“The amazing is nearby,” we say when we notice or get to know something closer that we’ve passed by hundreds of times, but either didn’t know or didn’t pay attention to... I would also add “the unknown around,” because often in life we ​​are surrounded by things so banal and familiar that for some reason we think that we know everything about them... we cannot understand where such conviction and confidence comes from... it is also not clear why, having lived a fair number of years, knowing perfectly well, for example, what a tram is, we we know so little about him... when and where he first appeared, what he looked like, who was his predecessor... These and many others interesting facts and details from the history of the tram and tram traffic we can find out if you show interest

A tram is a type of street rail public transport for transporting passengers along given (fixed) routes. Used mainly in cities. This is probably what anyone who is asked to characterize this type of public transport will answer...

The word tram is derived from English. tram (car, trolley) and way (path). According to one version, it came from trolleys for transporting coal in the mines of Great Britain. As a mode of transport, the tram is oldest species urban passenger public transport and arose in the first half of the 19th century - initially horse-drawn.

Horse-drawn

In 1852, the French engineer Loubat came up with a proposal to build rail tracks along the streets of large cities to transport carriages by horses. Initially, it was used only for cargo transportation, but after the construction of the first passenger lines, the horse-drawn horse began to carry passengers. Such a road was built by him in New York....

and very soon a new type of transport spread to other cities in America and Europe.

What about in Russia? ...Soon a horse-drawn horse appeared here too.... In 1854, in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, near Smolenskaya Sloboda, engineer Polezhaev built a horse-drawn road made of longitudinal wooden beams covered with iron. In 1860, engineer Domantovich built a horse-drawn railway on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Despite the low speed (no more than 8 km/h), the new kind transport soon spread and took root in many major cities and provincial centers.

For example, in St. Petersburg, horse-drawn railways ran along all significant highways from the center to the outskirts.

In most cases, the horse tram was built with the participation of foreign capital, and if at the beginning this had a positive effect on the development of the transport network in cities, then over time it greatly slowed down the development process... Firms that owned horse trams became ardent opponents of the introduction of steam and electric trams...

History of the electric tram

The prototype of electric trams was a car created by German engineer Ernst Werner von Siemens. It was first used in 1879 at the German Industrial Exhibition in Berlin. The locomotive was used to take visitors around the exhibition grounds.

Electric railway of the Siemens & Halske company at the Berlin Exhibition of 1879

The first electric tram appeared in late XIX century - in 1881 in Germany in Berlin. Four carriages were attached to the locomotive, each of which had six seats.

The train was later demonstrated in 1880 in Düsseldorf and Brussels, in 1881 in Paris (inoperative), in operation in Copenhagen the same year, and finally in 1882 in London.
Following the success of the exhibition attraction, Siemens began construction of a 2.5 km electric tram line in the Berlin suburb of Lichterfeld.

A carriage of the world's first electric tram line in the former Berlin suburb of Lichterfeld, opened on 05/16/1881. Voltage 180 volts, engine power 5 kW, power was supplied through running rails until 1890. Photo 1881

The motor car received current through both rails. In 1881, the first tram, built by Siemens & Halske, ran on the railway between Berlin and Lichterfeld, thereby opening tram traffic.

In the same year, Siemens built a tram line of the same type in Paris.

In 1885, a tram appeared in Great Britain in the English resort town of Blackpool. It is noteworthy that the original sections have been preserved in their original form, and the tram transport itself is carefully preserved in this city.

The electric tram soon became popular throughout Europe.

View of the portal of the Rhine Bridge in Mannheim

Barcelona

The appearance of the first trams in the USA occurred independently of Europe. Inventor Leo Daft began experimenting with electric traction in 1883, building several small electric locomotives. His work attracted the attention of the director of the Baltimore horse-drawn railway, who decided to convert the three-mile line to electric traction. Daft began electrifying the line and creating trams. On August 10, 1885, electric tram service opened on this line - the first on the American continent.

