Ikarus buses from all around the world

[Kosov_1986]

Ikarus is a bus manufacturing corporation, which exported to mostly communist countries, but their buses can be found at any continent, even capitalist countries use it.
The most popular types are:

IK 260 - 11 meters long bus with under-floor middle engine
IK 280 - 16,5 meters long articulated bus with under-floor mid engine
IK 256 - 11 meters long coach


Ikarus 216
midibus in Kuwait




Ikarus 250
12 meters long variant of Ikarus 256, in Abu Dhabi, UAE




Ikarus 255
with automatic doors, in Hungary(?), or maybe somewhere on the East side of the "Iron Curtain"




Ikarus 256
Kuwait edition with air conditioner




Ikarus 259
on Renault chassis, in Egypt

Renault-Ikarus 259


Ikarus 260 - at differnet locations.

Taipei, Taiwan

Madagascar. It has berliet chassis

Madagascar, an off-road lookalike, but with rear wheel drive


Ikarus 261
260 built for left-side driving countries

Made for Tanzania


Ikarus 266
bus in China




Ikarus 280 - articulated, at different locations

Bratislava, Slovakia

with edgy (not rounded) lights, in Poland

A strange 280, with left-side driver seat, but left doors, in Tanzania


Ikarus 283T
18 meters long articulated trolley, in Moscow, Russia
That trolleys have Russian electronics, IK 283 diesel bus are also used by many countries.




Ikarus 286
articulated bus for USA & Canada, in Ottawa or Toronto... those cities had them




Ikarus 435
articulated bus in Poland




Ikarus 412
low-floor bus, in Taipei, Taiwan

http://busexplorer.com/PHP/MidPage.php?id=1603


Ikarus 417
low-floor articulated bus in Wuppertal, Germany

[andy_blah]

I think here in Romania are a lot of that IK 435 in some big cityes. The rest of the transport vehicles are the Mercedes and ford mini buses

[ddream]

Here is Warsaw 620:
http://www.przegubowiec.com/bus/katalog ... 42-150.JPG
http://www.przegubowiec.com/bus/katalog ... 27-117.jpg

and 417:
http://www.przegubowiec.com/bus/katalog/ok7550.jpg
http://www.przegubowiec.com/bus/katalog/7551-111.jpg

[Kosov_1986]

I think here in Romania are a lot of that IK 435 in some big cityes. The rest of the transport vehicles are the Mercedes and ford mini buses

Bucarest, Romania has about 200 Ikarus 415T trolleybus, it has electronics made by Astra, a Romanian company.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I like that articulated trolley.
We had no Ikarus buses, because we have our own factory Ikarbus (it was Ikarus till about 15 years ago, but it had nothing with yours Ikarus, but it was communism, nobody cared about trade marks , they use RABA axles and MAN or Mercedes engines).
But nice buses anyway.

[MeusH]

We have vast amount of Ikarusses in Krakow. However, these are the oldest busses cruising in the city

230 x Ikarus 230 (not used for about 10 years)


299 x Ikarus 280 (still running)


There are modern Ikarusses in the other polish cities, but not in Krakow - we have only Ikarus 280. Modern busses are Scania, Jelcz and Solaris.
Nowdays Ikaruses are considered as the worst, the loudest and the least comfortable busses.

But I can add one thing: They are fast. They are the fastest busses in the city. However, on that speeds, I'm not sure why hasn't the bus broken apart and crashed, but it's still speeding


This is a list of busses running in Cracow:
1 Ikarus 280 62
2 Jelcz 120 M 67
3 Jelcz 121 M 8
4 Jelcz 121 MB 78
5 Jelcz 181/182 MB 55
6 Scania 113 CLL 0 69
7 Scania 113 ALB 0 30
8 Scania OmniCity-przeg. 15
9 Scania OmniCity 14
10 Solaris Urbino 12 50
11 Man NG 313/SG242 11
12 Autosan H 6 22
13 Neoplan N 4020 5
Overall, we have 486 busses and 417 tram wagons

[Kosov_1986]

This is one of the oldest buses of my city, i don't know that is it in service, or did they sell it.

Old Ikaruses have folding doors, and some export vehicles... DDR (East Germany), Soviet Union and Bulgaria was using folding doors after 1984/85, when they


This old Ikarus 280 used to have number plate AKD-595, it was sold to Novosybirsk, Russia in 2000. It is made for Russian export, but it used to run in my city (Pecs, Hungary), untill they sell it to Syberia.



We have an Ikarus 260.54 (54 is the subtype). Its second door is closer to the front door, because it doesn't use RABA engine... maybe DAF or MAN or so... And it has 4 seats in a row, like a suburban bus, or a short-distance outer-city vehicle, which runs to villages.







And we have the only(!) Ikarus 246, which is the local bus variant of Ikarus 256.44. The successor of those is Ikarus C56.
Ikarus 246 was developed for China, it has rear engine, but high floor-level.





