CarGoTram

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The CarGoTram.

The CarGoTram is a freight tram in Dresden. It supplies two Volkswagen factories with construction units for their automobile production.

1 History
2 Route and Cycle
3 Technology
4 External links

[edit] History

The first ideas of building a transparent factory for Volkswagen motor vehicles (such as Volkswagen Phaeton and Bentley) in Dresden arose in 1997. On 3 March 2000 the Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe AG and the Volkswagen Automobil-Maufaktur Dresden GmbH signed a contract for the CarGoTram. The transportation of the parts from the logistics center in Dresden Friedrichstadt to the Transparent Factory would be managed using a cargo tram. The route from the logistics center to the factory runs straight through the inner city of Dresden, since a use of trucks would cause too much freight vehicle traffic.

Two CarGoTrams were built by the Schalker Eisenhütte Maschinenfabrik GmbH Gelsenkirchen, each at a cost of 6.5 million Deutschmark. The DVB AG is responsible for the transportation and security of the freight.

The freight tram was introduced officially in Dresden on 16 November 2000 and had its first test drive on 3 January 2001.

[edit] Route and Cycle

Since 2001 the CarGoTram runs every hour, in the case of a full workload of the factory it can run in 40 minute cycles. Therefore there are several routes possible. The main route goes from the GVZ (logistics center) in Freidrichstadt via Postplatz and Grunaer Straße to the Straßburger Platz and finally into the factory. Alternatively the tram can go to the Transparent Factory via the main station or other routes in the case of congestions.

[edit] Technology

Within one year a fright tram consisting of five parts was newly constructed and built. For the drive rack general overhauled parts from discharged Tatra trams were used.

The CarGoTram is built as a bidirectional vehicle. One complete train can load up to tree truck loadings (214 m³).

The control car has less volume for freight than the middle cars, because the driver’s cab is included there. At the font and in the end of a vehicle one control car is added respectively. The maximum vehicle payload for a control cab is 7500 kilograms. Normally three middle cars are added between the control cabs. Each middle car can load up to 2x 7500 kilograms. All axes of the control car as well as the middle cars are driven.