![Stadler Variobahn Tram at Addiscombe (geograph 3033862)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Stadler_Variobahn_Tram_at_Addiscombe_%28geograph_3033862%29.jpg)
The Stadler Variobahn (formerly sold as the ABB Variotram, Adtranz Variotram and Bombardier Variotram) is a German-designed model of
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 someti ...
low-floor tram
A low-floor tram is a tram that has no stairsteps between one or more entrances and part or all of the passenger cabin. The low-floor design improves the accessibility of the tram for the public, and also may provide larger windows and more airspac ...
and
light rail vehicle. Since its introduction in 1993, the Variobahn has been manufactured variously by
ABB
ABB Ltd. is a Swedish- Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to crea ...
,
Adtranz,
Bombardier Transportation
Bombardier Transportation was a Canadian-German rolling stock and rail transport manufacturer, headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
It was one of the world's largest companies in the rail vehicle and equipment manufacturing and servicing industry ...
, and since 2001 by
Stadler Rail
Stadler Rail is a Swiss manufacturer of railway rolling stock, with an emphasis on regional train multiple units and trams. It is also focused on niche products, such as being one of the last European manufacturers of rack railway rolling stock ...
. As of 2009, 254 trams have been ordered, with an additional 110 on option. A unit costs about €2.5 million.
[ ]
Operators include the
Graz Holding, the
Bergen Light Rail
Bergen Light Rail ( no, Bybanen) is a light rail system in Bergen, Norway. The first stage of the project was a twenty-station stretch between the city center and Lagunen Storsenter, where the first 15 stations comprising a stretch opened i ...
, the
Chemnitz Tramway
The Chemnitz tramway network (german: Straßenbahnnetz Chemnitz) is a network of tramways forming the centrepiece of the public transport system in Chemnitz, a city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.
Opened in 1880 as a horsecar system, th ...
,
Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr
The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (), abbreviated VRR, is a public transport association (Verkehrsverbund) in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It covers most of the Ruhr area, as well as neighbouring parts of the Lower Rhine region, includ ...
, the
Rhine Neckar Area
The Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region (german: Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar, ), often referred to as Rhein-Neckar-Triangle, is a polycentric metropolitan region located in south western Germany, between the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region to the North ...
Tramway and
London Tramlink.
History
Prototypes and early deliveries
The Variotram was first developed by
ABB
ABB Ltd. is a Swedish- Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to crea ...
(ASEA Brown Boveri) at
Henschel
Henschel & Son (german: Henschel und Sohn) was a German company, located in Kassel, best known during the 20th century as a maker of transportation equipment, including locomotives, trucks, buses and trolleybuses, and armoured fighting vehicle ...
and a prototype was launched in 1993 for the
Chemnitz tramway
The Chemnitz tramway network (german: Straßenbahnnetz Chemnitz) is a network of tramways forming the centrepiece of the public transport system in Chemnitz, a city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.
Opened in 1880 as a horsecar system, th ...
in Germany, operated by
Chemnitzer Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft Chemnitzer may refer to:
* Chemnitzer concertina, a large, square concertina used for traditional German and polka music
* Chemnitzer Land, a former district in the Free State of Saxony, Germany
*Chemnitzer FC
Chemnitzer Fußballclub e.V. is a ...
(CVAG). The serial delivery, with minor modifications, was made between 1998 and 2001—bringing the total number of units for Chemnitz to thirty. Of these, twenty-four were operated by CVAG and six by
City-Bahn Chemnitz
The City-Bahn Chemnitz is a railway company operating regional train services in Chemnitz area, Saxony, Germany. Most services run both on railway network around Chemnitz as well as on the urban tram network in Chemnitz. City-Bahn Chemnitz was ...
. In 1995, ABB's train division merged to become
Adtranz. One prototype the following year sold to the
Duisburg Stadtbahn
The Duisburg Stadtbahn is a light rail (german: Stadtbahn) network forming part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn system. It is the centrepiece of the public transport system in Duisburg, a city in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, ...
, but serial production was never initiated for Duisburg.
The Duisburg prototype is now privately owned and stored in Norway.
In 1996, six trams were delivered to serve on the light rail between
Mannheim
Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...
,
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
and
Weinheim
Weinheim (; pfl, Woinem) is a town with about 43,000 inhabitants in northwest Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region, approximately north of Heidelberg and northeast of Mannheim. Weinheim is known as the "Zwei ...
, Germany, operated by
Oberrheinischen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft
The Upper Rhine Railway Company (''Oberrheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft Mannheim''; OEG, originally also OEG AG, later MVV OEG AG), was a railway infrastructure company and transport company based in Mannheim, Germany. It ope ...
. From 2001 to 2007, it ordered additional 20 trams. These were supplemented in 2002 by eight trams for the
Heidelberg Tramway
The Heidelberg tramway network (german: Straßenbahnnetz Heidelberg) is a network of tramways forming an important element of the public transport system in Heidelberg, a city in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Opened in 1885, t ...