Nowdays, the city use Ikarus 246, 260, 280, 284, 415, 435 and Mercedes O345 and O345G (G is articulated), and a few Citaro low-floor buses.
The Mercedes buses was assembled by Turkey.
Other cities use Mercedes, MAN, Volvo, Neoplan etc. but most of them was used by Germans before, or new ones was assembled in same-as-Hungary category countries, like Turkey, Poland, Romania, etc. so not the "high German quality and precision".

The First Mercedes, which is O345G, with numberplate HBC-611, it arrived in 1999

[Daan Timmer]

Are those wooden benches/chairs:|

[Kosov_1986]

Kuwait has many Ikaruses, because it was cheap, durable, and Ikarus made subtypes for them, with non-openable windows and air conditioner, and with DAF or MAN engines.


Ikarus 280 for Kuwait, with 55 seats, it doesn't carry standing passangers.



Ikarus 263 is 12 meters version of Ikarus 260, they were exported to East Germany, Poland, Soviet Union and Kuwait. In the late 1990s, around 2000 a large numbers of IK 263 was made for Russia, but they can't pay it, so they are used by Hungarian bus operator corporations.


Back to Kuwait Ikaruses, here are pics:

[Kosov_1986]

Are those wooden benches/chairs:|

No, sponge seats with leatherette overlay (not real leather)
Some more comfortable buses has textil overlay.

[Samuel]

A Ikarus at CMOR Beijing station,it's a shuttle not the famous route 44

[Kosov_1986]

Here is a bit rusty and old Ikarus 280 from Poland




2 Ikarus 256 in Dali Bus Terminal, Yunnan, China

[Dave]

I don't think Britain uses Ikarus buses... Not these days anyway... I think they mainly use Optare and Volvo machines.

[doktorhonig]

Hm, they look similar to the ones I saw in Sopron. I should go there again, and watch out for newer ones.

[wyctor]

I don't think Britain uses Ikarus buses... Not these days anyway... I think they mainly use Optare and Volvo machines.

they did have ikaruses, because I read an article about right-steering-wheeled ikarus double deckers on the Internet, but i forgot where.

[Kosov_1986]

I don't think Britain uses Ikarus buses... Not these days anyway... I think they mainly use Optare and Volvo machines.

Optare is a type of NABI

NABI-Optare Solo




NABI-Optare Excel




These are made in Kaposvar, Hungary


NABI 700SE

It has 9 litres engine, and it's 12 meters long, it is Hungarian developement, many Volan (Volan is public bus transport company, all 19 county have their own, bigger cities have separated public transport from Volan) have NABI 700SE





NABI is the successor of American Ikarus, which was built to manufacture Ikarus 416 and 436 for USA (maybe Ikarus 286 in the earlier ages), so the NABI has Hungarian roots, so the big boss was a Hungarian investor, who bought the American Ikarus, when they went near-bankrupt.

So you Americans and English all use Hungarian origin buses




Ikarus WAS in England!


Here are the proof:

Ikarus 350
on Volvo chassis (the blue bus)





Ikarus 480
Ikarus 415 built for left-side driving countries






BTW way does they have only 1 door and 1 emergency exit? why not 2 doors, or 3 doors, like other countries use???


__________________________________________________________________

Hm, they look similar to the ones I saw in Sopron. I should go there again, and watch out for newer ones.

Ikarus is modular... Ikarus 260 and Ikarus 280 are built for local transport, or maybe suburban transport... those have about 50-60 subtypes, with different doors, seat systeming, some has non-openable windows with air conditioning, but most have openable door... but some has 1/2 openable, some has 1/4 openable windows.


Similar look is good... they made 1 light or 3 seat types for all buses...

BTW similar look is good, they are recognizeble, even if they have foreigner chassis and a HUGE foreigner-manufacturer-emblem (Volvo, Mercedes, Renault, GM, Scania, DAF, etc.) unlike normals which have Hungarian RABA engine which is developed version of an old MAN engine, but RABA isn't written on them, only the foreigner engine or chassis, but i don't know why is it SO important, to make the chassis manufacturer's emblem bigger than the bodywork manufacturer's emblem...

[Dave]

The Optare Solo and Excel are both used by Travel West Midlands, my local bus company.

They also use the double decker with the same windscreen design,

[doktorhonig]

Hm, most busses look similar for a b00n like me.
Could you tell from this pic, if this bus has Ikarus roots?
http://www.vipress.at/wstw/bilder/scree ... _Bus_8.jpg

They use some very light gas (don't know which one exactly) to reduce Pollution. If you stand behind a bus, which is just starting its engine, you smell nothing, you just feel heat.

[Dave]

As for the one door thing...

It's very simple.

(Nearly) All buses in the UK operate a pay on boarding system, so you have to pay the driver as you get on the bus. Since that means there's no conductor, having a second or third set of doors would mean people would fare dodge.

There's still an emergency door at the back of the bus, so no safety is compromised.

[WWW]

I saw a Ikarus 256 go along the A6 near where i live, very english...

I think it was being used by a hire company