Boston Double-axle tram with open areas. USA.

However, the system turned out to be ineffective: the use of the third rail led to short circuits during rain, and the voltage (120 volts) killed many unlucky small animals: (cats and dogs); and it was unsafe for people. Soon they abandoned the use of electricity on this line and returned to horses.

Cincinnati. Ohio. USA.

However, the inventor did not abandon the idea of ​​​​an electric tram, and in 1886 he managed to create a workable system (a two-wire contact network was used instead of the third rail). Daft streetcars were used in Pittsburgh, New York and Cincinnati.

Ice tram of St. Petersburg

In St. Petersburg, according to the agreement with the horse-drawn owners (it was concluded for 50 years), there should have been no other public transport. In order not to formally violate this agreement, in 1885 the first electric tram ran on the ice of the frozen Neva.

Sleepers, rails and overhead poles crashed directly into the ice.

They were called “ice trams”

It is clear that this type of transport could only be used in winter time, however, the fact that the time of horse-drawn trams was ending soon became completely clear.

Steam horse

It is little known, but it is a fact that, in addition to the traditional horse-drawn horse, there were two more lines of steam horse-drawn trams in St. Petersburg. The first line of a steam tram, or in common parlance - a steam tram, was laid in 1886 along Bolshoy Sampsonievsky Prospect and Second Murinsky Prospekt, although this line was officially called the “steam horse-drawn line” railway».

The steam engine had a number of advantages over the horse-drawn horse: higher speed, greater power. Due to the resistance of horse-drawn owners and the advent of the electric tram, the steam tram was not developed - a steam tram line from Vosstaniya Square to the village of Rybatskogo along the current avenue Obukhov defense became the last one.

Also in the early 1880s, a steam train line was laid along the embankment of the Ligovsky Canal.

The steam locomotives were stored in the Vyborg Horse Park. As a passenger transport, the steam tram did not survive much longer than the horse-drawn tram (its last run was in 1922), but it appeared on the streets again besieged Leningrad for transportation of goods and weapons.

Electric tram in Russia.

Contractual obligations with horse-drawn tram owners in some cities have delayed the development of electric trams in them. Somewhere the tram tracks were laid parallel to the horse-drawn tracks in order to bankrupt it. Sometimes city authorities simply bought out the horse-drawn roads in order to turn the horse-drawn horse into a tram. Thus, the first electric tram in Russia was launched for the first time not in St. Petersburg, as many mistakenly believe, but in Kyiv.

Here he appeared in 1892 on Aleksandrovsky (Vladimirsky) descent. The builder is Siemens. Quickly becoming popular, he literally captivated the entire city. Soon others followed Kyiv’s example. Russian cities: V Nizhny Novgorod tram appeared in 1896

Ekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) 1897

Moscow, 1899

Smolensk

At the end of 1904, the City Duma announced an international competition for the right to carry out the work. Three companies took part in it: Siemens and Halske, General Electricity Company and Westinghouse. On September 29, 1907, regular electric tram service was opened on the streets of St. Petersburg. The first line ran from the General Headquarters to the 8th line of Vasilyevsky Island.

After the appearance of the electric tram in 1907, the horse-drawn tram was gradually replaced by it; on September 8, 1917, it disappeared completely. The use of horse trams in Moscow continued until 1912.

Moscow

Old electric trams were completely different from modern ones. They were smaller in size and less perfect. They did not have automatically closing doors; the front and rear platforms were separated from the interior by sliding doors. On the front platform, the carriage driver himself sat on a high stool with metal legs and a thick round wooden seat. In front of him is a tall black engine. With the inscription "Dynamo" on the lid.

