Not far away, there was a tram terminus. And considering the time and comfort, it would be most effective to take a bus to this tram terminus and transfer to the tram there. But I didn't go for that because then I would have to pay over twice more for the tickets.

Their system is totally ineffective in comparison with ours...



> (However I'd say that the smaller cities and rural areas of Germany are definitively no role model at all regarding when and how often the lines run, with many places closing all public transport at about 20 / 8PM or similar like if we were still living in a society where electric lights hadn't been invented yet)


In Poland, such areas usually have no public transport at all. So it's anyway much better in Germany.

And when the transport exists – e.g. on main routes between bigger towns – it's usually overcrowded minibuses, often in bad technical condition... Around Lodz too.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

News – good and bad.

Good news.

The offer for the delivery of 30 trams got selected. They will be made by MODERTRANS. It will be the first Modertrans low-floor tram for 1000 mm broad tracks. 

The specification of the trams being bought for MPK is unlike any other previously used in Łódź and in Poland, therefore it will be a totally new design. A similar one was recently used by Bratislava – where the trams got delivered by Skoda – but Skoda sent no offer to the Lodz tender.

As I wrote, Modertrans is new on the market of low-floor trams, until now they won just a single tender and just now, they are delivering the trams to Poznan:



















The prototype – currently tested in Wroclaw, previously in Gdansk (the photo is from Gdansk):










Another good news.

The upgraded tracks in Dąbrowskiego str., after an upgrade that took almost 2 years, are finally opened.

Photos by Pawel Walczak from GTLodz . eu:























































And the bad news.

The tracks in Legionów, Cmentarna and Srebrzyńska streets got closed for traffic. MPK even started removing the catenary, to prevent it from getting stolen. And it is now told that the condition of the Legionów/Gdańska tracks intersection (where the closed part of the network begins) is in such a bad state that it will has to be replaced with just simple arcs in the east-south direction, so that it will finally get cut off.

Map by me:










BLUE – sections that are currently in use
GREEN – sections that are currently in use, opened within the several last years (and the only ones opened after 1989)
RED – sections that will (are supposed to...) be built until 2023
BLACK – sections closed within the last year


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Kpc21 said:


> The offers are (all prices gross):
> 
> 
> 1. Task 1 (Z45, Z46):
> ...


The offers for the Tasks 3 and 4 got rejected by the MPK as they exceeded the assumed budget by... 1.6%!

The budget in the original announcement was improperly recalculated from net to gross, in fact it was 8,541,180 PLN in Task 3 and 47,843,892 PLN in Task 4.



Meanwhile, the works on the suburban route to Pabianice will probably start on 1 December. Initially, the section to Ksawerów (a village between Łódź and Pabianice) will stay in operation (bidirectional trams will be used) and the works will take place in Pabianice – it was planned this way because MPK has problems with delegating a sufficient number of replacement buses to service the whole route. MPK is dealing with shortages of drivers.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

I have to post it here too – the tunnel will also play an important function for the city transport:



Tonik1 said:


> Works on Łódź's city tunnel should start soon:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Currently, the start chamber for the TBM machine at the western endpoint of the tunnel is being built.

Talking about rail city transport, the new industrial/logistic zone Jędrzejów Przemysłowy will get a passenger railway connection since the train timetable change in December:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

And... the tracks in Pabianice are closed. Luckily, this time, due to the beginning of the modernization.










41 – is a tram, Z41 – is a bus.

Soon, 41 will totally disappear and Z41 will get extended even more.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

From today, there are some changes in the tram network. The line 4 gets suspended, the line 1 goes to Helenówek, the southern endpoints of the lines 6 and 3 gets exchanged. This way, a new area – along Rzgowska street – will be serviced with low-floor trams.

New official schematic of tram lines (including also some tram replacements): https://uml.lodz.pl/files/public/dl...czy/Schemat_tramwaje_od_8_grudnia_2019_r..pdf


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

A temporary interchange between the tram "to Pabianice", which ends in Ksawerów now, and the replacement bus:










Currently, the replacement buses are provided by Pabianice, due to the shortage of buses in MPK-Łódź. This is why they are not articulated and they have different livery. However, only the tickets of Łódź are valid on the replacement bus, not the tickets of Pabianice (same as it was on trams).

