Horse-drawn tram in the French-Buchholz community

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The horse tram in the French-Buchholz community was owned by the French-Buchholz rural community north of Berlin . It comprised an approximately 3.3 kilometers long tram line from the Buchholz village church to the Pankow-Heinersdorf train station . The line, which opened in 1904, was taken over by the Berliner Elektrische Straßenbahnen (BESTAG) three years later , electrified and extended to Pankow . It is still in operation today as part of line 50 of the Berlin tram . With the exception of the horse tram at the Johannisthal airfield, which only existed for a few weeks, it was the last horse tram in what is now Berlin's urban area.

Course of the horse tram

history

prehistory

In the middle of the 19th century, the French-Buchholz community was a stopover along the road from Berlin to Prenzlau, which was fortified in 1830, and was known as an excursion destination. The harvest festival in August attracted up to 10,000 visitors annually and thus brought the community appropriate income. Since 1842 the main line Berlin – Stettin ran without stopping two to three kilometers from the village center.

A horse-drawn bus connection is mentioned for the first time in 1860 . The Kremser wagons drove to Alexanderplatz twice a day . From 1877 onwards, the wagons ran to Blankenburg station . From 1895, the buses ran via Berlin-Prenzlauer Chaussee to the newly opened Pankow-Heinersdorf train station. At both stations there was an option to change trains to and from the Stettiner Bahnhof or Bernau .

Since the introduction of a suburban tariff on the rail lines from Berlin increased the number of passengers from 1891 onwards, the municipality was increasingly trying to find a better connection to Berlin. However, plans for a station on the Szczecin Railway or the addition of French-Buchholz at Blankenburg station fail.

Own operation

Line overview 1904
line from to length
no. French Buchholz , church Bf Pankow-Heinersdorf 03.3 km

An alternative was seen in the tram, which from 1874 led from Berlin to Pankow and was extended to Niederschönhausen in 1892 . In 1901 a depot was built at the northern end of the line. The operating Great Berlin Tram (GBS) intended to continue building to Buchholz, but demanded a subsidy of 40,000 marks from the community because it considered the route to be unprofitable. The community, which saw this demand as unacceptable, then unanimously decided on September 30, 1903 to build a community-owned tram.

Postcard with a view of the Buchholz village church and the horse-drawn tram (right)

With the route from the town center via Berliner Straße to Pankow-Heinersdorf train station, the municipality wanted to better develop the southern municipal areas on the one hand, and create a connection to the BESTAG network on the other, which operated a terminal in Damerowstraße not far from Pankow-Heinersdorf train station. Presumably for reasons of cost, the railway was designed as a horse-drawn tram, but the rails were also suitable for electrical operation. The wagons came second-hand from other companies, and a plot of land in Auguste Victoria Garden at Hauptstrasse 56 was used as a depot.

The Berlin company Th. Schmidt was responsible for the construction, and Phoenix supplied the necessary rails . The costs of 120,000 marks were to be covered by an amortization loan from the Niederbarnimer Kreissparkasse.

The work is said to have started in the summer of 1904 and was completed after a very short time. According to the Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt , there was even a delay in opening because the rails were not delivered on time. The opening took place in July 1904, but several dates are mentioned. According to a municipal letter of September 8, 1904, the opening was on July 9, 1904, the Illustrierte Zeitschrift für Klein- und Straßenbahnen states July 10, 1904, and the Zeitschrift für Kleinbahnen states July 13, 1904. The approval document for the operation, however, is dated July 12, 1904.

Takeover by BESTAG

Line overview 1917
line from to length
no. Buchholz, church Treptow , Graetzstrasse at the corner of Plesserstrasse 19.6 km

In September and October 1906 the municipality negotiated with BESTAG about the electrification and takeover of the railway. The first agreements were made on October 15, 1906:

  1. The municipality should leave the tracks to BESTAG and cede the concession to them.
  2. The BESTAG should set up the electrical operation between French-Buchholz and Mittelstrasse in Berlin.
  3. The municipality should give BESTAG a site to build a car hall.
"Contract between the municipality of Franz.-Buchholz and the Berlin electric trams Akt. Ges. Concerning the construction and operation of an electric tram from Pankow to Franz.-Buchholz"

The contract was signed on July 22nd, 1907 by Buchholzer and the following day by BESTAG. The electrification work and the construction of a connection from the Pankow-Heinersdorf train station via Damerowstraße to Pankow were completed by December 1907. The state police acceptance took place on December 19, 1907 from 10:30 a.m., about an hour and a half later electrical operation began.

