[Eugen1985]

This is 1966 ZIU - 5D, the second museum trolleybus in Chisinau.

The pictures are from 2023.

It is the second museum trolleybus in Chișinău and was restored in 2012. It is in working condition and used for special occasions or trips with tourists. On the side the word excursie which means excursion in english. And once again I was able to take pictures inside the trolleybus. It is stored outside in the second trolleybus depo in Chișinău because there is not enough space in the garages in the depo. During summer it is very warm in Moldova and even though it has been painted the paint had faded. Before being used for special occasions or on trips with tourists it is painted fresh like on the first picture. In general It was built in the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1958. It was produced in mass production from 1959 to 1972 at the Uritsky plant in Engels, Saratov region (after the collapse of the USSR - Trolza JSC). The total number of produced ZiU-5 trolleybuses exceeds 16,000 units. This allowed ZiU-5 to occupy a dominant position among the Soviet-era models of trolleybuses. The last ZiU-5 was written off from work with passengers in the mid-late 1980s (the exact date varies from city to city). One of the last cities of the USSR, where ZiU-5 (late modifications of ZIU-5G and ZIU-5D) operated, were: Zhitomir, Dnepropetrovsk , Minsk , Moscow , Odessa and Leningrad were (the last ZIU - 5 trolleybus was in passenger service, according to various sources, until 1993 or even 1994. Local repair plants allowed longer lasting trolleybuses of this brand to last longer than in other places, thus their service life was extended to 16-17 years instead of the required 14 years. One of the last ZiU-5, actually working, and not being in the museum, was burnt in Kharkov in the spring of 2005. It was the laboratory of the contact network. A small number of preserved running ZiU-5 in the 1990's and 2000's became museum exhibits. and are now preserved in various museums. Trolley buses ZiU-5 were also sold for export to Budapest and Bogotá. In Budapest in 1966-1969, a total of 100 trolleybuses of this type were delivered. The first write-off occurred already in 1975, the last trolleybuses left the lines in 1982. Budapest drivers were unhappy with the fact that because of the unsuccessful placement of the cabin and doors, they had a poor overview on the right. In order to eliminate this drawback, in 1971-1975 the front door of all ZiU-5 was converted from four-leaved to tri-fold (the front leaf at the same time turned into a "window"). From this landing and landing in a trolley, already without sufficient number of doors at its capacity, even more lengthened. The electrical equipment of the first ZiU-5 decommissioned in Budapest (until 1978) was installed on early copies of Hungarian trolleybuses: Ikarus -260T and -280T.