Dayton Electric Transit Incorporated (ETI) / Skoda Trolleybuses
The ETI/Skoda demonstrators. Three Skoda 14TrE demonstrators were procured in 1994, 9601-9603. These buses were constructed in the Czech Republic, with
9601 arriving December 22 1995, and 9602-9603 in January 1996, and they were used to determine the performance specifications for the later production fleet.
They are a modified export version of a Skoda 14Tr, with the addition of a wheelchair lift at the rear door. They were the first Dayton trolleys to have
a back door behind the rear wheels since the Dayton Street Railway Brills, 100-180. They were used regularly until 2004-2005. As of 2015, all three
demonstrators are stored.
The production ETI/Skoda fleet, 9801-9854 started arriving in 1998. Frames were assembled in the Czech Republic, and shipped to
Hunt Valley MD, and subsequently to a plant on Woodley Rd in Dayton for finishing. Originally, 63 buses were ordered, the three demonstrators and 60 14TrE2 production buses.
A combination of several factors resulted in the reduction of the order from 60 to 54: costs for the engineering to move the wheelchair lift to the front door and widen the bus to
accommodate a wheelchair between the front wheels, plus two Dual Mode Electric Trolley concept vehicles from Kaman.
Several structural problems have beset the fleet since then. A front cross rod-to-frame bracket tore out of the frame of one of the ETIs, allowing the axle to move sideways.
Poor quality welds were suspected as the cause. Rear frame cracks came later, requiring several gusset plates, which were repaired over several months by a Skoda field team.
Road salt has not been friendly to the space-frame structure, which has led to a significant number of mid-life rebuilds, where the stainless steel sides need to be removed
in order to inspect and repair frames.
Save for 9803, 9809 and 9835 (plus several still on RTA property awaiting disposal as of this writing in 2021), the fleet has been retired. Last bus in revenue was 9809, and
last date of operation in
revenue was December
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