A hall for trolleybuses will be built at the Slatina depot in Brno for 1.2 billion

study: dkarchitekti, 2019

Brno – The transport company in Brno is preparing to build a two-story hall at its Slatina depot, which is expected to significantly increase and improve the facilities for parking and maintenance of trolleybuses. It will allow parking vehicles under a roof in Slatina and will serve heavy maintenance and major repairs of trolleybuses, said the company's spokesperson Hana Tomaštíková to ČTK. The new construction will cost the transport company 1.2 billion crowns. Until now, trolleybuses in Slatina park outdoors just like the buses that also use the depot. However, the buses already have facilities for maintenance.

The company aims to obtain roughly half of the funds for the construction through European subsidies. Part of the money will be transferred from the third phase of the project for the reconstruction of the Pisárky depot, and part will be covered by the city. "We will start construction next year, and the largest part of the work will take place in 2026. The finishing work is expected to last until around 2028," Tomaštíková said.

In addition to the covered parking and heavy maintenance space, a new washing station and diagnostic hall for daily maintenance and care of vehicles will also be built in Slatina. While it is currently possible to park 43 vehicles in Slatina, this number is set to increase to up to 75. The Slatina depot primarily serves the trolleybus routes in the southeastern part of the city, connecting the main train station with Slatina and Šlapanice, but vehicles for some other lines also depart from here.

The modernization of the depot has been planned for a long time, but the investment priority had previously been the reconstruction of the tram depot in Pisárky, which is now nearly completed. Now, Slatina has gained priority due to the condition of the Komín trolleybus depot, which has reached a state that requires it to be demolished after 30 years. The construction has been problematic since the beginning, and since June of this year, the upper floor has been unusable due to structural issues. Once the modernization of the Slatina depot is completed, a new depot will be built in Komín.

The long-term intention of the transport company, which operates approximately 140 trolleybuses – half of which are articulated – is to place all vehicles in Slatina and Komín. The smaller Husovice depot, which once served trams, would then become a museum of Brno's public transport. This is similar to the Prague museum located in the former depot in Střešovice.