Trolza
Native name | ЗАО «ТролЗа» |
|---|---|
| Closed joint-stock company | |
| Industry | Trolleybus manufacturing |
| Founded | 1868 |
| Headquarters | Engels, Saratov Oblast, Russia |
| Products | Trolleybuses, buses, trailers, semi-trailers, machining of parts, assemblies and products |
| Revenue | RUB880 million (2005) |
Number of employees | 1,798 (2011) |
| Website |
www |
Trolza (Russian: ZАО "Троллейбусный завод" (Тролза)), formerly known as the Uritsky factory or simply Uritsky,[1][2] is a trolleybus manufacturer in Russia, located in Engels, Saratov oblast. In the Soviet era it was known as ZiU (Russian: Завод имени Урицкого, Zavod imeni Uritskogo, plant named after Moisei Uritskiy) or Uritsky factory. The enterprise was founded in Imperial Russia in 1868, but it began producing trolleybuses in 1951.[3]
For many years until at least the early 1990s, ZiU was the world's largest manufacturer of trolleybuses.[2][4] Around 1996, it was renamed Trolza,[4] short for AO Trolleybusnyi Zavod (Trolleybus Factory).[5]
ZiU/Trolza has built over 65,000 trolleybuses and continues this business now. Historically, the most numerous models of ZiU production were the MTB-82, the ZiU-5, both now discontinued, and the ZiU-9 (latterly known as the ZiU-682). All of them were exported to different countries of the world, including Argentina, Bulgaria, Greece, Mongolia, Hungary, Serbia etc.
In the 1980s, ZiU was building more than 2,000 trolleybuses per year, mostly for domestic use (in the then Soviet Union) but up to 160 per year for export outside the USSR.[2]
Establishment
Trolleybus production by the Uritsky factory (ZiU) began in 1951, but the company's first model, the MTB-82d, was a refinement of a design first developed several years earlier, by the national government in Moscow in 1945–46, the MTB-82m (where MTB stood for Moscow Trolleybus). A prototype MTB-82m was built in February 1946 at a military factory.[3] Following the construction of 77 additional MTB-82 trolleybuses in 1946–47, improvements in the design led to the introduction of the MTB-82d. Production of the improved model continued at military factories as well as at MTRZ, a small trolleybus repair plant in Moscow, until 1951, when the Uritsky factory was established in Engels to take over all trolleybus production from the various smaller facilities.[3] ZiU's production of the MTB-82d lasted from 1951 to 1961,[3] and a total of 3,746 were built[1] (or more than 5,000 when counting the ones built elsewhere, before ZiU was established).[6]
References
- 1 2 Murray, Alan (2000). World Trolleybus Encyclopaedia. Yateley, Hampshire, UK: Trolleybooks. pp. 112–114. ISBN 0-904235-18-1.
- 1 2 3 Bushell, Chris; and Stonham, Peter (eds.) (1987). Jane's Urban Transport Systems 1987, pp. 603–605. London: Jane's Publishing Company. ISBN 0-7106-0841-1.
- 1 2 3 4 Semyonov, Nikolai (March–April 1994). "Russian and Soviet Trolleybus Production". Trolleybus Magazine No. 194, pp. 30–44. National Trolleybus Association (UK). ISSN 0266-7452.
- 1 2 Trolleybus Magazine No. 204 (November–December 1995), p. 161. National Trolleybus Association (UK). ISSN 0266-7452.
- ↑ Trolleybus Magazine No. 216 (November–December 1997), p. 151.
- ↑ Sorokin, Anatol (July–August 2008). "A Trolleybus 'For all Times': MTB-82". Trolleybus Magazine No. 280, pp. 74–77.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Trolza vehicles. |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to ZiU vehicles. |