Marienbad tram

Tram on Kaiserstrasse, 1912

The Marienbad tram connected the city center of Marienbad (Czech: Mariánské Lázně) with the train station from 1902 to 1952 . It was the beginning of the transport company Electric light rail Marienbad operated.

history

Tram in Marienbad, 1950

Beginnings

The Kaiser-Franz-Josephs-Bahn , opened in 1872, gave Marienbad its first railway connection. However, like in Jihlava and Olomouc , the station was relatively far from the city center. In the beginning, horse busses from the individual hotels provided the connection to the train station, but their capacities were soon no longer sufficient.

Initially, the construction of a horse-drawn railway was considered, but towards the end of the 19th century, the Budapest company Ganz offered the construction of an electric tram. Construction work began in 1901. With the announcement of April 26, 1902 by the Imperial and Royal Railway Ministry in Vienna , the municipality of Marienbad was granted the concession to build a narrow-gauge small railway that could be operated with electric power.

business

The tram started operating on May 12, 1902. A line with a gauge of 1000 mm connected the station with the city center. It was a single-track line with three passing points. A small depot was located directly at the train station and was approached via a 200 m long operating track.

Between the First World War and the Second World War , negotiations were held several times about an extension of the route; but which was not realized. After the Second World War, the decision was made to give up tram operations because the route, which was urgently in need of repair, was very outdated. Instead, a modern means of transport should be used. The Marienbad tram ran for the last time on April 26, 1952 and was replaced by the Marienbad trolleybus, which still exists today . The tram company was dissolved on December 31, 1952.

After the cessation of tram operation in Český Těšín , Marienbad was the city with the smallest tram operation in Czechoslovakia .

Vehicle fleet

When driving began, four small motor vehicles and two open sidecars from the company Ganz from Budapest were available. But as early as 1903, the Ringhoffer company , which later became ČKD Tatra , bought two larger motor vehicles and two more open sidecars. Another expansion of the vehicle fleet came in 1931 when two modern motor vehicles from the wagon factory in Česká Lípa were purchased.

A total of eight motor vehicles and four sidecars were used in Marienbad. After the Second World War, three of the motor vehicles were converted into sidecars.

Web links

Commons : Tram Marienbad  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

• Jan Bajer et al .: Mariánské Lázně - 100 let městské dopravy 1902 - 1952 - 2002. Vojtěch Wolf - vydavatelství WOLF, Ústí nad Labem 2002.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Historical ticket ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on heimatsammlung.de 
2. ^ 93. Announcement of the Ministry of Railways of April 26, 1902 (...). In:  Reichsgesetzblatt , year 1902, pp. 272–274. (Online at ANNO ). .