The line initially ran to the intersection of Prinzenallee and the corner of Badstrasse. The distance between cars was 35 minutes. The contractually agreed extension to Mittelstrasse took place on February 15, 1911, at the same time the distance between cars was reduced to 20 minutes. With the opening of the Linden tunnel , the line was extended on existing BESTAG routes to Treptow , Graetzstraße. In 1920 BESTAG merged with GBS and the trams of the city of Berlin to form the Berlin tram. In the following year the Buchholz line was given the number 116.

Development after 1920

After several line changes in the early 1920s, line 24 took over the service to Buchholz from May 1924. It led from Damerowstrasse over Wollankstrasse and Gesundbrunnen towards the city center. From 1931, line 49 was also used as a connection via Schönhauser Allee in the direction of Hackescher Markt .

Relocation by tram on the occasion of the Buchholz harvest festival in 1947

After the Second World War , both lines were reintroduced in August and September 1945, respectively. Line 24 was withdrawn to Gesundbrunnen station , line 49 initially ran to Danziger Straße underground station (now Eberswalder Straße) before the loop at Hackescher Markt went back into operation in 1950. Due to the division of the tram network, line 24 was diverted to the Rosenthal station on the Heidekrautbahn from January 16, 1953 , before being discontinued on January 19, 1953.

Line overview 1972
line from to length
49 Buchholz, church Hackescher Markt 11.4 km
Line overview 2010
line from to length
Berlin Tram 50.svg French Buchholz, Guyot Street Wedding , Virchow Clinic 14.4 km

With the reunification of January 1, 1992, the two Berlin transport companies also merged . On May 23, 1993, line 49 was replaced by line 50 with the same route. At that time, the Berlin Senate decided to build a new residential area west of the Buchholz village center. A 1.7 kilometer long new line from the Buchholz Church via Mühlenstrasse and Rosenthaler Weg to the final stop on Guyotstrasse was planned for development. Later, a connection via the Rosenthaler Weg to the Niederschönhausen depot and a southern connection from the former post switch to the Blankenburg station were to follow. Bus route  259, which has been in service since 1997, was followed by route 50 on September 29, 2000. The previous block bypass at the Buchholz village church was abandoned at the same time and the tracks later removed. With the introduction of the Metrotram concept in December 2004, the southern end point of line 50 was relocated to the Virchow Clinic in Wedding .

business

BESTAG railcar at the level of the post switch

Route description

The route had a length of about 3.3 kilometers. It began at the Pankow-Heinersdorf train station on the southeast side of the street in front of the reception building. The track first changed to the western side of Pasewalker Straße, where the turnout for the terminus was located. The track continued on the side of the road; after 1907 it was separated from individual traffic. The Blankenburger turnout was at the transition to Berliner Straße. The next turnout was at the transition from Berliner Straße to Dorfstraße at the level of the Buchholzer Post; it was aptly referred to as the post turnout. The end point was in the Buchholz village meadow. A pull-out track led into Gravensteinstrasse and on to the depot.

Tatra KT4D at the Rosenthaler Weg stop at the level of the former post switch

From 1907, the Tegel – Friedrichsfelde industrial line crossed the tram tracks halfway between the Buchholz border and the Blankenburg switch. This level transition remained until the industrial railway was shut down.

At the beginning of the 1930s, Berliner Strasse was expanded to two lanes with a double-track median for the tram between the Blankenburg switch and the post switch. At the terminal in Buchholz, a triangular track was created in Parkstrasse in order to have additional parking space for excursion traffic. At the end of the 1930s, the track in front of the Pankow-Heinersdorf station was relocated to the north-western side so as not to hinder traffic to and from the road bridge over the Szczecin Railway.

To enable the use of one-way vehicles, the Gleisdreieck in Buchholz was expanded into a turning loop with block bypass in 1958.

From 1969 the double-track expansion was continued. First, in 1970 the section between the Pankow-Buchholzer border and the transition to Berliner Straße was handed over. The expansion of the Prenzlauer Promenade south of the Stettiner Bahn to a motorway feeder led in 1971 to the relocation of the connecting route in Damerowstrasse to the parallel Stiftsweg. In the following year, the remaining single-track sections in Buchholz were provided with a second track.

