Kh (tramcar)

Kh ( _ru. Х) was the class of double axled high-floor tramcars, which were build in Soviet Union in interbellum period. First vehicles were built in 1927 and delivered to Kharkov, Ukraine. First letter of city name, cyrillic "Х" (usually transliterated as "Kh"), was selected as a designation of whole series. After Kharkiv, tramcars of this type were supplied to many Soviet cities and became most numerous in the fleets of many municipalities. In 1941, after outbreak of Great Patriotic War, their production was stopped for maximizing war efforts. The Kh-class tramcars were finally withdrawn from the city service in the mid-1960-ies as morally obsolete vehicles, their sturdy construction allowed them to be used much more. The small number of survived cars are preserved for museum purposes in Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod, Saratov and few other cities.