The carriages had wooden seats inside. In some they were in the form of sofas for two passengers with common backs on one side of the car and chairs designed for one person on the other. At the end of each carriage there was a place for the conductor. A special sign warned about this, so that, God forbid, someone would not sit in this place. The conductor (more often the conductress) often wore a service uniform overcoat, or even just a coat or fur coat. He had a huge leather bag for money hanging over his shoulder, and a board with tickets was attached to his belt. Tickets were of different denominations, depending on the distance of travel and the number of payment stations. The tickets were very cheap. Then the cost became the same, and the conductor now had a roller of tickets hanging on his belt. A thick rope was stretched from the conductor to the driver through the entire carriage under the ceiling. When boarding was completed, the conductor pulled this rope, and the bell rang loudly at the carriage driver's on the front platform. There were no electrical signals back then. From the second car, the second conductor sent a signal to the rear platform of the first car in the same way. Only after waiting for him and checking the boarding of his car, the conductor of the first car could signal the carriage driver about the end of boarding.

Standing passengers could hold on to canvas loops located along the entire cabin and hanging on a thick wooden stick. These loops could move with the passenger, sliding along the stick. Later, the hinges began to be made of plastic. Metal handles were also added on the backs of the benches, as well as handles on the walls between the windows. But that was much later. The windows opened completely. They went down into the lower wall. It was not allowed to stick out. It was even written about this on signs at every window.

Small children had the right to free travel. But no one asked the child's age. It’s just that on the trim of the salon doors there was a deeply embedded and whitened mark, by which the child’s height was determined and whether he should be paid or not. Above the mark, the child already had to pay for his travel.

Intercity trams

Trams are primarily associated with urban transport, but intercity and suburban trams were also quite common in the past.

The tram follows the route Pierrefitte – Cauterets – Luz (or vice versa) in the French Pyrenees. You can say intercity tram, which is not quite usual.

This is one of the most picturesque places of the designated tram line that arose on the border of the 19th and 20th centuries, decorated with a bridge called Pont de Meyabat.

Intercity mountain tram in France

What stood out in Europe was Belgium's network of intercity trams, known as the Niderl. Buurtspoorwegen (literally translated as “local railways”).

The first local railway section (between Ostend and Nieuwpoort, now part of the Coastal Tram line) opened in July 1885. Intercity trams were also common in the Netherlands. As in Belgium, they were originally steam-powered, but then steam trams were replaced by electric and diesel ones. In the Netherlands, the era of intercity trams ended on February 14, 1966.

Until 1936, it was possible to travel from Vienna to Bratislava by city tram.

Few people know, but there was an intercity tram in Italy. Linked Solerno and Pompeii.

There was also an intercity tram in Japan between Osaka and Kobe.

After its heyday between the world wars, the tram began to decline, but since the 1970s there has been a significant increase in the popularity of the tram, including for environmental reasons and technological improvements.

Interesting facts about trams of the world

The largest tram network in the world is located in Melbourne, Australia.
The oldest tram cars still in normal use are cars No. 1 and 2 of the Manx Electric Railway. They were built in 1893 and operate on the 28.5 km Douglas en Ramsey Country Line].

The longest tram ride in Germany is from Krefeld, or rather its suburb St Tönis, to Witten. The length of the trip will be 105.5 km, covering this distance will take approximately five and a half hours, and will require transfers eight times.

The longest non-stop tram route is the Coastal Tram (Dutch Kusttram) in Belgium. There are 60 stops on this 67 km line. There is also a line from Freudenstadt to Ohringen via Karlsruhe and Heilbronn with a length of 185 km.

The northernmost tram system in the world is located in Trondheim.

Frankfurt am Main has had a children's tram since 1960.

The third generation of trams includes the so-called low-floor trams. As the name suggests, they distinctive feature is the low floor height. To achieve this goal, all electrical equipment is placed on the roof of the tram (on “classic” trams, electrical equipment can be located under the floor). The advantages of a low-floor tram are convenience for the disabled, the elderly, passengers with strollers, and faster boarding and disembarking.

