Combino Supra

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Combino Supra Budapest NF 12B tram in Budapest

The Budapest Combino is the longest tramcar in the world.

The Combino Supra (the latter word in the name is pronounced like the word op'ra but with the 'oo' in 'book' in place of the initial vowel and the 'z' in 'zoo' in front of it) or Combino MkII is a new Combino model, partly based on an older ADtranz design, made of stainless steel instead of light materials, and manufactured at a new assembly line in Vienna.

1 Budapest
2 Almada, Lisbon
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Budapest

The city transport company of Budapest has ordered 40 Combino Supra Budapest NF 12B units. The six-module trams (three units of two carbody sections) are 53.99 meters long a world record, a world record for passenger trams (only exceeded by the 59.4 m CargoTram of Dresden). They have been nicknamed óriáshernyó (meaning 'giant caterpillar'). The first two units were delivered March 14, 2006 to Budapest, the rest will be delivered by the summer of 2007.

In the summer of 2006 problems arose with the Budapest version of the Combino. On August 1, 2006 Budapest mayor Gábor Demszky ordered all six Combino trams to be withdrawn from service until technical problems that arose in the previous months were cleared up.^[1] Problems consisted mostly of problems with the doors, caused by sensitive fail-safe systems which brought trams to a halt for reasons including luggage or the odd leg getting stuck in a door.^[2] Siemens AG reportedly admitted the door problem to be a "design fault".^[3]

Another problem was the overhead wire system of the track, which was rebuilt in April and June to accommodate the new trams. The rebuilding was done in a hurry and of poor quality, causing the old Ganz trams still running on the track to have problems with their pantographs. On July 15 one column of the overhead wire system fell to the road on the Margaret Bridge, causing tram services to be suspended between Jászai Mari tér and Moszkva tér till July 25.^[4] In the last week of August the wire system was adjusted to prevent new problems from occurring.^[5]

[edit] Almada, Lisbon

The transport company Metro Transportes Sul de Tejo (MST) ordered 24 four-module Combinos for the new tram network Metro sul do Tejo in Almada, South of Lisbon. Although the first unit was delivered by the end of May 2005, after the problems with the Combino surfaced, the order was converted to stainless steel-bodied Combinos, to be delivered by 2007.