Press release from the Schöneicher-Rüdersdorfer tram from 25/03/2020
Today, Schöneicher-Rüdersdorfer Straßenbahn (SRS) put a brand-new Artic tram into operation on line 88 between Berlin-Friedrichshagen, Schöneiche and Rüdersdorf. This Artic tram with car number 53 will be the first new-build vehicle in the SRS fleet for 90 years.
Due to the current situation, the vehicle was only handed over to passengers on 25 March 2020 in a small ceremony attended by the mayor of Rüdersdorf, Ms Löser, and the mayor of Schöneiche, Mr Steinbrück.
The Artic vehicles car 51 and car 52 have been in operation at SRS since summer 2018 and spring 2019 respectively and are very popular with passengers. Since then, an almost completely barrier-free service has been implemented on route 88. This is made possible by supplementing the two Artic vehicles with the partially low-floor existing KTNF6 vehicles. The third completely barrier-free vehicle now further stabilises this service.
Another advantage of the modern vehicles is the low maintenance requirements - an advantage not to be sneezed at in times of supply bottlenecks for some spare parts.
SRS invested a total of approx. 2.9 million, of which the districts of Oder-Spree and Märkisch Oderland each funded the purchase of the vehicles with around 40 per cent from additional earmarked funds from the state's public transport law and €156,000 each from the own funds of the two municipalities of Schöneiche and Rüdersdorf.
Incidentally, SRS is breaking with tradition with the purchase of the third Artic tram: it is the first new vehicle to be built in over 90 years. In the past, used vehicles were always purchased and adapted for operation at SRS - as was the case with the first two Artic vehicles, which were previously in operation in the Finnish capital Helsinki. As these are the pre-series vehicles of this type, the first two and the very last vehicle of the series are now owned by SRS, as production of the Artic tram at Skoda-Transtech in Finland ended with car 53 for SRS after more than 70 vehicles.
SRS is celebrating the 110th anniversary of its foundation this year. This anniversary, as well as the new Artic-Tram 53, should be duly celebrated with an open day in May. Due to the current ban on events, SRS will postpone the celebrations until the 111th year of operation.