Modifications of the capital’s “Kyivskyi” trolleybuses, which the townspeople called “green” or “aluminum tin”, were removed from the capital’s routes the other day. The last such trolleybuses could still be seen on routes #24, 29, 30. During movement, they were incredibly noisy, and they were also non-inclusive, so Kyiv residents with disabilities could not use them.
These trolleybuses were called aluminum because in the 90s of the last century, the bodies for them were made of this “aviation” material. At that time, it was believed that it would allow trolleybuses to work for 10-12 years without body repairs.
“Kyivpastrans” informed “Vechirnyi Kyiv” that all “K-12.03” type trolleybuses manufactured in 1996-2007 have exhausted their regulatory resource. And the modern existing rolling stock is sufficient to ensure the daily production of trolleybuses without involving the K-12.03 model.
“Kyivpastrans” also reminded that the production of K-12.03 type trolleybuses began in 1996 at the Kyiv Aviation Plant “Aviant”.
The need to manufacture these trolleybuses arose due to the fact that at that time the supply of foreign-made rolling stock to Ukraine and Kyiv in particular stopped. Therefore, there was a need to develop own production, to provide work to the capital’s declining enterprises. A total of 92 trolleybuses were manufactured, of which 89 went to Kyiv, the rest to Simferopol. Other cities of Ukraine also bought a small number of “Kyiv” trolleybuses.
All these years, repairs and maintenance of trolleybuses of the “Kyivskyi” series were carried out in accordance with the regulations approved by the government back in 1991.
The first trips of the “Kyiv-12” model series trolleybus began in November 1993. But he did not completely satisfy the specialists. That’s why engineers from Antonov ANTK have developed several of its modifications based on foreign components. In general, the difficulties of the 1990s forced aircraft manufacturers to undertake such non-professional work and also to produce the first two machines.
Then, all other trolleybuses were manufactured at the Aviant factory under the license of Antonov ANTK, which also allowed this production to stay afloat.
Trolleybuses of the K-12.03 type were built from imported components, in particular, the driving bridges were supplied by RABA from Hungary, other components and thyristor equipment were of Czech manufacture, the compressor was manufactured by the Russian Federation. The front beam, static converter, body from the Antonov plant were Ukrainian (Kyiv). This allowed the “green Kyiv cans” to survive on the streets of the city for several decades.
