Trolleybuses in Mendoza
An ex-Vancouver Flyer trolleybus
in Mendoza in 2014 |
|
| Operation | |
|---|---|
| Locale | Mendoza, Argentina |
| Open | 14 February 1958 |
| Status | Open |
| Routes | 6 |
| Owner(s) | Province of Mendoza |
| Operator(s) | Empresa Provincial de Transportes de Mendoza (EPTM) |
| Infrastructure | |
| Electrification | 600 V DC |
| Website | Empresa Provincial de Transportes (Spanish) |
The Mendoza trolleybus system (Spanish: Sistema de trolebuses de Mendoza) is part of the public transport network in Mendoza, the capital city of Mendoza Province, Argentina.
Opened in 1958, the system presently comprises six lines, which link the city center with some of its metropolitan suburbs.
The system traces its origins to law number 825, enacted in 1958 with the goal of making a trolleybus system one of the main means of transport in the city and the suburbs surrounding it.
On 14 February 1958, at the intersection of 9 de Julio and Necochea streets, Dr. Isidoro Bousquet formally opened Mendoza's trolleybus system. The first line to be put into service by the system's operator, the Empresa Provincial de Transportes de Mendoza (EPTM), was the "Parque" line, also known as line number 1. To this day, that line still follows the same route (9 de Julio, Colón, Arístides Villanueva, Boulogne Sur Mer, Jorge A. Calle, Perú and Godoy Cruz streets). The system's second line, "Villa Nueva", opened in February 1959 and the third, "Dorrego", in March 1961. Publicly, the routes were designated by names only, not numbers, and this practice continued until the mid-1990s.
The Mendoza trolleybus system has grown in recent years, with the construction of a long new line connecting Godoy Cruz with Las Heras, and of a shorter line connecting the bus terminal with the National University of Cuyo. These opened in April 2004 and October 2005, respectively. The Las Heras – Godoy Cruz line is 15 km (9.3 mi) long. In November 2013, an extension of the Dorrego route was opened.
The system currently has six lines:
The replacements for the TS vehicles were 80 secondhand Flyer E901A/E902 vehicles from the Vancouver trolleybus system in Canada, which were built in the early 1980s. They began to arrive during December 2008, and all 80 had arrived by February 2009. After being refurbished, repainted and renumbered in Mendoza, they began to enter service on 30 April 2009. By June 2010, 60 had been refurbished and repainted, and 40 had entered service. The repainting involved five different liveries, all with the colours laid out in the same pattern, with each version given to 12 vehicles (in the first 60). They were renumbered from their four-digit Vancouver fleet numbers into the series 01–60.
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Wikipedia