Type 4N tram – car interior

About the sound

Sounds accompanying the ride of a passenger travelling in type 4N power car during the ride from Nowa Huta tram depot to the Museum of Municipal Engineering in Cracow in regular traffic.

The recorded car was manufactured in 1949 as type N and updated to type 4N in the 1960s (automatic doors were installed and bottom edge of the car’s body was lowered). The entire tram consists of three cars: type 4N power car and two trailer cars: ND and 4ND.

Type N power cars were the first trams purchased for the city of Cracow after WW2. They were based on the design of German Kriegsstraßenbahnwagen (KSW) – “wartime” tram with simplified structure, adapted to wartime conditions in terms of its manufacture and use. The cars were supplied from Konstal steel structures factory in Chorzów, Tramcars Factory in Sanok as well as Northern Shipyard in Gdańsk (Poland). These vehicles were treated as an interim solution and were supposed to be replaced with modern high-speed trams. Due to delays in works and in subsequent supplies of vehicles of this type together with economic crisis lasting in Poland since the second half of the 1970s, type N and type ND cars together with their updated versions 4N and 4ND were in operation in Cracow as late as until the year 1988.

Sound recordist: Monika Widzicka
Photographer: Piotr Leszczyński
Video recordist: Piotr Leszczyński