History of the tram in Frankfurt am Main

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The history of the Frankfurt tram is documented in the Transport Museum Frankfurt am Main in Frankfurt-Schwanheim.

The history of the Frankfurt tram , which is well over a hundred years old, includes a large number of private and public operators, one of the first electric tram lines in the world and fierce transport policy conflicts. After the tram in Frankfurt am Main was supposed to be abolished for decades, there was a change in urban transport policy in the early 1990s. Since then, investments have been made in new vehicles and routes.

The tram traffic in Frankfurt began on May 19, 1872, the opening of the first horse-drawn tram line , which rapidly further distances followed. The first commercially operated electric tram in Germany followed in 1884 with an electrically operated line - from today's perspective with exotic electrical engineering. For 15 years this line remained a foreign body in Frankfurt tram traffic. In 1888/89 two private companies opened steam tram lines , in 1891 two other companies experimented with the electric drive and relied on sub-lines or batteries , which in both cases did not lead to lasting success. It was not until 1899 that the first electric trams ran with the single-pole overhead contact line, which is still used today, a technology that quickly caught on.

In addition to various private companies, the city of Frankfurt also participated in tram traffic from 1898, and from 1906 the neighboring city of Offenbach , whose network was connected to the Frankfurt lines. The last private tram company became municipal property in 1955, and Frankfurter Stadtwerke has been the only operator in the region since 1968 .

The origins

In Frankfurt there were trams with horses as draft animals from May 19, 1872 to June 17, 1904 , steam trams from May 12, 1888 to 1929, and electric trams have been running in Frankfurt since February 18, 1884.

The first public transport lines in Frankfurt were operated with horse-drawn buses . The first lines connected the terminal stations of the new railway lines, which were built from 1839, with each other and with the city ​​center . The Frankfurter Omnibus-Gesellschaft (FOG) operated three fixed lines from 1863, from Bockenheim to the Hanau train station , from the Westend to the local train station and from the Hauptwache to Bornheim .

In the first decades, the Frankfurt trams belonged to private operators. Of these, the Frankfurter Trambahn-Gesellschaft was the most important, because with its inner-city horse-drawn tram lines it created the basic structure of the later urban tram network.

The horse trams of the Frankfurt tram company

Horse tram at the final stop “Bornheim Schule” in Bornheim in front of the “Nassauer Hof” (today: “Solzer”) in Berger Strasse , from 1881
Preserved FTG horse-drawn tram in the Frankfurt Transport Museum in Schwanheim

The Frankfurter Trambahn-Gesellschaft (FTG), founded in 1872 as a subsidiary of the Brussels company F. de la Hault & Cie , introduced horse-drawn trams to Frankfurt . On May 19, 1872, she opened the first line with horses as draft animals from Schönhof in the north-western neighboring town of Bockenheim via the Bockenheimer Warte , through the Westend via the Bockenheimer Landstrasse and today's Opernplatz to the Hauptwache.

FTG opted for tracks with a gauge of 1435 mm, which was also mostly common on the railways at that time, the so-called standard gauge . The decision made at that time is still valid today, all Frankfurt street and underground lines have this gauge, even if the draft horses have long been replaced by electric railcars .

A short time later, the first line was extended eastward across the Zeil and reached Hanau station in 1875 . From 1879 a second line ran from Bornheim (clock tower), which had been incorporated two years earlier, over the Sandweg to Friedberger Anlage , and a year later to the western train stations . This line was extended on October 24, 1881 to the Kirchner School at Hohen Brunnen. Also in 1881 horse-drawn trams crossed the Main to Sachsenhausen for the first time , and since 1882 trains have been running to the Nordend .

The city of Rödelheim , northwest of Frankfurt, was connected to the horse-drawn tram in 1889. However, the line led only until Schönhof, a connection to the beginning there Ur-line was not initially, since the distance of the Main-Weser Railway ran, with passengers occupied horse-drawn trams were not allowed to cross at ground level. It was not until the Breitenbach Bridge was built in 1915 that a continuous line from Rödelheim to the city center was created.

In the 90s, further routes followed through the city ​​center and the rapidly growing Wilhelminian era belt . From 1892 horse-drawn trams ran to the main cemetery , from 1895 to the Galluswarte .

In 1898 the FTG network had reached a length of around 30 kilometers and was used by 16 lines .

The first electric tram

Frankfurt's first electric tram line started operating as early as 1884.
Power plant of the Frankfurt-Offenbacher Trambahn-Gesellschaft

In 1882 an Offenbach consortium applied for approval to build an electric tram from Sachsenhausen to Offenbach . It was a real pioneering project as it was supposed to be one of the first electric trams ever. Only a year earlier, on May 16, 1881, the world's first electrically powered test track had started operating in Lichterfelde near Berlin and on May 1, 1882 the second from Charlottenburg to the Spandauer Bock . Now, as in Berlin with the participation of Siemens & Halske , an electric tram should prove its commercial suitability under real operating conditions and transport passengers between Frankfurt and Offenbach. The concession was granted at the end of 1883 and construction began soon afterwards and an operating company, the Frankfurt-Offenbacher Trambahn-Gesellschaft (FOTG), was founded. The 6.7 km long route was opened on February 18 and April 10, 1884.

