Bucharest’s 53-year-old Tatra trams to be decommissioned, placed in museum

The famous Tatra trams that transported Bucharest residents for 53 years have been taken out of service, according to statements made by Bucharest mayor Ciprian Ciucu on Sunday, July 19.

The mayor marked the moment by meeting with senior employees of the Militari Depot who worked under extremely difficult conditions in the 1970s and 1980s repairing Tatra trams. Today, the aging trams no longer provide adequate conditions to transport people, according to Ciprian Ciucu. As such, they will be replaced by modern trams. 

Around 30 of these tram cars remain, and those in good condition will be preserved for the future Public Transport Museum.

"Today we say goodbye to the Tatra trams, which, after 53 years of carrying several generations of passengers, will no longer run on Bucharest's lines," Ciprian Ciucu wrote on Facebook.

The local official said that he knew there was a community of tram enthusiasts, but had never imagined it was so large. "A great many people, especially many young people, came today to the Militari Depot to take one last ride through Bucharest on a Tatra tram," Ciucu said.

The Tatra T4R model, which operated in the Romanian capital for decades, was manufactured in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) at the ČKD Tatra factories in Prague. More specifically, they were built at the Smíchov plant in Prague and delivered to Bucharest between 1973 and 1975.

Bucharest began replacing its tram fleet in 2022, when the first modern Imperio trams made by Romanian manufacturer Astra Vagoane Călători Arad started operating in the capital. The modern trams are 36 meters long, are larger than the Tatra ones, and can carry 322 passengers in total. They have air conditioning, USB plugs, five double doors, and lower energy consumption than the older models.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Ciprian Ciucu on Facebook) ...