Vor 75 Jahren war die Metro schneller

The 15th of October this year is the 75 anniversary since the first passenger train took the trip from the Metro station “Komsomolskaya” to the station “Sokolniki”. That day two coaches of type “A”, one red, another of sand color, carried out six shuttle tours with the speed of 60 km/h (though the average speed of modern coaches is 40 km/h).

This type of coaches was issued by the rail car plant of Mytishy until 1939. However, they were used for the carriage of the passengers only until 1975 and, according to Wikipedia, as defectoscopes these carriages of type “A” traveled in Metro lines until 2001.

Newspaper “Izvestia” quoted its own message dated 75 years ago: “At 8:20 a.m. on the station “Komsomolskaya Squarer” the green traffic lights were lit. The siren announced the approaching of the train. Two coaches – motorcar N 1 and trailer N 1001 – driven by the engineer of the Dynamo plant Shpolanskiy at 8:23 a.m. arrived from the depot. The train took the passengers and gently went in his maiden trip, the speed faster and faster.

Over time, the coaches of the type “A” have undergone a number of technical changes. The braking system has been changed, control system improved, but the appearance of the coaches remained practically unchanged – only the wall brackets have been replaced by the ceiling lamps. Incidentally, these cars first had soft seats. Before that the surface transport had the usual wooden banks, but the underground Palace, which should impress the whole world by its pomp, everything must be in a new way.

Today the first Moscow coaches are exhibited in the depot “Izmailovo”.

To the 75th anniversary of the first coach the “Metro” issued anniversary tickets – only 500 thousand. And till May 2010 passengers will be able to purchase tickets for two trips – made with different design, they will remind passengers on important markers of development of Moscow Metro.