The route began on the Sachsenhausen side of the Old Bridge and ran over Offenbacher Landstrasse and through the municipality of Oberrad to the Prussian - Hessian state border. From there the tram drove through Offenbach, via Frankfurter Strasse and the market square to Mathildenplatz . The depot with its own power plant and operations office was in Oberrad on Buchrainplatz. FOTG was the only tram operator in the Frankfurt area to opt for the narrower gauge of 1000 mm, the so-called meter gauge . The railways reached a speed of around 20 km / h, which was remarkable for the time.

As the fourth electric tram system in the world, the FOTG line was still very experimental in character. The technology of the electric drive was still at the beginning of its development. From today's point of view, the solutions used sometimes appear quite exotic. The railway did not use one overhead line , but two. The current was not returned via the wheels and the tracks , as it is today , but, similar to a trolleybus , via the second overhead wire. So that the wheels could not conduct electricity, they were made of wood and were held together with a wheel tire made of steel . The overhead lines did not consist of simple contact wires that were crossed by a pantograph (the first pantographs in the so-called lyre shape did not appear until 1889), but of small copper tubes with a slot on the underside ( slotted tube contact line ). Small contact carts sat in these tubes , which the train pulled along wires behind them. The driving voltage was 300 volts direct current .

Due to the technology used, which was not yet fully developed, the driving operation suffered from frequent breakdowns. The contact boats often fell out of the copper pipes and had to be laboriously reinserted by hand. For this reason, a ladder was carried on each railcar so that the contacts could be quickly attached again. The track systems and the drive were not yet fully developed either. A half-hour break in operation had to be taken every day between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. in order to be able to lubricate the vehicles with car grease. The rough driving style of the train earned it the name Knochemiehl ( bone mill ) popularly among the passengers .

Since there was no public power supply yet, the railway had to be built on its own coal-fired power station , which for the first time supplied electricity to companies and private households in Oberrad. The power plant was in operation for the entire time the FOTG was in operation from 1884 to 1906.

The Eschersheim Local Railway

The FLAG horse tram in Eschersheimer Landstrasse

On May 12, 1888, the Frankfurter Lokalbahn AG (FLAG) opened a horse-drawn tram line from downtown Frankfurt to Eschersheim . The route led from Eschenheimer Tor on the northern edge of the city center via Eschersheimer Landstrasse to the neighboring community around 5 km to the north. The single-track line ended at what was then the level crossing of the Main-Weser Railway, and the new operator's depot was located nearby on Im Wörth . The FLAG also opted for a track width of 1435 mm, although initially there was no track connection to the FTG horse-drawn trams. In the same year, the FLAG replaced the horses with more powerful steam locomotives , making the Eschersheim Local Railway the first steam tram in Frankfurt.

The forest railway

The forest railway at the Oberforsthaus, 1904

Another private company, Hostmann & Cie. from Hanover , received the concession in 1887 to build railway lines in the south of the city and to operate them for a period of 35 years. It opened its routes on February 5 and April 18, 1889. It began at two starting points in Sachsenhausen, the Untermainbrücke and the local train station , led over the Mörfelder Landstrasse to the southwest and split into three branches that led to the suburbs of Niederrad , Neu-Isenburg and Schwanheim .

The forest railway relied on steam drive from the start. The loud and flammable tram locomotives caused displeasure among the residents of the streets in Sachsenhausen and were the reason why the forest railway was not allowed to drive into the city center. Most of the lines were single-track and some of them lay in the street, some on their own track. The forest railway also used the standard gauge. Their depots were located at the terminus in Niederrad, Schwanheim and Neu-Isenburg as well as in Textorstraße in Sachsenhausen. At night there was a brisk freight traffic on the routes .

Further experiments with the electric drive

On the occasion of the International Electricity Exhibition in 1891 , Schuckert & Co. demonstrated electric trams on the Kaiserstraße - Mainkai route and Siemens & Halske on the Hauptbahnhof - Opernplatz route. While the Schuckert car was supplied with electricity from an underline and also from an overhead line by means of a pantograph , the Siemens & Halske railway obtained its electricity from accumulators . From May 1, 1897, accumulator trams operated by the Frankfurt Tramway Company operated on a trial basis between the main train station and the Galluswarte . The main reason for these attempts were critical voices who defended themselves against the overhead line of an electric tram because of the feared "blighting of the cityscape", although previous experience had clearly shown the technical superiority of the overhead line system. For example, the heavy accumulator vehicles caused considerable damage to the horse-drawn tram tracks, which were only designed for low axle loads.

The Homburg tram

The spa town of Bad Homburg vor der Höhe , north of Frankfurt, received an electric tram on July 26, 1899. As in Frankfurt, their track width was 1435 mm. The Frankfurter Lokalbahn AG ran a continuous line over its route to Oberursel for years.

