DESCRIPTION

Cargo Tramway "X" - Series 1928-1941 Years Plastic Model Kit 

MiniArt 38030

1:35 Scale

Manufacturer: MiniArt

Material: Plastic

Condition: New in original packaging

Historical reference

The motor car of the X series is a serial standard model of a two-axle double-sided high-floor tram rolling stock for the Soviet Union. Cars of this type were produced by the Mytishchi Machine Building Plant and the Ust-Katavskiy Car Building Plant. In most cities, a motor car of the X series worked with one or two trailed cars of the M series. The latter were built on the basis of units and parts of motor cars, had a strong external similarity with them, but differed in a number of design solutions.

The cars of the X and M series were produced in different gauges and with different body lengths. In the tram farms of Soviet cities, cars X and M worked until the early 1970s, after which they were written off and disposed of. The earliest write-offs occurred in Minsk in 1964-1965, as well as in Izhevsk in 1966-1968, the tram (from July 1968 tram-trolleybus) control of which was actively transferred to the Tatras. Several surviving trams of this type (mainly the motor series X) are currently museum rolling stock or non-self-propelled monument cars in various cities of Russia and Ukraine.

After the end of the Civil War, the tram facilities of almost all Soviet cities were on the verge of collapse, and the production of tram rolling stock was completely stopped during the war. Nevertheless, the very first years of peace were marked by the growth of the country's economy; in the cities, the need arose again for the improvement and expansion of tram facilities. At first, the urgent tasks were carried out at the expense of tram cars remaining from pre-revolutionary times and restored. However, many of them were extremely overexploited, and the replacement of worn out parts and assemblies was extremely problematic due to the different types of rolling stock. An obvious need was to establish the serial production of new tram cars of a single (as they said, normal) design.

In 1925, the Second All-Russian Congress of Tram Workers took place in Leningrad, where it was decided to accept as a normal model a train consisting of two-axle motor and trailer cars with all-metal bodies. Although even earlier it was decided to make a standard 1524 mm tram track for unification with the track of the USSR railways, a normal train could also be produced for narrow-gauge tram systems. In 1926, prototypes of a motor and trailer car were built at the Mytishchi Machine-Building Plant (currently Metrovagonmash), and their serial production began two years later. The first large batch of motor carriages was ordered for the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, Kharkov, therefore the entire type of motor carriages received the designation X. The first large delivery of trailed cars fell on Moscow, and the trailed cars received the M series.

Despite the "standard" name, the serial cars turned out to be of different variants. In addition to the version for the standard 1524 mm gauge, cars with wheelsets were produced for the “European railway” gauge of 1435 mm (for the Rostov-on-Don tram industry) and for the narrow “European tram” gauge of 1000 mm. This required the production of wagons with a narrow (2200 mm) body; in addition, several cities ordered carriages that were shortened in length, with only six side windows instead of eight. In 1934, the production of short and narrow gauge cars was completed.

The heavy load of the Mytishchi plant with the production of suburban electric trains, subway cars for Moscow, the newest M-38 trams and defense products led to the termination of the production of standard tram cars on it in 1937. The freed up capacities were directed to solving the above-mentioned problems, and the tram production was transferred to the Ust-Katavskiy car-building plant named after S. M. Kirov (UKVZ). Since 1937, cars of the X and M series were already produced there, the volume of production was up to 150 units per year.

In 1941, the electrical and pneumatic equipment for standard cars was improved, the first (and last) batch of modernized "X / M" was delivered to Minsk. Their characteristic external feature was a large overhead star on the frontal area fence (later this decorative design will be used on the post-war KTM-1 cars). In connection with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War and the need to release military products at the UKVZ, the production of trams was stopped in June 1941.

The production of similar trams in Kiev and Nikolaev was organized on the basis of the X series cars, but they (like the later post-war variations) officially belonged to a different series. In total, over 2,000 "standard" cars were produced, and they became the main type of rolling stock of Soviet tramways in the interwar period.

With love from Ukraine