The Tatra T5C5 is a single-car

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

built by

ČKD Tatra ČKD (Českomoravská Kolben-Daněk) () was one of the largest engineering companies in the former Czechoslovakia and today's Czech Republic. It is famous for the Tatra T3, a tramcar that sold 13,991 units worldwide. History ČKD was formed i ...

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1978, two

prototypes A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...

were tested in Prague and

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. As they are no longer based on the

PCC streetcar The Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful domestically, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the world where ...

, they differed in many ways to earlier Tatra products, most notably that the vehicle was controlled by a hand lever rather than a foot pedal. Between 1978 and 1984, 322 vehicles were supplied to Budapest and, as of September 2020, all are in service with 2 of them being used exclusively for driver training purposes.

Modernizations

Between 2002 and 2004 80 T5C5 units were extensively refurbished : the old drive system (resistor and series-parallel control) was replaced by chopper control using IGBT transistors. These trams have been renamed as "T5C5K". These units have been further modernized from 2009, their current type name is T5C5K2. A new program started in 2014, which refurbishes all remaining classic T5C5 units to the technical standards of T5C5K2. The 80 units that were refurbished between 2002 and 2004 are further being upgraded to the same technical specifications as the examples refurbished since 2014. As of September 2020, only 34 T5C5s are left in original condition with this number expected to decline further as more units are refurbished. With the introduction of FUTÁR traffic control system at BKK, all T5C5 and T5C5K2 units got the FUTÁR controller and on-board unit, and new visual displays (1 front, 2 side, 1 inside). Some pins on the electrical coupling between units have been reused for FUTÁR's communication.

Production

Note: This is the list of first owners. Stock may have later been resold to other cities not on this list.

Photo gallery

File:Tatra T5C5 tram under 4000 number in Budapest.jpg, Prototype T5C5 (nr. 4000) in

File:Tatra_T5C5K.jpg, Tatra T5C5K in Széll Kálmán square, Budapest File:Budapest_Tram.jpg

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:CKD Tatra T5C5 Tatra trams Tram vehicles of Hungary Train-related introductions in 1978