The mountain railway in Oberursel

In October 1899, Frankfurter Lokalbahn AG was able to open a second route in addition to its steam tram in Eschersheimer Landstrasse: the so-called mountain railway began at the Oberursel station of the Homburg Railway and ran for 4.5 km to the terminus at Hohemark im Taunus. The Oberursel route was also initially operated with steam.

The heyday of the tram

At the turn of the century, the Frankfurt tram underwent two important changes that are still valid today: on the one hand, most of the routes were taken over by the city and combined in an urban tram network. On the other hand, electrification transformed the tram into a modern and efficient means of mass transport. A generous expansion of the network followed these two events, and the network continued to grow rapidly until World War II .

The city takes over the tram traffic

The tram network in 1899

In view of the success of the private-sector tram operators, the city administration also began to show interest in building its own tram network. The electric drive, which was technically ready for use at the end of the 1990s, caused a wave of investment in numerous cities around the world. Everywhere it was necessary to convert the existing horse-drawn tram networks to the considerably more powerful electrical operation. The gauges chosen by the horse-drawn railway decades ago were retained in most cases, so that a mixed operation of horse-drawn and electric trains was possible. The electric railways now being used everywhere, together with the upcoming turn of the century, caused a surge of progress euphoria among many city dwellers.

On January 20, 1898, the city of Frankfurt received the concession to operate electric trams. Since the FTG's horse-drawn tram network was already well developed, a decision was made against the competing establishment of its own network, but on January 1, 1898, the private operator and its tram lines were taken over without further ado. Just one year later, the first line could be converted to electrical operation.

In 1899 the city also took over the Frankfurter Waldbahn, but initially kept steam running. It was not until 1929 that the lines to Schwanheim and Neu-Isenburg were electrified and included in the urban tram network. The Niederräder line had already been replaced by a new urban line in 1907.

In 1901 the city bought the Eschersheim Local Railway for 500,000 marks from the FLAG. In the same year tram line 13 was extended to Holzhausenstraße, but steam trains continued to run the entire route between Eschersheimer Tor and Eschersheim. In 1908 the section from Holzhausenstrasse to Eschersheim was electrified and integrated into the urban network.

In 1906, the cities of Frankfurt and Offenbach took over the FOTG line, which had remained a foreign body in the network due to its different gauge and its exotic drive technology. The line was to standard gauge umgespurt , equipped with modern overhead lines and went as a jointly operated line 16 into the grid of electric trams.

The electrification of the network

The first generation of electric trams (around 1900)

In order to electrify the tram network of the horse-drawn tram, the city of Frankfurt transferred the right to construction and operation until April 1, 1900 to Siemens & Halske (S & H) and Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC), in order to continue operations thereafter take over yourself. A decision was made in favor of a system with a single-pole electrical catenary system Siemens that had already proven itself in other cities. The direct current with a driving voltage of 600 volts was generated in specially built substations. The vehicles received Lyra pantographs , which were not replaced by pantographs with scissors until World War II because of the lower sparking .

The first test drive of the electric in Frankfurt took place on March 22nd, 1899 from the Sachsenhausen depot , the first own depot of the municipal tram, to Bornheim and back, then over the Mörfelder Landstraße to the Palmengarten and from there back to Sachsenhausen.

A few days later, on April 10, 1899, the first electrified route of the city tram went into operation. The starting point was the east entrance of the Palmengarten on Siesmayerstraße, from there it went via Feldbergstraße, Grüneburgweg and Reuterweg to Opernplatz, then via Neue Mainzer Straße and Untermainbrücke to Schweizer Platz. From there, the Mörfelder Landstrasse was first used, followed by the Darmstädter Landstrasse to the local train station, in order to then cross the Main via Obermainbrücke (now Ignatz-Bubis-Brücke ) and via Lange Strasse, Zeil , Sandweg, Arnsburger Strasse and the Bergerstraße the goal Bornheim to reach school. Since the entire route had a length of 11 kilometers, two lines were set up, the end points of which were at the local train station.

From July 25, 1899, the second route in Frankfurt could be operated with electric railcars; the line ran from Glauburgstrasse to the local train station.

By the end of 1900, 15 lines had already been converted to electrical operation, at the end of 1901 there were 17. The last three horse-drawn tram lines, the lines from Bockenheimer Warte to Bockenheimer Bahnhof, to Schönhof and to Rödelheim were electrified on June 18, 1904.

Post tram

Post railcar 501 of the Reichspost, 1901

In addition to the regular lines, on March 1, 1901, Frankfurt am Main was the first major German city to set up an electric postal tram service operated by the Reichspost , which until December 31, 1951, transported parcels and letters between Post Office 9 at the main station and the main post office on the Zeil , at times also with the post office at Ostbahnhof.

The Offenbach municipal tram

In the neighboring city of Offenbach, too, the city administration is now involved in tram traffic. In addition to the reverse spurt range of FOTG Offenbach built urban two lines: the line 26 inverted from 1907 from the marketplace after Biirgel , 27 from 1908 by Goethestrasse to the central station . Community line 16 was extended to the Offenbach cemetery. Offenbach had an independent electric tram network for around 60 years.

The Taunusbahnen

The FLAG, which had sold its Eschersheim local railway to the city in 1901, now saw its task in creating a connection between the freshly electrified Frankfurt tram network and the isolated lines in Bad Homburg and Oberursel. Complicated negotiations and approval procedures delayed the start of construction by several years. In May 1910, the two lines could finally be put into operation. They were not licensed as a tram, but rather as a small train similar to that of a branch line, and actually ran over long distances like a railway away from the streets. The starting point of both lines was the Heddernheim station , where the city had meanwhile extended the Eschersheim line. The FLAG was able to use the now urban tracks in Eschersheimer Landstrasse and thus created direct connections from Oberursel and Homburg to Frankfurt city center. The terminus was at the theater . The tracks of the local tram were also used in Homburg, the Homburg terminus was in the center of the small town, on the market square. The Oberursel mountain railway was electrified and part of the new connection. The FLAG lines were numbered 24 (Oberursel) and 25 (Bad Homburg). A new depot was built in Bommersheim near Oberursel. The FLAG was taken over by Lahmeyer in 1912 and has since belonged to the same owner as the Homburg tram. After the closure of the Homburg network and the Saalburgbahn in 1935, the FLAG operated tram traffic in Bad Homburg for another 20 years.

The tram at the height of its development

After the electrification of all tram routes by 1904, the tram network continued to grow rapidly: In the growing city center itself, numerous new connections were established by 1910, and incorporated suburbs were subsequently given a tram connection by the early 1930s. In 1929 the lines of the Frankfurt Forest Railway were electrified and incorporated into the tram network. In 1931, the new one was Ernst May - settlement on Bornheimer Hang tethered. In 1938 the number of tram lines in Frankfurt reached its highest level at 32, at which time the network had expanded to around 125 km.

The first experiments to make tram operation more attractive began towards the end of the 1920s. In 1929 a Peter Witt large-capacity wagon was borrowed from Milan by the Azienda Tranviaria Municipale Milano and extensively tested on line 23, but it was not entirely satisfactory because of the design differences to the two-axle wagons. In particular, the principle of passenger flow (get on at the back, walk through, get off at the front) was still alien to the Frankfurters; it was not until the 1950s that it became established with the delivery of the L series open-plan cars . The experiences with this exotic product resulted in further attempts to make the operation more economical. In 1930, a D-railcar was permanently connected to a D-sidecar in order to be able to save one conductor per train . Electropneumatically remote-controlled doors were also installed to speed up passenger changes. However, the concept could not prevail, so that the vehicle designated as Dd remained a one-off and was mainly used for city ​​tours until the outbreak of the Second World War . Also in 1931 a D-railcar was connected to another D-railcar (type DD ) in order to obtain a four-axle double railcar . It was used on lines 0, 1, 6 and 17 until the beginning of the war.

The tram in World War II

Type H vehicles were procured from 1939

The Second World War quickly made itself felt on the tram. Most of the driving personnel was drafted into military service from 1940. Through the use of foreign workers from the occupied Western European countries and students trained in the fast-track process, this could be compensated for at times, while urban bus traffic largely came to a standstill due to a lack of fuel and vehicles. With the start of the Allied air raids on Frankfurt am Main around 1943, tram traffic was increasingly impaired. In the heavy air raids in 1944, a medium-sized part of the rolling stock and almost all depots in the city center were destroyed; the damaged vehicles that were preserved could only be made operationally operational due to the lack of spare parts. In order to reduce the greatest deficiencies, Frankfurt received 20 war tramcars from the Fuchs wagon factory in 1944 .

A special episode during the Second World War was the freight transport , which was set up by the Frankfurt and Offenbach trams to maintain the supply of the population with food and later also heating material ( coke ) in addition to passenger transport . Goods to be transported were transported in converted sidecars of the types cu and du , and tram tracks were laid in the courtyard of the Frankfurt wholesale market to load food . In contrast, freight line 26, which runs between Frankfurt Theaterplatz and Offenbach's Old Cemetery, could be used by anyone with luggage or freight . The freight was accommodated in converted sidecars, while its owner could take part in the journey in the railcar.

With the conquest of Frankfurt by the US Army on March 25, 1945, tram traffic came to a complete standstill. The demolition of all Main bridges by the Wehrmacht shortly before the end of the war had divided the network in two, but the use of steel trams of the types F and H as anti-tank barriers , as had happened in Berlin and other cities, could be prevented by the tram personnel.

1940s and 50s - reconstruction and the economic miracle

L series trains began operating in 1955.

On May 24, 1945, two tram lines were again running between Nied and Bornheim . After clearing the city center and restoring the tracks and overhead lines, modest tram traffic could already be carried out on most routes in 1946, but this was still affected by the blown Main bridges and a chronic shortage of vehicles. Only on the Wilhelmsbrücke (today's Friedensbrücke ), which was not completely blown up , was a single track available, on which, due to the heavy military traffic, cars could only change the Main side at night.

Between the summer of 1945 and the end of 1950, there were also two special lines that were only used by members of the Allied forces. Lines 13 and 39, designated as "Roundup" , connected the American headquarters located in the IG-Farben building with the main station and Heddernheim (line 13) and Preungesheim (line 39). Only the comfortable pre-war series F , G and H were used on both lines , which - in contrast to the rest of the vehicles - were in optimal condition. At times, the vehicles were even painted olive-green with paint from leftover army stocks to make them easier to distinguish from conventional trams. The trains on the Roundup lines were the only trams that were allowed to pass through the restricted area around the IG-Farben building on Eschersheimer Landstrasse and Reuterweg. Lines 23, 24 and 25 from the city center in the direction of Heddernheim and Taunus had to bypass the restricted area via Eckenheimer Landstraße and the route on Marbachweg, which was built in 1945, by June 1948 .

The last reconstruction measures included the restoration of the Main bridges in the city center. After the Upper and Lower Main Bridges were open to trams again in 1949 , the newly built Friedensbrücke followed in 1951 in place of the former Wilhelmsbrücke .

The 1950s were finally marked by the last gap closings and route extensions. On January 22, 1953, the extension from Nied to Höchst and a connection from Bornheim to Riederwald (today's route 12), which had already been planned before the war, was opened, and on March 31, 1957, the line to Enkheim , which was still independent at the time , was opened was to remain the last extension of the tram network for over 40 years. In 1955 the first major shutdown took place, the routes to the south cemetery and the palm garden were discontinued on May 21, 1955.

At the same time, the urgently needed modernization of the vehicle fleet took place. In 1955, the first two Düwag large-capacity cars of the L series were put into operation, followed by the first articulated multiple units of the M series in 1959 .

Closures and construction of the rapid transit system

The extensive modernizations of the 1950s could not prevent many transport politicians in Frankfurt from seeing the tram as an outdated means of transport. The increasing volume of automobile traffic required more and more space, and from the beginning of the 1960s , moving public transport underground appeared to be the most suitable solution. The rapid transit networks of the U- and S-Bahn were supposed to replace the tram. Numerous line closures were the result, and the early departure from the Frankfurt tram only seemed to be a matter of a few years.

1960s - competition with the rapid transit system

The U1 light rail prototype with contemporary underground advertising to the right

Despite all efforts to make tram operation faster and more efficient with better traffic routing , large-capacity trams, terminal stops with turning loops and the discontinuation of unprofitable routes, travel speed decreased enormously , especially in the city ​​center . The main cause was the steadily growing individual traffic , which made smooth rail operations practically impossible during rush hour .

To avoid a collapse in tram traffic, travel times on the most affected lines have been increased by 15 minutes, requiring the use of 19 additional trains.

The declining attractiveness of public rail transport in Frankfurt and the increasing use of private transport already led to a decline in the number of journeys in the early 1960s, combined with a rapidly increasing deficit of the municipal utilities. Therefore, they were looking for a new means of transport that would relieve the roads and reduce the obstacle to private transport - which they wanted to give priority in the future. After initially proposing a monorail based on the ALWEG principle , the city ​​council finally made the decision on July 4, 1961 to build a light rail system and to lay the tram lines in the city center in tunnels. One advantage of this system was that the tunnel routes outside the city center could provisionally be connected to the existing tram routes until the tunnel was continued. In this way, the existing tram infrastructure could largely continue to be used, while it would not have been compatible with a monorail or conventional subway.

Condition of the entrance to the Eschersheim wagon hall in December 2008

On June 28, 1963, construction work began on Eschersheimer Landstrasse . Since the tunnel was built using the cut- and- cover method , the Eschersheimer Landstraße between Dornbusch and Eschenheimer Tor had to be closed to tram traffic on September 24th . This was the first major break in the tram network, as at that time the Eschersheimer Landstrasse was the most heavily used route with a total of seven lines before the Zeil . In order to maintain tram operation, a diversion route was set up in the Am Dornbusch-Hansaallee-Bremer Strasse-Reuterweg-Mainzer Landstrasse street, which commenced traffic until the subway line opened on October 4, 1968. Some of the traffic was also diverted via the Eckenheimer Landstrasse . In the northern part of the Eschersheimer Landstrasse, operations were maintained despite the extensive construction work, but were severely restricted in its performance by single-track routes in places and occasional full closures. With the construction of the subway, the former FLAG wagon hall , which was last used for vehicles on line 23, was separated from the rail network on March 21, 1967.

1970s - "parallel traffic" to the S-Bahn and U-Bahn

For many parts of the city, the S-Bahn meant saying goodbye to the tram
Former buffer stop at the tram turning point on Röderbergweg, which was given up in 1985 with the expansion of the C-line of the subway from the zoo to Enkheim

Almost at the same time as the decision to build the subway, planning began in the 1960s for the construction of an S-Bahn , which was to connect cities and municipalities to the city within a radius of 30 km. A 6 kilometer long tunnel was planned as the core of the S-Bahn under the Frankfurt city center, which was to accommodate the 14 regional trains that had ended up at the main train station . In 1962, the construction of what was then known as the V-Bahn was decided as a joint project by the City of Frankfurt am Main and the Deutsche Bundesbahn .

Construction work began in 1969, which from 1971 onwards brought about another major cut in the tram network: The entire square in front of the main train station gave way to a huge excavation that divided the network in the western part of the city in half and an expensive rail replacement service between the square of the republic and the south entrance of the main train station.

In 1970 the construction of the subway began under Berger Strasse in the direction of Bornheim. Therefore, the tram line 2 leading via Bornheim to Seckbach was discontinued and replaced by a bus line between Bornheim and Seckbach.

An important prerequisite for the operation of the S-Bahn was the establishment of the Frankfurter Verkehrsverbund (FVV) in 1974, through which the tariff structure of the Stadtwerke Frankfurt (as operator of the trams, underground trains and city buses) and the Deutsche Bundesbahn, which runs the regional trains operation that was unified. From the timetable change on May 26, 1974, passengers were able to use both public transport networks with one ticket.

The shareholders of the FVV had agreed not to operate parallel transport of different modes of transport for economic reasons , but in particular to gradually discontinue tram traffic in the course of the expansion of the high-speed railway lines. The first thing to do was to shut down the tram route from Berkersheim to the main train station (line 13) on February 25, 1978 because it ran parallel to the new U5 light rail route between Preungesheim and the main train station. A citizens' initiative, Rettet die 13 , was formed against the closure and campaigned for the resumption of operations for years without success. A short time later, on March 11, 1978, the last two-axle railcars were ceremoniously retired from regular service.

With the opening of the Frankfurt S-Bahn on May 27, 1978, the routes to Griesheim (line 14) and Rödelheim (line 23) as well as the overground light rail connection between Hauptwache and Hauptbahnhof (lines A3 and A4) were also discontinued. At the same time, the line was shut down due to the construction of the S-Bahn tunnel and traffic was diverted to neighboring streets.

After the completion of the three underground and S-Bahn tunnels, all tram routes in the city center should be closed. Even the change of government in 1977 did not change this plan, which took shape under the new mayor Walter Wallmann in the form of the “ rail-free inner city ” development concept .

With the shutdown of “parallel running” trams, it was accepted that direct connections would not be necessary for many passengers. Despite changing trains, the journey times should be shorter than before. However, it should show that the “avoidance of parallel traffic” and the “rail-free inner city” met with resistance.

1980s - rail-free city center?

The tunnel-accessible vehicle type P should take over the handling of the tram operation

With the opening of the Bockenheim – Zoo underground line (C line) planned for September 27, 1986 , all tram lines in the inner and old town were to be shut down and the streets concerned were to be upgraded in terms of urban development. Only a branch line to Konstablerwache was to be temporarily retained as a feeder for the S-Bahn and U-Bahn.

A citizens' initiative was formed against these plans , which within a year collected almost 60,000 signatures for the maintenance of the tram routes. The responsible district president thereupon refused the closure at the end of August 1986 and demanded the maintenance of three lines on the old town route.

The new mayor, Wolfram Brück , elected on August 14, 1986, then let the conflict escalate in a way that he later admitted as a serious political error. He canceled the opening of the new subway line two days before the scheduled date and banned all public and private celebrations planned for the occasion. At the same time, he threatened Frankfurt's exit from the Frankfurter Verkehrsverbund (FVV), whose new winter timetable no longer contained the tram lines to be closed. The dispute over the completed, but initially unused subway line made headlines nationwide.

At the beginning of October, the conflicting parties gave in. The compromise was to keep the old town route with line 11, but to shut down all other inner-city lines as planned. As a concession to the concept of using the tram only as a feeder to the high-speed train, line 11 received its final stop on the south side of the main train station and also went to the Zoo underground station via a loop .

Three weeks late, the new subway opened on October 12, 1986 without a celebration. The tram line 12 now ended in the Große Friedberger Straße at the Konstablerwache, for which a section of the line that had been closed since 1978 was reactivated. The new line 11 had between 5,000 and 10,000 passengers a day, despite a cumbersome route and recurring disconnection discussions.

The rediscovery of the tram

The turning point in urban transport policy

The order for new low-floor vehicles in 1993 was the signal to revive the tram.

In the local elections in 1989, the CDU lost its absolute majority. The new red-green coalition under Volker Hauff announced a change in transport policy, in which the tram should play a bigger role again. Nevertheless, with the extension of the underground line U7 in 1992, a section of line 12 to Bergen was closed , as a tram stop was built on the branch of the line. Most of the route has been preserved, but reactivation is unlikely for the time being.

In 1993, at the request of the city government, new trams with complete low-floor equipment were ordered from Düwag , which should arrive in Frankfurt before the local elections in the same year. As a sign of the “rebirth” of the tram, the new type R cars were given the numbers 001 to 040, but in the period that followed, they attracted attention due to frequent technical breakdowns. The urgently needed modernization of the vehicle fleet was delayed further.

Dispute over the construction of a new line

The "showcase project" of the new transport policy was to be an extension of tram line 12, which had ended in Grosse Friedberger Strasse since 1986. It was to be given a new route through the city center via Konstablerwache to Börneplatz and there connect to the old town route in order to create a second diameter line next to line 11.

However, the planning of this new line, only 740 meters long, led to another heated debate about the future of the tram. The protagonists of the 1986 events were still active; both sides took their irreconcilable positions with ideological harshness.

