Our time in Lviv comes to an end as we take one final look at the tramway in February 1994 as part of our “Around the World in Trams” series.
Depot Number 1 is at the end of a short non-passenger branch along Horodotska St near the main railway station. It was adjacent to the terminus of Lviv’s first electric tramway which served the city’s pre-1904 railway station on the same site, with the tram route designed to transport passengers arriving by rail to the site of the 1894 General Regional Exhibition. The depot, although rebuilt, is still in use today.
Our first photo shows Gotha works car 11 and a trailer of what looks like salt in the depot yard. The building in the background with the tall brick chimney was the original power station for the tramway. 11, which would have provided a very chilly ride on its rear platform, still survived in 2019 although dumped and in a very poor condition.
And then the final shot shows out-of-use cars in the depot yard in the late evening light – or lack of it. Among the more modern trams is vintage car 43 in a livery similar to the works cars.
Both Photographs by Donald Brooks
Workscar 11 is shown above at the fairly small original old (unnumbered) tram depot opposite the company HQ on the southern portion of the city loop. It was closed about 3-4 years ago, having last been used only to store one or two workscars outdoors and the whole rubber tired works”car” fleet inside the original shed. It is now some kind of exhibition/event facility run by the city (without any trams). The much larger main depot 1 is indeed by the railway station (and depot 2 in the north has been brought back to use as well – it is larger than depot 1 but for many years the large modern depot hall there has been derelict/crumbling with the surviving old shed acting as additional work space). There also used to be a very large and modern central workshop near depot 2, long decomissioned (the building survives in industrial use). Sanok 43 unfortunately has not survived.