Frankfurt tram company

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Horse trams in front of the Alte Oper , around 1880

The Frankfurter Trambahn-Gesellschaft (FTG) operated the Frankfurt tram between May 19, 1872 and December 31, 1897 .

history

The depot at Schönhof around 1890
Horse tram at the final stop Bornheim (school) in Bornheim in front of the Nassauer Hof inn (today: Solzer ) in Berger Straße , from 1881
Museum car 167 in the Stadtwerke Verkehrsmuseum Frankfurt am Main

The Frankfurter Trambahn-Gesellschaft was founded in 1872 by the Brussels company F. de la Hault & Cie . The first horse-drawn tram - line was on May 19, 1872 for the passenger opened and led by Schönhof on the Leipziger Strasse, Bockenheimer Landstrasse and Bockenheimer Thor (today's Opera Square ) to the main station . This tram line was extended a short time later across the Zeil in an eastward direction and on September 10, 1875 it first reached Hanau station between Hanauer Landstrasse and Röderbergweg (predecessor of today's Frankfurt (Main) Ost station ). From 1879 a second line led from the clock tower in Bornheim over the Sandweg to the Friedberger plant . This route was extended on October 24, 1881 from the clock tower over Berger Strasse to the Kirchner School at Hohen Brunnen.

The route network was quickly expanded in the period that followed:

From April 15, 1889, different colored target signs and lamps with colored glasses were used to differentiate the lines.

On January 1, 1898, all lines with the exception of the Rödelheim - Schönhof line became the property of the City of Frankfurt , which subsequently electrified all lines by 1904 . The route to Rödelheim, which was separated from the rest of the network by the Main-Weser Railway , was not passed into municipal ownership until August 1, 1900 and was also the last line to be switched to electrical operation on June 17, 1904. Up until the expiry of the operating license on December 31, 1914, the city of Frankfurt also paid the original owner an annual compensation.

Lines

The route network of the Frankfurt tram as of January 1, 1899
Tram ticket Frankfurt am Main 1875

At the turn of the year 1897/1898 the following lines operated on the FTG network:

Feuerbachstrasse - Central Station
Bockenheimer Bahnhof - Hanauer Bahnhof
Bockenheimer Warte - Hanau train station
Bockenheimer Warte - local train station
Palmengarten - Wendelsplatz
Palmengarten - Bornheim (Post)
Glauburgstrasse - Wendelsplatz
Bornheim (school) - main station
Schellingstrasse - Central Station
Cemetery (Old Portal) - Central Station
Friedberger Anlage - Wilhelmsstrasse
Central station - local station
Central station - Konstablerwache
Main train station - Hanau train station
Bockenheimer Warte - Rödelheim
Schönhof - Opera Square

Fleet

Spoked wheel of the horse-drawn tram 167 of the FTG in the Frankfurt Transport Museum in Frankfurt - Schwanheim

At the height of horse-drawn tram operations in 1898, the FTG or the municipal tram had a total of 904 horses as draft animals as well as 144 closed and 61 open passenger cars . All of the cars were originally painted dark green, but after they were taken over by the city tram, the paintwork gave way to the beige color used on electric vehicles . After the changeover to electrical operation, the closed horse-drawn tram cars were still used for passengers behind tram - type A units until around 1914 . One car remained in the Transport Museum in Frankfurt-Schwanheim . Since its original number has not been passed down, it has the fantasy number 167.

The FTG draft horses were given names in alphabetical order according to the year in which they joined the company, starting with A in 1872. The name “Deficit” has been passed down from a horse from 1875 . In a certain way, the system lives on in the series designations of the electric tram, which are also alphabetically assigned .

literature

  • Horst Michelke, Claude Jeanmaire: One hundred years of Frankfurt trams: 1872 - 1899 - 1972 = Tramways of Frankfurt am Main (Western Germany) . 1st edition. Villigen AG: Verlag Eisenbahn, book publisher for railway and tramway literature, Brugg / Switzerland 1972, ISBN 3-85649-018-3 .