While the proponents of the new line could at least refer to the worldwide trend of new tram planning, the opponents tried to prevent the construction through political maneuvers. The now opposition CDU and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry forecast the collapse of road traffic in the city center if the route was built, the FVV saw again inadmissible "parallel traffic" arise. The businessmen on Grosse Friedberger Strasse, where line 12 had provisionally ended up to then, opposed the new building for opposite reasons: they did not want to lose the tram connection in their street. Despite constant new votes in the city parliament, the plan approval procedure and funding from the state of Hesse finally got going, but the start of construction was delayed by seven years: instead of the planned spring 1990 construction work did not begin until June 1997 Mayor Petra Roth regained political power in Frankfurt, but Roth finally gave up her initial resistance to the tram. At the opening on September 17, 1999, she called the implementation of the project a “piece of applied, practiced democracy”.

As a result, the CDU advocated the development of some other new routes by underground trains instead of trams, and the Greens also continued to reject any underground railway construction. The hard arguments between the two camps gave way to a more pragmatic policy. Today, all parties grant the tram a right to exist that goes beyond a mere feeder function.

A second new line was opened on December 13, 2003. It branches off from line 16 at the fair and leads over Hamburger Allee and Voltastrasse into the emerging Rebstockviertel . It is used by line 17, which has since connected Rebstockbad with the main station and has been running to Neu-Isenburg since the opening of the new line through Stresemannallee in 2014.

Late line closure in Offenbach

Since 1996 the tram has ended at the Offenbach city limits

Unlike in Frankfurt, in the neighboring city of Offenbach, the tram was still viewed as undesirable. After almost all routes and lines of the Offenbach tram had been closed by 1967, the last section of the route between the city limits and the market square on which Frankfurt line 16 was used was finally closed in 1996.

Since Offenbach was not a member of the FVV, you needed two tickets if you wanted to drive from the FVV area to Offenbach. There was only a special transitional tariff for the Frankfurt – Offenbach route. This was one reason why the type R low-floor trams used from 1993 onwards ran between the marketplace terminus and the Offenbach city limits. The conductors were also necessary because, unlike the O and P cars used previously, the cars did not have a validator for Offenbach tickets. This situation lasted until the RMV was founded in 1995.

Many passengers turned their backs on the tram because they considered the trip too expensive. Nevertheless, many citizens from East Sachsenhausen and Oberrad used the connection to go shopping in Offenbach city center. When the S-Bahn to Offenbach opened in 1995, it also withdrew passengers. A simultaneous shutdown with the opening of the S-Bahn was initially able to prevent citizen protests (including from Oberrad) and traffic initiatives. But even after the conversion of the FVV to the RMV , which happened at the same time as the opening of the S-Bahn in 1995, the tariff hurdle remained.

Since the tram passed through a pedestrian zone , many Offenbach business people lobbyed against the tram; A speed trap was even set up for the tram to check that the maximum speed of 7 km / h was being observed. According to Offenbach's local politicians, the line also represented uneconomical parallel traffic to the S-Bahn.

On June 1, 1996, Offenbach's local politics finally achieved its goal. Although a few merchants and citizens protested, the last four stops on the Offenbach side were closed the next day. Since then, there has been no inter-city tram line in Frankfurt, line 16 ends at the Offenbach city limits.

Current development

The type S low-floor cars are the youngest vehicles on the Frankfurt tram.

Political opinion on the tram is still divided: On the one hand, at the end of 2005, the then municipal authorities declared that there would be no further underground routes. On the other hand, however, a connection to the newly emerging Europaviertel by a subway line is being maintained.

The proposal to convert the U5 line , which partially runs in the subgrade, into a tram line and to create barrier-free access through the use of low-floor vehicles, is no longer being pursued by the traffic department.

Most of the expansion plans for the tram have been approved at least in principle by the magistrate, some have been included in the general transport plan, others are about to be implemented. However, funding for some projects is still uncertain. There are currently no longer any specific closure plans for individual routes.

The planned extension of the U4 underground line to Ginnheim since the 1960s, which would have resulted in the closure of the Bockenheim-Ginnheim section of tram line 16, was dropped in the black-green coalition agreement in 2005, although the planning approval procedure has already been completed and the route has been completed was ready for construction. Instead, line 16 is to be modernized and accelerated, and at the Ginnheim terminus, the underground (U1) and tram are to be better linked. Residents from Ginnheim and the citizens' initiative “Pro 16” had fought hard to keep the tram, as they feared impairments during the construction phase and a poorer development of Bockenheim due to the greater distance between the stops. The investors in the emerging Riedberg housing estate in the north of the city, on the other hand, were disappointed with the decision, as the subway would have given the new district a fast connection to the main train station.

In December 2011, the Rohrbachstrasse / Friedberger Landstrasse – Gravensteiner Platz route was opened and is used by line 18.

