The Polish rail vehicle manufacturer Pesa is currently supplying two very similar trams to the TLT transport company in Tallinn (Estonia) and to MPK Wrocław (Poland).
The vehicles are three-car uni-directional trams with a centre car resting on a fixed chassis and two cars mounted on top, each fitted with a bogie. The new trams of the so-called Twist platform have a length of a good 28 metres. Similar Twists had previously been supplied to the Silesian trams in Katowice (Tramwaje Śląskie), Gorzów (Landsberg) and Craiova (Romania), among others. In contrast to the Fokstrot three-section low-floor trams with ‘centre cars’, which were delivered to Russia (Moscow) and Ukraine (Kiev) in 2014 and 2015, the new Twist vehicles are a shortened version of Pesa’s Twist platform.
At the beginning of June, Tallinn received the first of 23 new trams from Pesa Bydgoszcz, which will be delivered as part of an order worth 52 million euros. This results in a vehicle price of around 2.26 million euros.
Test runs still have to be completed before they can be used in regular operations. The new Pesa trams will be used on the new harbour light rail line, which is currently under construction and should be completed by the end of the summer. The old Tetra KT4 high-floor trams that are being replaced are for sale and could be used as cafés, offices or accommodation.
Technical data:
- Uni-directional vehicle
- Length: 28.56 m
- Number of doors: 6 (Four of them double-leaf, two single doors)
- Passenger capacity: 309
- Number of seats: 65
- Number of bogies: 3
- Maximum speed: 80 km/h
The vehicles are equipped with modern passenger information, ticket sales, passenger counting, surveillance cameras, energy recovery and online diagnostics. Both the driver’s cab and the passenger compartment are air-conditioned. For particularly cold days, the vehicles are equipped with underfloor heating.
The TLT fleet
TLT’s current fleet comprises 65 trams, 45 trolleybuses and 542 buses. From June 2024, the residents of Tallinn will be served by new electric buses, and there are plans to purchase up to 30 natural gas-powered buses in the near future.
These measures are aimed at modernising the public transport fleet and developing environmentally friendly, sustainable and efficient transport solutions.
The new PESA Twist – not only in Tallinn but also in Wrocław (Poland)
The MPK transport company in Wrocław (Lower Silesia) is also currently receiving a total of 40 new Twist trams from Pesa, which are almost identical in design to the Twists for Tallinn. In addition to the adapted corporate design colours and a different interior, the most noticeable difference is a flatter vehicle front and the fact that the vehicles for Wrocław are standard-gauge, while the variant for Tallinn is a metre-gauge vehicle. The vehicles with steel car bodies are manufactured at the Pesa plant in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The local or Polish type designation is 146N. The total cost of the 40 Twist vehicles is 204 million zlotys (approx. 47.4 million euros), which corresponds to a vehicle price of around 8.5 million zlotys (approx. 1.98 million euros).
In addition to the delivery of the Twists for Wrocław, which has now started, the Modertrans Moderus Gamma LF 07 AC series is also being delivered. To date, 42 of the 46 three-car low-floor trams ordered by the manufacturer from Poznań have been delivered, which are essentially identical to the Moderus Gamma vehicles for Poznań. The vehicles, which are also completely low-floor, are 32 metres significantly longer than the Pesa Twist and rest on four bogies with full turning capability.
A video of the presentation of the first Twist can be watched here:
