The Tatra K5AR was an
articulated
An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were sometim ...
tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
car built by
ČKD Tatra. It was unusual in that it was one of the few tramcars built by ČKD Tatra to be exported outside of
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...
, and was designed specifically for the city of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
, which took 200 examples. The K5AR was bi-directional and was fitted with 3 doors in each car, and its electrical equipment was designed to withstand the
sub-tropical climate of Egypt. After less than a decade in service, the vast majority of these tramcars were in very poor condition owing to over-loading and poor maintenance, and only a small handful remained in service until the mid-1980s.
References
{{TatraTram
Tatra trams