BEC-KITS Model Trams: Kit BK40: Brussels 5000 series original body

Kit BK40: Brussels 5000 series original body built 1935

The 5000 class was ordered early in 1935 to be ready to carry the huge crowds that were expected for the 1935 World Fair. The order was for 25 double-truck wooden-bodied fast trams, mounted on license-built Brill 84E trucks. These were the first bogie trams in Brussels. The builder was Ateliers de La Dyle et Bacalan at Louvain, Belgium and the class were numbered 5001 - 5025. Delivery came on time and the cars proved to be good, fast and reliable, as expected. They lasted to the end of the downtown city routes in 1976, when the North-South pre-metro tunnel opened.
However, some vehicles were altered to various extents according to circumstances. 5006 and 5023 were rebodied in steel in 1964-65 following accident damage and were rebuilt in the streamlined style (BEC-KITS 32) of the then classic Brussels P.C.C. class 7000 series (BEC-KITS 31). 5020 and 5021 were given quite similar bodies (BEC-KITS 32) a little earlier for the same reasons.
5001 was altered in the late forties to feature a third centre door to test the 'Peter Witt' passenger flow method which was to be used on the then projected P.C.C. class 7000 fleet. 5018 was altered in 1948-49 to feature a streamlined body (composite wood/aluminium), also foreseeing the projected fleet of class 7000. This car only had 2 sets of doors.

This kit has two unmotorised bogies. A matching pair of MEEQ motorised bogies is available separately.
The whitemetal trolley pole supplied is non-working.
Decals are supplied for the Brussels livery.
Other kits for Brussels are also available:
- 31 Brussels 7000 series P.C.C. car.
- 32 Brussels 5000 series rebuilt car.

This particular kit is suitable for fleet numbers: 5002-5005, 5007-5017, 5019, 5022, 5024, 5025. The kit corresponds to the 1950 to 1976 vintage exterior style, as earlier cars were not fitted with air-operated folding doors. Among the class, several are preserved. 5001, 5008, 5018, 5025 are at Brussels Woluwe Museum. 5019 is at Amsterdam's EMA Museum Line and 5016 is in the UK.
The cars only had trolley poles in service but more recently, as a museum tram (better described as a Party-Tram) 5001 received a livery advertising the Woluwe Museum in apple green and yellow, with large full-side advertising boards and a single-arm pantograph to allow it to operate over all the Brussels system.

Friswell, N C (ed). 2007. Tramway Review No. 211 September 2007. (5000 series article) LRTA. ISSN 0041-1019.
Hoogerhuijs, Herman van't. 1996. Trammaterieel in Nederland en België. (Page 84) De Alk bv, Alkmaar. ISBN 90 6013 948 8.
Taplin, M.R. 1977.Small photograph of 5019 at Woluwe in Brussels on page 19 of January 1977 issue of Modern Tramway. L.R.T.L.
Further information on the Brussels cars may be obtained from MUPDOFER at MUPDOFER A.S.B.L., Boîte Postale 1343, B-1000, Bruxelles 1, Belgium. Please enclose two international reply coupons. We would like to thank M. Alain Piette of Brussels for his help in supplying information and photographs used in the design of this kit.