The works have already started.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

And the next section of the tram network got physically cut off:










Photo by Filip Miksa.

It will stay so till the upgrade of the section which got cut off. Recently, the offers in the tender for the DESIGN only got opened. Previously there were several Design&Build tenders, but each time the offers were much higher than the assumed budget, so the procedure had to get changed.

The tender: https://zim.lodz.bip-e.pl/zim/zamow...ojekty-4-7-i-8-Opracowanie-dokumentacji-.html

The budget – 2,504,284 PLN

The offers:
1) 2,558,400 PLN
2) 1,979,931 PLN
3) 1,645,740 PLN

Apart from that, the Siemens M6S trams got taken out of service.










The older GT6 and GT8, also from German import, are still in use – probably because of simpler construction and cheaper repairs. M6S needed such repairs that it wasn't affordable for MPK, taking into account the current import of low-floor used trams from Bochum (those M6S also came from Bochum).


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

To offer in the tender mentioned above is chosen – they chose the one for 1,979,931 PLN by a design company from Poznań. The cheapest offer got excluded.

The elements of the TBM machine that will drill a railway tunnel under the city center are coming to Łódź today – see: https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=165770276&postcount=4883 (I don't want to post so large photos here)

And the government finally agreed to subsidize the towns of Zgierz and Konstantynów Łódzki, so that they will be able to afford the modernization of their tram tracks:










The financing from the European Regional Development Fund decided about before – 11,299,900.00 PLN
Increased to over 15.1 million PLN – including almost 14 million from the EU and over 1.3 million from the state budget










The financing from the European Regional Development Fund decided about before – 8,776,250.00 PLN
Increased to over 18 million PLN – including over 16 million from the EU and almost 1.9 million from the state budget

1 EUR ~= 4.3 PLN

So it seems the only suburban sections that are most likely lost are those from Konstantynów to Lutomiersk and fromm Zgierz to Ozorków. They go mostly through non-urbanized areas, so there is actually not much sense in keeping them.

The old tram service to Ozorków was actually so unreliable that replacing it with buses (even though the departures are now less frequent than before, with a tram) actually resulted in an increased number of passengers.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Kpc21 said:


> I have to post it here too – the tunnel will also play an important function for the city transport
> 
> Currently, the start chamber for the TBM machine at the western endpoint of the tunnel is being built.


Details for first TBM are arrived to the site:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Modertrans presented some pictures of how the Moderus Gamma LF06 AC (the model for Łódź) will look like:



















Two next NF6D have departed from Bochum to Łódź:



















From 1 March, the suburban tram line 41, now shortened from Pabianice to Ksawerów, will get suspended. The replacement buses Z41 will be operated by the MPK on the whole route – from the Independence Square (plac Niepodległości) in Łódź to Pabianice.

This is thanks to the other suburban replacement bus lines: Z45, Z46, 43A and 43B being taken over by the MPK's subcontractor, BP Tour from Lublin. BP Tour will be using ex-Mobilis Warsaw Solaris Urbino 18 buses on these lines:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

New subcontractor on the replacement lines Z45 and Z46 from tomorrow:



mateeusz said:


> Źródło: https://www.facebook.com/ZDiTLodz/


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Anti-coronavirus buffer zone in a GT8N tram:










In the last days, after the government introduced restrictions limiting the number of passengers on public transport to a half of the number of seats, MPK decided to send all the articulated buses on the lines and to limit to the minimum the amount of midi buses (Isuzu Novociti Life) in service. The old Jelcz Vero minibuses (now getting replaced by Isuzu), being yet smaller, are out of service. They also extended the number of rides in the rush hours on some lines. In general, most lines are operated according to the Saturday timetables throughout the whole week (except Sundays).

Poland is still waiting for its peak of the coronavirus infections, it is likely to happen around Easter. So the restrictions still can get tightened in the near future.

But the constructions go on.

