A 1927 metro carriage and a model of an omnibus: the unique exhibits in the collection of the Moscow Transport Museum

The collection of the Moscow Transport Museum contains unique vehicles, devices and artifacts that can be found almost nowhere else in the world. The exhibits include one of the two remaining KIM-10-51 cars from 1941, the world’s only surviving V-series metro carriage from 1927 and the last surviving horse-drawn tram from 1872, restored and with its original chassis preserved.

“Transport museums are among of the most popular and most visited museums in the world. The Moscow Transport Museum has the largest collection of historical urban machinery. Its collection contains more than 250 exhibits, enabling visitors to trace the entire history of Moscow’s public transport system, from the horse-drawn trams and the first buses to the most advanced modern vehicles. By order of Sergei Sobyanin, we are continuing to implement a large-scale program to preserve the capital’s transport heritage,” said Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport and Industry.

Horse-drawn tram from 1872

The horse-drawn tram is the ancestor of the familiar streetcar. Instead of electric motors, they used one or more pairs of harnessed horses. Moscow’s horse-drawn trams began operating in 1872, when the Military Ministry laid the first temporary tram line along the central streets of the city from Tverskaya Zastava to Red Square. The inauguration and launch of the first eight horse-drawn trams took place on July 7, 1872. By the end of the 19th century the horse-drawn tram network covered 94 kilometers, with 241 trams running on 25 lines. Use of the horse-drawn tram continued until the early 1910s, when they were completely replaced by electric trams.

The exhibit from the collection of the Moscow Transport Museum is the only remaining original example of Moscow’s horse-drawn trams. The carriage was recreated on the original 1872 chassis. This part of the exhibit has been preserved due to the fact that it was a part of the Moscow tramway for almost the whole 20th century. In the 1990s, in the Apakov tram depot, a detailed examination of a trailer-tower for repairing the overhead wire network revealed that its chassis was much older than the rest of the equipment and, that it in fact belonged to one of the first horse-drawn trams in Moscow. The original chassis was restored in 1999. A wooden carriage with an impérial, an open top deck, was mounted on it.

In the last few years this horse-drawn tram participated in annual tram parades, and very soon it will become a part of the permanent exhibition of the Moscow Transport Museum.

Experimental ticketing machine for T-type urban transport

Tills and semi-automated ticketing booths have been common on above-ground urban public transport since the late 1950s. They replaced conductors as part of a national automation program. But such a system was unsuitable for some bus routes, where fares were paid according to fare zones (as they are now on suburban trains outside the Moscow Central Diameters). Conductors still had to calculate the cost of each trip and the correct change.

The experimental ticket ticketing machine in the collection of the Moscow Transport Museum was designed to fully automate this process. The machine was hung on a leather strap over the conductor’s shoulder or mounted on a special bracket on the partition of the driver’s compartment if the fare was paid when passing the driver. On the body of the device, the date, route number, car number, and fare for one zone were selected at the beginning of the day. The passenger named the destination stop and the conductor or driver entered the number of fares to be paid and turned the lever, and the ticketing machine itself calculated the fare and printed a tear-off ticket on a ribbon after turning the lever. In addition, it was no longer necessary to keep a record of the number of tickets sold. This innovation was used in a pilot scheme on a number of suburban routes.

The 1927 V-series Metro carriage

All rolling stock of the Moscow Metro was designed and assembled in enterprises within the USSR. There was only one exception—the V-series metro carriages. At first glance, these are ordinary metro carriages from the first half of the 20th century, similar to the Soviet A, B and G carriages. V-series metro carriages were used from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, just over 10 years. That is a short time for metro carriages, which usually last about 30 years. Interestingly, the V-series metro carriage was manufactured in 1927, that is, before the construction of the Moscow Metro.

The collection of the Moscow Museum of Transport includes the only surviving eight-door V-series metro carriage. The BVG C1 carriage was produced by the German Busch factory in Bautzen, and it operated on Line C of the Berlin Underground. On May 2, 1945, along with other carriages, it was submerged when the metro tunnel flooded, and after the war it was transported to Moscow. In the Mytishchi carriage repair shops in 1946-1948 it was restored and adapted for work in the Moscow metro, where it was given a new name. The floor level of the body was raised by 20 centimeters to eliminating the height difference between the floor and the station platforms (in Berlin, the platforms are lower). In addition, its electrical circuits were replaced and traction motors were rebuilt.

The car was decommissioned by order of August 26, 1968, but was not scrapped, but was left in the Krasnaya Presnya tram depot, where it was used as an auxiliary room, and remained there until July 2021. The preserved body was sent for restoration, during which the original wooden interior trim and many artifacts, such as plaques and a Berlin metro plan, were discovered under a later layer of cladding. The V-series metro carriage was the first exhibit in the museum’s permanent exhibition, which is already on display on the first basement floor of the Konstantin Melnikov Garage at 27 Novoryazanskaya Street.

A model of a 1905 1T Daimler Omnibus

The first city bus routes in Russia appeared at the beginning of the last century. A trial motor omnibus route was opened on July 17, 1907 between Marina Roscha and Ostankino by Count Alexander Sheremetev. It was authorized by the city government because the route was considered a suburban route and thus did not compete with the tram. To do this, he bought a 12-14 seat Daimler bus—the simplest possible option. The vehicle had a truck chassis, on which long benches were installed down the sides, and the roof was a tarpaulin canopy resting on posts. Such a car could only be used in summer and in good weather. In essence, it was more like a shuttle cab, which in summer took dacha residents to their plots located near the Ostankino estate, which was owned by Count Sheremetev.

A model of one of these first Moscow buses has been created, and is in the museum’s collection.

1941 KIM 10-51 car

The KIM-10 low-capacity passenger car was designed as the first people’s car in the USSR, and was intended to be privately owned. In Moscow a trial batch of these cars (some 400 units) was assembled in 1941 at the KIM automobile plant (the future Moskvich), ending in October 1941, mostly with a closed sedan body. Therefore, this particular model is extremely rare. To date, only 15 KIM-10-51 cars in various states of repair have been preserved in the CIS, among them the open-body vehicle kept in the Museum of Transport of Moscow.

All these exhibits can be seen in the permanent exhibition, which will be located in the Konstantin Melnikov Garage on Novoryazanskaya Street. This unique example of Soviet avant-garde architecture is currently under restoration, and is being returned to its original appearance.

The Moscow Transport Museum is an open urban space and research center. Its collection includes more than 250 cars and trucks, cabs, buses, trolleybuses, city maintenance vehicles, bicycles and motorcycles. Items from the museum’s collection can be seen in exhibitions as well as on the city’s streets.