Russia: ROLLINGSTOCK visited the upgraded site and spoke with the depot’s chief engineer, Mikhail Filatov, about the results of the first phase of reconstruction and plans to introduce a system for automatic stabling of trams.
Tram Depot No. 7 was the first of the city’s tram and trolleybus depots to begin a comprehensive technological overhaul under the “Preserving History, Moving into the Future” programme run by Gorelektrotrans, St Petersburg’s municipal electric transport operator. The work started in 2022 and reached into every production cycle. It finished at the end of last year, and the results were presented to the city’s leadership.
Visualisation of the upgraded Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Luch Design Bureau
Staying within the footprint of the historic 1931 building, which covers 6,400 m², while fitting it out to service modern trams was just as hard. The obsolete engineering services were stripped out and the building’s load-bearing structures reinforced. The roof, facades and flooring were replaced outright, the inspection pits rebuilt, new services and modern equipment installed, and the finishing works done to the design concept.
71-932 Nevsky and 71-923M Bogatyr-M trams at Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
Luch Design Bureau handled the project. The main challenge for the contractors was a hard line in the brief from St Petersburg’s Gorelektrotrans: do the construction and installation work without ever halting the dispatch of trams onto the line. The depot ran at full capacity throughout and kept carrying passengers.
Servicing a tram bogie during scheduled maintenance. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
Today Tram Depot No. 7 serves nine routes across three of the city’s districts: Tsentralny, Nevsky and Krasnogvardeysky. The route network runs to more than 118 km. The fleet is 146 trams: 83 two-section 71-923M Bogatyr-M, 24 three-section single-ended 71-931M Vityaz-M and 39 three-section double-ended 71-932 Nevsky vehicles. All of it was delivered between 2022 and 2024 and carries the Cognitive Tram Pilot machine-vision system. The depot now runs trams from a single manufacturer, PK Transport Systems.
Unique wheel lathe
The standout part of the reconstruction is the bay for repairing and servicing tram bogies. Here, an underfloor wheel lathe was installed for the first time at a Russian tram depot. Russian engineers developed it with Indian partners, working strictly to the requirements of Gorelektrotrans’s rolling stock service and to the specifics of the depot reconstruction project. Its main advantage: the bogies stay under the car.
The lathe cut the time to reprofile a car’s wheelsets by half. The old way meant jacking up the car, rolling out the bogies and turning them one at a time on a stationary lathe. “Now, restoring the wheelset geometry on a single 71-923M Bogatyr-M takes one working day and two people: the CNC operator and a rolling stock repair fitter,” Filatov says. Specialists from Engineering and Technological Solutions company, working with their Indian counterparts, have since pushed it further: “Some of the lads came over from India and sped it up again. So it’s not 50% any more, it’s more than that.”
The underfloor wheel lathe at Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
The accuracy is well above the older methods, Filatov adds. “The lathe measures the wheelset parameters itself, sets the reprofiling programme and works to within a millimetre. It does both sides at once, so left and right come out identical, and that’s what gives you safety and a smooth ride in service.” Everything the lathe does is logged to a database for later analysis. “That’s what helps when you’re planning the next round of maintenance,” he says.
A bogie repair post was also fitted out, covering washing, dismantling and wheelset turning. The bogie is rolled out from under the tram, run through the new washing plant, then sent to the servicing bay. “It comes out cleaned to a pristine state, which you need to spot any defects. Every deposit and oil stain from service is gone,” Filatov explains. For the wheelset turning, a frequency converter drives the bogie’s own traction motor, which mimics real running conditions, a better method than using the lathe’s own drive.
Integrated safety and new equipment
The reconstruction ran through the depot’s entire process chain. New lifting and handling equipment went in, including mobile jacks that can be combined to suit different rolling stock.
Jacking position at Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
A new traction substation was installed for a stable power supply, and the internal rigid overhead contact line, both retractable and fixed, was synchronised with automated access platforms for servicing the trams’ roof equipment. An interlock makes it impossible for staff to climb onto the roof before the power in the contact line is off. “The platform only opens if the contact line is dead. The cut-outs are automated. When the line is live, the system flags it as dangerous. Only when it’s dead does the interlock release,” Filatov says.
Section of the rigid overhead contact line at Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
A washing area was added too. It runs a full cleaning cycle on every tram before it goes out on the line: body wash, interior cleaning and sanitisation.
Washing facility at Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
Digitalisation and lean production
The comprehensive re-equipment made it possible to introduce elements of lean production. All the technical documentation has been digitised and loaded into the integrated repair support system (KS PTR), where 3D models of tram components and detailed process cards are available. “This is our in-house KS PTR system,” Filatov says. “Nobody has done away with paper, it still has to be there. But we have all the process cards loaded and digitised. And the 3D models are available too.”
The system reaches into pre-departure preparation as well: before going out, drivers are briefed at an electronic terminal. “It’s either short notices about closures, or route changes. They have to read it, press ‘Acknowledge’, and the system records that,” the chief engineer explains.
KS PTR terminal at Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
To hold down the budget and cut rolling stock downtime, the depot has set up a programme to localise production of the key parts it uses to repair and service the trams. “We’ve got a run of parts and components in production. It cuts our dependence on outside suppliers and lowers what we spend buying finished items in. We buy the material and make them ourselves,” Filatov notes. The depot is also building up its own tooling production; a new pipe bender has just arrived and is being set up and refined to widen the range of parts it can turn out.
Fabrication bay at Tram Depot No. 7. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
Phase two: automatic stabling
Next, the depot plans a system that stables trams automatically. Once a tram crosses the depot boundary it will run on its own, without a driver, along a set route to the overnight stabling area or to the servicing and repair point. Taganrog and Verkhnyaya Pyshma already run something similar. The estimated date for implementation in St Petersburg is 2027.
“This is the second phase of the reconstruction. We’re putting in an integrated automation system to make tram movements safer, more precise and more efficient. The tram pulls up to the gates, the system recognises it automatically, the gates open, the points switch to the right position and the tram follows its route. It’ll be a combined system: RFID tags on the rolling stock, automated points and Cognitive Tram Pilot,” Filatov explains. A depot controller will oversee the process.
Part of the case is economic. Movement on site is capped at 5 km/h, but human error still causes incidents. “On the depot site there’s a risk of one car hitting another during shunting. These things happen, it’s the human factor. We’ve already done the sums: even a minor knock at just 5 km/h can damage the windscreen, the headlights, the plastic parts, around RUB 1 mln ($14,000) to put right in spare parts,” the chief engineer says.
Tram Depot No. 7 being adapted for automation. Source: Aleksey Stolchnev / ROLLINGSTOCK
Filatov notes the combined effect of introducing automation: “Overall, the effect is a reduction in the time spent on shunting operations that are surplus but objectively necessary. Optimised logistics, which raises the depot’s throughput. And minimised damage from collisions: automated systems with proximity sensors and automatic braking prevent incidents, reducing the indirect costs (repairs after collisions).”