, and in 2001–07 by 16 trams for the
Mannheim Tramway
The Mannheim/Ludwigshafen tramway network (german: Straßenbahnnetz Mannheim/Ludwigshafen) is a metre-gauge transport network of tramways focused on the cities of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen am Rhein, and connected to Heidelberg and Weinheim via th ...
.
In 1996, the
Sydney light rail system, in Australia, took delivery of seven trams, which were built in
Dandenong
Dandenong is a southeastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, about from the Melbourne CBD. It is the council seat of the City of Greater Dandenong local government area, with a recorded population of 30,127 at the . Situated mainly ...
, Australia. All were withdrawn by mid-2015 and the remaining six put up for sale.
Five were scrapped in early 2018, and the last built, number 2107 was transferred to the
Sydney Tramway Museum
The Sydney Tramway Museum (operated by the South Pacific Electric Railway) is Australia's oldest tramway museum and the largest in the southern hemisphere. It is located at Loftus, New South Wales, Loftus in the southern suburbs of Sydney.
Hist ...
in October 2018 for preservation.
Helsinki
![ModernFinnishTram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/ModernFinnishTram.jpg)
Forty Variotrams were delivered to
Helsinki City Transport
Helsinki City Transport or HKL ( Finnish: ''Helsingin kaupungin liikennelaitos'', Swedish: ''Helsingfors stads trafikverk'', abbreviated to ''HST'') is the official city-owned public transport company in Helsinki, Finland. It operates the Helsin ...
(HKL), Finland, between 1998 and 2003 for use on the
Helsinki tram
The Helsinki tram network forms part of the Helsinki public transport system organised by Helsinki Regional Transport Authority and operated by Metropolitan Area Transport Ltd (Finnish: Pääkaupunkiseudun Kaupunkiliikenne Oy, Swedish: Huvudsta ...
way, at a cost of
€
The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...
76 million.
These trams were built by
Transtech (who later produced the newer
Artic models) in
Otanmäki
Otanmäki is a village to the south-west of Kajaani, Finland. Otanmäki is located in Vuolijoki within the bounds of the City of Kajaani municipality.
The railway rolling stock manufacturer Škoda Transtech, Škoda Transtech Oy has a factory in ...
under a
technology transfer
Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...
agreement with Adtranz. During this time the company was acquired by Bombardier, who inherited the design in 2000, making the Helsinki trams the only Variotrams to be produced under the Bombardier name.
In service, the Variotrams were found to be ill-suited for Helsinki's tram network, having suffered from numerous technical problems, including cracks in the
bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
s and vehicle body shells. Before 2009 often less than half of the trams have been in working condition.
HKL considered returning the trams to Bombardier as unsatisfactory, but after a long series of negotiations a compromise was reached in May 2007, when the responsibility for maintaining the trams was transferred to Bombardier.
The contract agreed in May 2007 states that, from May 2008 onwards, if more than four Variotrams in Helsinki are not in operational condition, Bombardier must pay a daily fine to the HKL for every non-operational tram. If more than eight trams are in non-operational condition, HKL has the right to cancel the contract and return the trams to Bombardier, who are obliged to return the €76 million that HKL paid for the trams.
In order to cope with the requirements of the agreement, Bombardier established its own maintenance workshop in Helsinki in mid-2008, located in the premises of the former
VR Group
VR-Group Plc ( fi, VR-Yhtymä Oyj, sv, VR-Group Abp), commonly known as VR, is a government-owned railway company in Finland. VR's most important function is the operation of Finland's passenger rail services with 250 long-distance and 800 co ...
electric locomotive workshop in Pasilan Konepaja.
In August 2017 a contract was agreed after long negotiations between HKL and Bombardier to cancel the purchase of the Variotrams. Bombardier will pay HKL 33 million euros in compensation for the shorter than originally contractually agreed 40 year lifetime of the trams. HKL will return the trams to Bombardier from 2018 on.
Stadler
![Bybanen23](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Bybanen23.juni2010.jpg)
To concentrate on its own
Flexity family of vehicles, Bombardier reached an agreement with the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
where Bombardier would divest the Variotram division to Stadler Rail of Switzerland.
Stadler subsequently renamed the tram as Variobahn and has since secured several contracts,
delivering:
*8 trams for use on the
Ludwigshafen tramway
*30 trams for the
Bochum–Gelsenkirchen tramway
*8 trams for the
Nuremberg tramway
The Nuremberg tramway network (german: Straßenbahnnetz Nürnberg) is a network of tramways forming part of the public transport system in Nuremberg, a city in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany. The system reached the neighboring city of Fürt ...
