European Railroad Discussion > Estonia: Trams of Tallinn Now and Back Then

Tallinn is a city with a very active narrow 1067 mm / 3'6" gauge tram network. This beautiful (well, for the old and newer parts at least, NOT often hideous Soviet time structures) seaside capital of Estonia has chosen trams to be number one transportation mode for now. We've seen the track network both fixed, modernized and extended to new locations on Tallinn outer perimeter during the last 15 years. As Estonia still is a relative poor country with hard working people, traffic has been handled with old Soviet time and lots of second / third hand classic Tatra trams.

Until now: Enter Urbo of CAF!

All these brand new pictures are by my friend Antti, another railfan well acquainted with Estonia.

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Meet Moonika!

All new Urbos were named by inhabitants of Tallin, people who pay for the 15% of them, European Union handling 85% as usual. Two trams are now in traffic on line 3, with 2 more arriving soon so the whole line can be dedicated to these low floored easy to use modern vehicles. 15 Urbos total (+15 option) will follow for 44,25 million euros.

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Just for comparison, these are from June 2005.  Gerry

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Wonderful Gerry, just wonderful! I did not realize the low floor section was already in production use in 2005.

Some closer studies to this lengthened version on Tatra (I suppose this is Tatra) from later years.
 

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Then some colorful trams covered with adds.

You might think that the smaller than usual capacity of these old trams might be a problem, but they are running so often that it offsets the problem.

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As you can imagine, TLT is very good at maintaining its fleet of older trams. I've seen them being serviced and it looks very professional.

Plus pics of some slightly more unusual rolling stock...

Enjoy the pictures!

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Tallinn Tatra in May 1995

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This is highly interesting Nick! The location appears to be curve by Baltijaam Tallinn main railway station. Did you see any other tram colors when visiting Tallinn? Maybe the blue-whites? Those were the days of Wild West out there just after the Soviet Union collapsed, Estonia regained its independence and corruption was not yet uprooted from the DNA of local population.

Maybe these trams still wear the "original" colors?

 

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I'm not sure what the blurb about post-Soviet corruption has to do with tram colors, but....

The colors on the 1995 picture (red and yellow) were pretty much the standard Soviet tram color (a variant was red with white instead of yellow).  Similar colors can be found across the former Czechoslovakia.   It's a fairly decent scheme.  The blue and white is a more modern Tallinn scheme.  The white with red stripes I believe is the scheme from one of the German cities, indicating the tram as being second-hand (and not repainted).

EDIT 5/10 - Looking at the white and red tram, for some reason I think this might be from Erfurt....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/15 12:02 by chs7-321.

Thank you chs7-321 for defining the ever so difficult the origins of the color usage and locations!

I find it interesting that the latest colors are a variation of the more or less red-white standard colors. Obviously this is what the trams should look like in Tallinn...like they look green-yellow across the gulf in Helsinki, Finland and blue-white across the other gulf to Stockholm, Sweden.  ;)