In December 2014, the opening of the new line through Stresemannallee closed a gap in the southern Mainian network. The approximately one kilometer long route created a direct connection between the Stresemannallee / Gartenstrasse and Stresemannallee / Mörfelder Landstrasse stops, with a new stop at the Stresemannallee S-Bahn station. Via the new line, line 17, which previously ended at the main station, was extended to the city limits of Neu-Isenburg , which resulted in a direct connection from the neighboring city to Frankfurt main station that was attractive for commuters.

Oldest preserved routes

The route of the first Frankfurt tram route, the horse-drawn tram from Schönhof to Hauptwache, opened in 1872, is still served by rail transport today, but not on the street, but underground, with the underground line C (lines U6 / U7), which runs from the stations Kirchplatz to Zoo almost exactly follows the first horse-drawn tram route and its first extensions.

The only part of the original route that is still used by trams today is the section in Schloßstraße between Kurfürstenplatz (then market square ) and Rödelheimer Straße , which is now used as an operating route without regular traffic . However, this section was decommissioned in 1876 (the first line closure in the history of the Frankfurt tram) and replaced by a route through Grempstrasse and Leipziger Strasse (then Kirchgasse and Frankfurter Strasse ). From 1898 horse-drawn trams started running again on Schloßstraße.

The oldest route continuously served by trams to this day is the Bernhard-Grzimek-Allee (then Am Thiergarten ) - Zobelstraße (then Kleine Pfingstweidstraße ), which connected the Frankfurt Zoo , which was moved here in 1874, with the Hanau train station , which opened in 1848, with its reception building on the east side today's Zobelstrasse was. This line was opened on September 10, 1875, the Hanau train station remained the terminus until 1910.

The second oldest line still in operation today is the section of today's lines 14 and 18 from the corner of Lange and Rechneigrabenstraße over the Ignatz-Bubis bridge ( Obermainbrücke ) to Dreieichstraße to the corner of Willemerstraße, which was opened on April 15, 1881. The bridge itself was closed from 1938-49 because of dilapidation, but the access roads to the banks of the May were still used.

Other routes opened before 1900 and operated continuously to this day are:

  • Eckenheimer Landstrasse from the Eckenheimer Anlage to Hermannstrasse, April 6, 1882 (today U5)
  • Seehofstrasse / Offenbacher Landstrasse - Oberrad - Offenbacher Landstrasse / Dreieichring (opened in 1884, formerly FOTG, but which was practically rebuilt in 1906)
  • The route in Eschersheimer Landstrasse , part of U-Bahn A , from the tunnel ramp on Humserstrasse (Dornbusch) to Kurhessenstrasse (then Ginnheimer Weg ) in Eschersheim, opened on May 12, 1888 by Frankfurter Lokalbahn AG, is still partially at ground level .
  • Frankfurter Waldbahn routes, opened in 1889:
    • Textorstraße (local train station to Brückenstraße), February 6th
    • Schweizer Strasse (Gartenstrasse to Mörfelder Landstrasse), February 6th
    • Mörfelder Landstrasse (Schweizer Strasse to Stresemannallee), February 6th
    • the route from Mörfelder Landstrasse via Louisa to Neu-Isenburg, February 6th
    • Kiesschneise - Schwanheim, April 18th
  • Eckenheimer Landstrasse from Hermannstrasse to Nibelungenallee, June 4, 1892 (today U5)
  • Bockenheimer Warte - Adalbertstrasse - Westbahnhof, September 1, 1892
  • Central station - Düsseldorfer Strasse (then Bahnstrasse , later Hohenzollernstrasse ) - Platz der Republik - Mainzer Landstrasse - Galluswarte , August 20, 1895
  • Central station / Münchener Strasse (then Kronprinzenstrasse ) - Friedensbrücke - Stresemannallee / Gartenstrasse (then Hippodrom ), July 31, 1897
  • Willy-Brandt-Platz ( theater ) - Weißfrauenstrasse - Bethmannstrasse - Paulsplatz , May 1, 1899
  • Oberursel Bahnhof - Hohemark, October 2, 1899 (today part of the U3)

The first electrically operated urban tram line (apart from the FOTG) was line 5 (Palmengarten - Sachsenhausen - Bornheim Mitte), which was converted on April 10, 1899, of which the sections in Schweizer Strasse and Dreieichstrasse / Bubisbrücke / Long road are in operation.

Additional information

Wikipedia

swell

  1. ↑ Verkehrsmuseum Frankfurt am Main (ed.): 125 years of buses and trains between Frankfurt and Offenbach . Exhibition for the 125th anniversary of the first commercially operated electric tram in 2009. Historic tram of the city of Frankfurt am Main e. V. (HSF), Frankfurt am Main 2009.
  2. ↑ Dr. Frank Wittendorfer: The early years of the electric tram in Frankfurt a. M. - Oberrad - Offenbach . Lecture on the 125th anniversary of the first commercially operated electric tram on February 18, 2009. Siemens AG , Munich 2009.
  3. ^ Günter H. Köhler: Post and Tram, Bühl 1998
  4. ↑ Horst me Elke, Claude Jeanmaire 100 years of Frankfurt trams: 1872-1899 - 1972. 1st Edition, Villigen AG, Brugg / Switzerland 1972

literature

Web links