*14 trams for the
Munich tramway
The Munich tramway (german: Straßenbahn München) is the tramway network for the city of Munich in Germany. Today it is operated by the municipally owned Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (the Munich Transport Company, or MVG) and is known offici ...
*34 trams for the
Bergen Light Rail
Bergen Light Rail ( no, Bybanen) is a light rail system in Bergen, Norway. The first stage of the project was a twenty-station stretch between the city center and Lagunen Storsenter, where the first 15 stations comprising a stretch opened i ...
*45 trams for the
Graz tramway
*19 trams for the
Potsdam tramway
The Potsdam tramway network (german: Straßenbahnnetz Potsdam) is a network of tramways forming part of the public transport system in Potsdam, the capital city of the federal state of Brandenburg, Germany.
The network is owned and operated by th ...
*12 trams for
Tramlink
London Trams, previously Tramlink and Croydon Tramlink, is a light rail tram system serving Croydon and surrounding areas in South London, England. It began operation in 2000, the first tram system in the London region since 1952. It is manage ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
As of 2009, a total of 254 Variobahn trams have been ordered, with an additional 110 on option. A unit costs about €2.5 million.
Stadler builds its trams at their
Pankow
Pankow () is the most populous and the second-largest borough by area of Berlin. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, it was merged with the former boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg and Weißensee; the resulting borough retained the name Pankow. P ...
plant in the northern suburbs of Berlin and the Stadler facility at
Velten
Velten is a town in the Oberhavel district of Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated 10 km southwest of Oranienburg, and 24 km northwest of Berlin.
History
In 1905 Velten had 38 stove factories that delivered 100,000 tiled stoves to Berl ...
north of Berlin.
Problems in Munich
In December 2014,
MVG took seven of its Variobahns out of service due to cracks in vehicle bodies. By January 2015, all Variobahns had to be withdrawn for repairs. MVG chose not to exercise options to buy any more Variobahns, and turned to
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad.
The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...
to supply its next generation of trams.
Variobahn trams for Croydon Tramlink
![Tram 2558 at Therapia Lane](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Tram_2558_at_Therapia_Lane.JPG)
Six units were ordered for
Tramlink
London Trams, previously Tramlink and Croydon Tramlink, is a light rail tram system serving Croydon and surrounding areas in South London, England. It began operation in 2000, the first tram system in the London region since 1952. It is manage ...
by
Transport for London in August 2011 at a cost of £16.3 million
with an option for up to eight more.
[
Three of the Croydon trams were diverted from a batch of five which were ordered for the Bybanen line in ]Bergen
Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...
, Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
. Stadler built these earlier than the contractual delivery date to make use of free capacity at its factory. Three more trams were built directly for Croydon, plus three trams for Bergen to replace the ones which went to Croydon.
Initial testing was carried out in Chemnitz
Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...
, Saxony. The first tram, 2554, was delivered to Croydon on 24 January 2012 and carried its first passengers on 30 March 2012.
Specifications
The Variotram is a low-floor light rail tram designed for city center operation. Since customers consist of both existing and new systems, and their specifications vary, the Variotram has flexibility in specifications. It can be built as uni- or bi-directional, with 70 or 100% low floor. Rail gauge
In rail transport, track gauge (in American English, alternatively track gage) is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many d ...
can be or . Width options include , , and . The length varies with either three, four, five or seven articulated modules. The floor height is over the rail. The seating and standing arrangements are flexible, and the trams feature wide doors. The tram has hub motor
The wheel hub motor (also called wheel motor, wheel hub drive, hub motor or in-wheel motor) is an electric motor that is incorporated into the hub of a wheel and drives it directly.
History
* First wheel motor concept: Wellington Adams of ...
s on all wheels, thus eliminating the need for axle
An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearing ...
s and bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
s. These compact motors are the key to the low-floor concept, since they can be placed under the seating. This allows the full length of the tram to be step-free accessible from the platforms.
Several of the configurations of the trams are customizable to fit each tramway. In addition to the four possible widths and choice of gauge, the trams can be custom-built for the necessary length. Trams are built modally, so that they can later be rebuilt or extended. All trams built so far have five modules and twelve wheels. The trams are available with four motor settings: four or six wheels powered with motors, or eight or twelve wheels with motors. Of the models built so far, the length has varied from (Helsinki and Mannheim, respectively). Similarly, tare weight varies from . Seating capacity varies between 38 (Graz) and 100 (Heidelberg), while standing capacity peaks at 193 for the Duisburg version.
Production
References
External links
{{UK light rail vehicles
ABB multiple units
Adtranz multiple units
Bombardier Transportation multiple units
Stadler Rail multiple units
Tram vehicles of Australia
Tram vehicles of Austria
Tram vehicles of Finland
Tram vehicles of Germany
Tram vehicles of Norway
Gearless electric drive
Articulated vehicles
Train-related introductions in 1993