Horses and carts

Car 4 (?) Of the Buchholz horse railway

Since most of the surrounding businesses had electrified their network by the turn of the century, the community was able to purchase their cars used. She used a total of seven cars, one of which was a salt car. Three cars built in 1880 probably came from Hamburg . Three other cars were two-horse type Metropol and could be purchased from the GBS. Historical photos and a letter from the German Teacher Animal Welfare Association from December 7, 1906 show that the Metropol wagons were only drawn by a horse.

With the takeover, BESTAG took over the Hamburg wagons and converted them into electric sidecars. They carried the numbers 170 to 172. In 1911 they were retired. The other wagons were auctioned like the eight horses.

For electrical operation, BESTAG initially used its railcars from the first delivery series from 1895. They were replaced in 1911 by eight-window maximum railcars . Up to the end of the 1950s, the use of vehicles was very diverse, especially the 1924 type often ran on the line. The construction of the terminal loop in Buchholz were way vehicles are used, the line was so in the next 30 years almost exclusively with Rekowagen served. After 1990 the changeover to Czech Tatra wagons took place ; initially the types  T6A2D / B6A2D , later the type  KT4D . Today these are supplemented by low-floor wagons of the type  GT6N in order to enable handicapped accessible operation.

Depot

Postcard from the Auguste Victoria Garden with images of the horse-drawn bus (left) and the horse-drawn tram (right)

The depot and the stables for the horses were located on the grounds of the Auguste-Victoria-Garten at Hauptstrasse 56. In 1907, BESTAG built a new carriage hall in Gravensteinstrasse and sold the old depot to the owner of the Auguste-Victoria-Garten for 287, 50 marks. The rails were removed from the property the following year. The new hall with a floor area of ​​620 square meters offered space for three cars. With the merger to form the Berlin tram, it was closed in 1920.

Tariff

The tariff was kept simple over the long term. A single trip cost ten  pfennigs , student tickets were available for five pfennigs and weekly tickets for 80 pfennigs. There were no partial route tariffs.

When BESTAG took over, their ten-pfennig standard tariff was initially applied. With the extension of the line to Mittelstrasse, a fare of 15 pfennigs was levied on the line, the sections from Buchholz to Badstrasse and from Damerowstrasse to Mittelstrasse were available for ten pfennigs. From this time on, monthly tickets cost 6.70 Marks and 9.20 Marks respectively. From the end of the First World War , the tariff was raised due to inflation before it was replaced by the standard tariff for the Berlin tram.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Buchholzer Bürgererverein e. V. (Ed.): Tram history (s). Trams to Buchholz . Verlag GVE, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89218-064-4 , p. 6-15 .
  2. ↑ a b Peer Hauschild, Bodo Nienerza: Berlin tram lines. Line 49: Hackescher Markt – Buchholz . In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter . Volume 6, 1990, pp. 132-141 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Buchholzer Bürgererverein e. V. (Ed.): Tram history (s). Trams to Buchholz . Verlag GVE, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89218-064-4 , p. 16-28 .
  4. ^ A b Heinz Jung: The Berlin Electric Trams AG . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Issue 11, 1965, pp. 146-150 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Buchholzer Bürgererverein e. V. (Ed.): Tram history (s). Trams to Buchholz . Verlag GVE, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89218-064-4 , p. 29-76 .
  6. ↑ Buchholzer Bürgererverein e. V. (Ed.): Tram history (s). Trams to Buchholz . Verlag GVE, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89218-064-4 , p. 102-111 .
  7. ^ A b c Heinz Jung: The Berlin Electric Tramways AG . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Volume 10, 1965, pp. 130-133 .
  8. ↑ a b Sigurd Hilkenbach, Wolfgang Kramer: The tram in the Berlin Transport Authority (BVG East / BVB) 1949-1991 . 2nd Edition. transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-71063-3 , pp. 85-125 .
  9. ↑ Tram line 50. Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe , accessed on May 20, 2011 .
  10. ↑ Sigurd Hilkenbach, Wolfgang Kramer: The tram in the Berlin Transport Authority (BVG East / BVB) 1949-1991 . 2nd Edition. transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-71063-3 , pp. 15-21 .
  11. ↑ a b c d e Heinz Jung: The Berlin electric trams AG . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Issue 12, 1965, pp. 160-167 .
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 1, 2011 in this version .