New/extended urban rail (ŁKA) stations:

* Łódź Radogoszcz Wschód – a new station next to a large residential district – by Krzysztof Ciejka:










* Łódź Marysin – an existing station but with a new second track, a new platform at this track and new entrances – by Edward Zamysłowski:



















Until now, the only entrance was through a staircase and an elevator seen in the background (the gray building) – far away from bus stops and residential districts. In the near future, the tram line in Strykowska street (now with suspended traffic because of disastrous condition of tracks and catenary) will get extended to this place and the final stop will be located next to this staircase. The tram will cross the street seen in the background (Inflancka str.) under a bridge that will be built there.

Currently, the train departures in each direction at this station are about every hour. The extra track built within this station will allow the trains to depart more frequently. 10 or 15 minutes departures frequency will rather not be possible anyway (this would require extending the whole Łódź Widzew – Zgierz line to two tracks) but a 20–minute tact is viable. There will be also more passengers thanks to the new Łódź Radogoszcz Wschód station – the existing intermediate stops are rather in not very interesting places. Also the tunnel that will be built under the city center (the drilling hasn't begun yet but the whole construction process has already started and the TBM machine is ready) will make all train tracks in the city more useful for the urban transport.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Reconstruction and extension of the train station in Zgierz – one of the most important stations in the Łódź rail network:





__





Google Photos







photos.google.com





Shot corona-safely from a car


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The refurbishment of so called "allotment gardens" tracks, one of three track sections in the Lodz tram network that exist separately, not alongside streets (two other ones are in other towns: Lutomiersk and Ozorków, they got closed in the last 2 years and there is not much likelihood for their return as those tracks go through countryside areas), has begun. One track remains operational because this track section provides the only access to the largest tram depot in the city.

Also the Telefoniczna tram loop and tracks in the depot are being modernized.



Polopiryn said:


> Fotorelacja z Telefonicznej, zaczynamy od wyjazdy z Zajezdni
> 
> 1.
> 
> ...





Polopiryn said:


> 11.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Polopiryn said:


> 21.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This tram serves as as shelter for the employees controlling the tram traffic on the single track section. Because of the limited access to the depot (the voltage is turned of during the day on this single-track section), reserve trams are also placed on some loops and over here instead of in the depot.










Photo by LUKAS22 from GTLodz.eu. The coronavirus regulations are obviously enforced, the passengers wear face masks. The closed section of tracks (used only by the trams leaving or returning to the depot) is replaced with buses marked as the line Z12. This place is an unusual terminus, in a form which hasn't been seen in Lodz for many years (of course, it isn't uncommon in other cities) – there is no loop, no track triangle and no switch to the other track, the trams just continues the ride as another line. The tram 12 changes its number to 15 and the tram 17 changes its number to 18:










Reserve trams (photo by pactus_123 from GTLodz):


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Polopiryn said:


> Dzisiaj dużo tego będzie, no po za pociągami
> 
> 1. Od Lumumby, stoją i czekają
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Polopiryn said:


> 11. Podbitę, wyrównane i oczyszczone
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Polopiryn said:


> 21.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Polopiryn said:


> 31.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Volvo will deliver 17 electric buses (12 m length) for Łódź, with an option for 6 next buses.

They competed with Solaris and offered a higher price (by about 500k PLN) but won by technical evaluation (exactly, by energy efficiency).

Those will be the first electric buses in the city. They will be charged by inverted pantographs and by plug-in chargers.

They will be delivered within 14-15 months from signing the contract.


Currently, Łódź has some Volvo diesel buses but the city hasn't been buying buses of this brand since 2007. After that delivery, the city was only purchasing Solaris and Mercedes-Benz buses (+ 42x low-capacity Isuzu delivered in: 24 ones in 2018, and 18 ones from a tender option that got delivered in the last weeks). Those old Volvo buses are in rather bad technical state – especially 6x Volvo 7000 from 2002 and 2003, which are still in service (most of those buses are already scrapped, there were 40 of them).


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## Gintaras (Sep 19, 2019)

Poland ,Łódź tram in 2020


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

Video on tram modernisation in Zgierz:


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## DocentX (Apr 16, 2003)

Lodz "mini metro" - cross-city rail tunell

























































[Łódź ●○] Tunele kolejowe | U/C


Stety niestety, to już ukończona część tunelu, a miasto cicho siedzi w tym temacie. Nie ma przesłanek, że w ogóle dostrzega taką potrzebę. W razie czego, puści do studia Walaska, który wypapluni i wysepleni, że nie potrzeba.




www.skyscrapercity.com


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Two last NF6D trams from Bochum have arrived in Lodz:



mateeusz said:


> I ostatnie 2 NF6D (401 & 421) już w Łodzi
> 
> 
> 
> ...


