Antakalnis Trolleybus Depot

In the early post-war decade, as Vilnius grew, the city needed a new, durable mode of transportation that could carry more passengers. In the duel between tram and trolleybus, it was the trolleybus that won – better suited to the narrow streets of the Old Town.

The 1st Trolleybus Depot, established in the northern part of Antakalnis, remains to this day the most important trolleybus infrastructure hub in Vilnius. It houses a transport depot and repair workshops with the full technical capacity to carry out comprehensive trolleybus repairs – from manufacturing individual parts to painting entire bodies.

Amid the unassuming annexes built of silicate bricks, you can still find touches of humanizing industrial architecture: long facades are broken up by pilasters, while window sills, cornices, and modest angular pediments above doorways add a touch of expression and rhythm.

To this day, visitors to the trolleybus depot can get a glimpse of the drivers’ daily routines — the scheduled and preventive maintenance areas still stand, and the automatic ticket machines, first introduced more than 60 years ago in Vilnius public transport, have been preserved. Here you can also see the legends of the city’s transport history – the oldest surviving Vilnius trolleybus, the “9Tr”, and the articulated “15Tr”, which until quite recently were still running through the streets of the capital.