Type 4N tram – doors

About the sound

The sound of opening and closing of doors in the historical tram was recorded in Nowa Huta tram depot in Cracow.

This tram consists of three cars: type 4N power car and two trailer cars: ND and 4ND. Trams composed in this way were operating in Cracow since the 1960s. The recorded vehicle 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). At present it constitutes one of the exhibits of the Museum of Municipal Engineering in Cracow.

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.
In type N cars modernized to type 4N the opening and closing of doors is performed automatically, through chain drive powered by the motor from a drill.

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