New livery for those trams:



nowy1212 said:


> > Dzisiaj na linię 2 wyjechał wagon NF6D niedawno pomalowany w łódzkie barwy. czekamy na przyjazd dwóch ostatnich wagonów tego typu z Bochum.


Unfortunately, in the corona times, because of the door located far away from the driver's cabin, they have quite limited capacity – as the drivers required that the safety zone, not available for the passengers, include both the cabin and the first door.

The effect is that the passengers can board those trams with two doors only.


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## GT Transport (Nov 9, 2020)

Lodz Trams Düwag GT8N


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Still in use because of the low-floor segment.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

mateeusz said:


> MPK pochwaliło się postępem i zaprezentowało zdjęcia modernizowanego NF6D. Jedynym utrudnieniem może być opóźniona dostawa zregenerowanych wózków z Niemiec z powodu tamtejszego lockdown'u:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


MPK modernizes the first NF6D tram.

The vehicle has already been repainted, has had the windows replaced with one with a large part that opens (German rolling stock typically has only a small opening part in the windows, which over here often ends up with passenger complaints; Germans are seemingly more resistant to heat in the vehicles than Poles and also less resistant to draughts, so they don't prefer so large opening part in windows, which in Poland is a must), as well as has the drive system replaced with one of the Polish Enika company. The new drive components installed on the roof are smaller, which will allow for installing air conditioning (unfortunately, for the driver's cabin only). Also the control panel for the driver will be totally changed. Currently some drivers complain about that buttons on the control panel have descriptions in German, and their construction makes it difficult to add some stickers or anything like that with translations; it also sometimes shows messages in German on the display.

Now MPK is waiting for regenerated bogeys from Oberhausen in Germany – they should be delivered before 15 February, but it may be delayed because of the lockdown in Germany.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

One of the NF6D trams derailed quite badly, hitting an overpass pillar:









Wkolejanie #1955/A - Łódzka Galeria Transportowa - GTLodz.eu


Włókniarzy między Mickiewicza a Kopernika. Stan sekcji: poza masakrą połączeń sekcji wbita kratownica pod oknem w miejscu trafienia w filar, mocno przekosiło siedziska w tamtym miejscu (aczkolwiek nie wykluczam "pomocy" w ich przekoszeniu działaniom strażaków). Raczej wagonu w tym wydaniu już...



gtlodz.eu












Photo by the GTLodz user Megami



HollyLodz said:


> Wypadek tramwajowy w Łodzi. Trzy osoby ranne [ZDJĘCIA]
> 
> 
> 
> Kilka fotek z artykułu...




The reason is not yet know. Those tracks are almost new, like, several years old; from 2016 or so. Looks like the switch switched under the tram passing. It was supposed to go forward (as the line 8 normally goes) but its rear part turned right (like the line 12, the tram seen behind it). Maybe for some reason that tram triggered the switch and the switch lock (which should hold the switch until he whole tram passes it) did not work.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The probable reason of the accident is already established. According to what the MPK's spokeswoman said, a stone got stuck between the rail and the point. The switch did not fully switch into the direction "forward" from "turn right" because of it, and probably the driver ignored the light that informed about it (or the devices that should show that light failed) and started driving ahead although he shouldn't. While the tram was passing, the switch automatically returned to the previous, stable position ("turn right") and thus the rear of the tram turned right.


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## dimlys1994 (Dec 19, 2010)

TVP report about new cross-city tunnel:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

An ex-Helsinki (now the property of Bombardier) Adtranz Variobahn tram has arrived in Lodz today in the early morning. Two of them will be tested by MPK for 8 months. If the tests will go OK, the whole ex-Helsinki series will be purchased by MPK.


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## GT Transport (Nov 9, 2020)

The first Variotrams came in Lodz for testing


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## GT Transport (Nov 9, 2020)

PESA Swing 122 NaL in Lodz


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

The tests of ex-Helsinki Variobahns have begun today.



