Vétra-Berliet EBR

The Vétra-Berliet EBR, officially the Vétra VA3 B2, was a three axle trolleybus built by Berliet to the specification of Vétra, the company set up in 1925 to find outlets for the equipment of the Als-Thom group, and it took the body of the Berliet PBR bus. From 1954 Vétra began fitting existing bus bodies, and the EBR marked its abandonment of its own bodywork in favour of Berliet. The first prototype was shown in 1953 and tested on the Lyon network. It had a theoretical capacity of 125 passengers, and 113 on the plates of preserved examples, 25 seated and 88 standing. It was the most produced trolleybus model in France, and Lyon bought the most, 142, while 44 were sold to Madrid and 25 to Valencia. At 12 m it proved hard to manoeuvre in crowded streets, and Marseille sold its 13 good examples to Saint-Étienne and chose the shorter ELR. Lyon trolleybus 830 was given to the AMTUIR museum in 1995.