The Wonderful Trolley Cafe
The Bogotá trolleybus system closed in August 1991. The vehicles were collected in the trolleybus yards on Av. Chile and in a field near Parque Jaime Duque in Briceño, a town 40 km north of the capital. All had been sold to a scrap dealer, but remained untouched, unprotected and exposed to the elements for the next two decades.
In 2009 Bogotá resident Nelson Herrera visited Briceño and learned that the vehicles were finally to be destroyed. He returned several times, acquired permission to enter the grounds and took the following photographs in July and August 2010.
The last photograph shows trolleybus 2088, which Sr. Herrera purchased from the scrap dealer, along with spare parts and other pieces that he needed. He decided to rebuild the vehicle as a café.
Sr. Herrera had the vehicle transferred to a vacant lot in Bogotá, where he began its restoration.
The colors were matched exactly to the colors that appeared on the vehicles during operation.
The coat of arms of The City of Bogotá and the "ZiU" logo (Cyrillic lettering) of the Uritsky company in the Soviet Union, which built the trolleybuses in the 1970s.
Finally, with restoration complete, Bogotá trolleybus 2088 was placed on display in the Parqueadero Milenio (parking lot) on Calle 28 near the city center [see map below]. Sr. Herrera says that it took eight months of negotiations with municipal authorities to obtain permission to place the vehicle in this location and convert it to a café.
What a contrast with the vehicle's scrap yard location only a few months before! Number 2088 is now believed to be the only trolleybus in existence in Colombia. All the other trolleybuses in the two scrap yards were destroyed.
Nelson Herrera: trolleybus 2088's hero, savior, restorer, new owner and -- now -- chef. The café finally opened for business in June 2011 and currently operates 7 am to 8 pm on weekdays and from 10 am to 5 pm on Saturdays. It is closed Sundays.
The Trolley Café is located on the south side of Calle 28, between Carreras 13A and 14. The word Carrera (boulevard) is sometimes abbreviated "K". Carrera 14 is also known as Avenida Caracas, was once the path of a steam railroad, and today is traversed by the city's Transmilenio bus rapid transit. Trams ran on Carrera 13 (but not on 13A) until 1951. Trolleybuses ran on Carrera 14 until 1991. Both trams and trolleybuses ran on Calle 26. [Google Maps]
Reference: Morrison, A., 2011. The Wonderful Trolley Cafe. [online][viewed 5th of January 2013]. Available from: www.tramz.com/c...
Courtesy to Sr. Nelson Herrera, Mr. Allen Morrison, Sr. Henry Peraza, Sr. Claudio Bellon, Mr. Richard Yudin, Sr. Gustavo Arias, Mr. Allan de Koningh, Mr. Jacques Pèrenon, Mr. Mike Ceaser of Mike's Bogota Blog, Mr. Nocolas Van Hoff's photostream and Mr. Barry Blumstein.
All rights of the used pictures belong to them and the website tramz.com.
This slideshow was created as a token of respect towards Sr. Nelson Herrera, who deserves to be called Hero !
It is my dream some day to visit the Trolley Cafe in Bogota despite the fact that before reading the story on tramz.com and Mike's Bogota Blog, Columbia was very high on my list of places which I should avoid. I was wrong because despite all the problems of Columbia, I have realised that there live some of the best people in the world !
P.S. I have seen on You Tube a video with some great footage of the 1979 Trolleybus operation in Bogota:
• 1979 TROLEBUSES BOGOTA
According to the Journal of the UK National Trolleybus Association - Trolleybus Magazine Vol. 49 No. 307 January-February 2013, "the Trolley Café had closed by January 2012. It was advertised for sale in July, having been moved to an unknown location."
Further report from Trolleybus Magazine Vol. 49 No. 311 September-October 2013 states that "the Trolley Café was moved to the Autodromo de Tocancipa, a car-racing track in the town of Tocancipa, about 30 km north of Bogota, and reopened for business there in July 2012."
There is also an article in Spanish from 2015:
www.eltiempo.c...
I don't understand Spanish but the video about the more recent developments of the Trolley Café is well worth watching:
• El último de los trol...
1 окт 2024