Depeche said:


>





nowy1212 said:


> Z FB MPK
> Ten wieeeelki numer linii 😍
> 
> 
> ...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

One of the test Helsinki trams is out of service because... a passenger stole 2 seats.

Meanwhile, next tram route in the city is said to be in such a bad state that it will probably get closed with the beginning of December.

Map of the current situation:










Green – sections newly built between 2001 and 2021
Red – sections closed or "suspended" between 2001 and 2021
Blue – operational sections
Orange – in renovation or closed temporarily because they aren't accessible for trams due to other closures.

The first to close were the suburban routes (the main problem with them is that they are outside the jurisdiction of the city, and the rural municipalities can't afford their refurbishment):
– Zgierz/Ozorków – on 4 February 2018
– Konstantynów/Lutomiersk – on 3 March 2019

Then there came those in the city:
– in Warszawska street between Skrzydlata and Wycieczkowa – on 2 June 2019
– in Wojska Polskiego and Strykowska streets – on 1 September 2019
– in Legionów, Cmentarna and Srebrzyńska streets – on 4 November 2019

On 22 March 2021 they closed the intersection of Przybyszewskiego and Dąbrowskiego streets. They removed the turnouts and left just a straight track in the Dąbrowskiego street, cutting off a very long section of Kilińskiego street (the whole one south of Piłsudskiego str.) from the network. Even though most of it has been renovated in the last years.

On 19 August 2018 they closed the Śmigłego-Rydza street between Piłsudskiego and Przybyszewskiego streets for renovation. Because of that, trams stopped servicing a section of tracks between Dąbrowskiego street and Niższa loop (in the streets: Śmigłego-Rydza and Niższa). The renovation officially ended last week but the trams haven't come back on Niższa. The tracks are closed and wait for renovation.

In the meantime, one more section of tracks got closed: Warszawska str. between Inflancka and Skrzydlata streets. On 23 May 2021.

Franciszkańska and Wojska Polskiego west of Franciszkańska got closed in the last month. First, the traffic of trams was suspended because of some emergency plumbing works. After repairing the pipes, they didn't put the tracks back in their place, but instead they put "jumbo" concrete panels...

Now it's possible that the next route, Aleksandrowska street, will be closed. Even though it's short end section (between Teofilów and Kochanówka loops) got renovated something like 3 years ago. But the rest is still in a very bad state.

For some of the closed sections, renovations of tracks are being prepared. This applies to:
– Wojska Polskiego and Strykowska – the works should start in the next weeks, or at last a month or so (over 2 years after the closure...),
– Franciszkańska,
– Legionów,
– Kilińskiego/Przybyszewskiego intersection (so that also the tracks in the Kilińskiego street will be able to be used again),
– Śmigłego-Rydza south of Dąbrowskiego and Niższa,
– suburban tracks to Konstantynów Łódzki, maybe even the further section to Lutomiersk.

There are also sections currently undergoing a renovation:
– suburban tracks to Zgierz (but unfortunately not the further section to Ozorków),
– suburban tracks to Pabianice – I didn't mention them before because they were still operational (though also in a very bad state and shortly before they were closed for several months, for the replacement of the catenary) at the moment when the works began.

There are some rough plans for Aleksandrowska, but they are not clear now. It seems MPK is going to renovate it using their own forces, not an external contractor – using their own forces it is cheaper – but at the moment, if I understand correctly, there isn't enough money for it planned in the city budget.

There are still no clear plans for Warszawska street. And for the route to Ozorków north of Zgierz (12 km long), maybe except the short section within the borders of Zgierz.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Test drive on the tracks to Zgierz, which are going to re-open on 20 December:





































And while at the moment it doesn't seem the tracks in Aleksandrowska street will emergency close, like I mentioned in the previous post – it seems that such a closure happened in Północna and Ogrodowa streets...


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

HollyLodz said:


> __ https://www.facebook.com/WatchLineLodz/posts/2209680545867547
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Today – with regular trams (unfortunately, MPK is sending quite vintage rolling stock on this line anyway...):



nowy1212 said:


>


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