"DIVO" Russian book of records and achievements

HUMAN ACTIVITY: Science and Technology:Public transport

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

RUSSIAN HORSE

In Russia, a horse tram appeared in St. Petersburg in 1860, first as a freight train, connecting the 17th line of Vasilyevskaya: the islands with the stock exchange warehouses. And in 1866, three passenger lines began operating - Nevskaya, Admiralteyskaya and Sadovaya. In 1872, the first horse tram line was built in Moscow. In the early 1880s, horse tram lines were in Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis, Riga and Rostov-on-Don.

FIRST TRAM

The first tram in Russia appeared in St. Petersburg. On August 22, 1880, at 2 p.m. on Peski, at the corner of Bolotnaya Street and Degtyarny Lane, Russian inventor Fyodor Apollonovich Pirotsky demonstrated the first electric tram. Pirotsky, an employee of the Main Artillery Directorate, solved the problem of transmitting electricity along rails. Later, on an abandoned railway line in Sestroretsk, he managed to move a tram along the rails, located a kilometer away from the power source. The owners of joint-stock companies of horse-drawn railways saw a dangerous competitor in the electric carriage. Therefore, Pirotsky, unfortunately, did not go further than experiments. And only 12 years later (in 1892) tram traffic began in Kyiv. The length of the first branch was 1.6 kilometers. Then tram lines were built in Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, and Yekaterinoslav.

In 1883, for the first time, a tram was powered through an overhead contact wire, like modern trams.

In Moscow, the first trams appeared in1899 And in St. Petersburg only in 1907, that is, 27 years after and inventions.

FIRST TAXI

The first taxi car appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg in 1907. And in Moscow, the first taxis - French Renaults and Italian Fiats - ran around on June 21, 1925. It was only in 1932 that domestic GAZ-A6 cars appeared in taxis, and since 1936 - M-1 cars (the famous “emkas”).

FIRST MOSCOW BUS

The first bus began operating in Moscow on April 18, 1922. The cost of a ticket “for one station” was a quarter of a million paper rubles. The entire flight consisted of two stations. The first bus did not have its own number or any specific schedule. It was possible to “capture” the bus and board it only by chance.

Regular bus service opened in Moscow on August 24, 1924. A total of 8 cars from the English company Leyland were in service, which could reach a maximum speed of 30 kilometers per hour.

FIRST TROLLEYBUS

The first Russian trolleybus was created in 1933 at the Moscow Dynamo plant. On November 1933, a lot of people gathered on the square of the Belorussky Station. Everyone was looking towards the Leningradskoye Highway. Soon a “horned one” appeared on the road, returning from his first trip from the Belorussky station to the village of Vsekhsvyatskoye.

FIRST METRO

The first project for the construction of the Moscow metro - the “off-street railway”, as it was then called, was developed by the Russian engineer P. I. Balinsky and at the end of 1902 was considered in the Moscow City Duma. It immediately aroused a wary attitude towards itself: after all, it provided for the gratuitous alienation of urban lands around the ground lines and the demolition of many houses. Shareholders of tram companies were afraid of competition, the clergy dubbed the subway a “sinful dream,” and the project was rejected. A few years earlier, the project to build a metro in St. Petersburg was rejected in the same way.

The first metro in our country was opened in Moscow in May 193S. The first stage was 11.6 kilometers long and had 13 stations (two lines - from Sokolniki to the Gorky Central Park and to Smolenskaya Square). On these lines, 15 pairs of four-car trains ran per hour, carrying 177 thousand passengers per day.

METRO RECORDS

The busiest metro in the world is in Moscow. Every day its services are used by 8 to 10 million people. In May 1990, the Moscow Metro had 141 stations, 49 interchange hubs, and 428 trains that ran along 227 kilometers of track. Ranking fifth in the world in terms of development of the railway network, Moscow Metro firmly holds the palm in terms of the number of passengers transported per day.

INSTEAD OF BUSES - FUNICULARS

The most a large number of cable cars - in the Georgian city of Chiatura. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world. Cable cars are the main mode of transport here: dozens of lines connect the city center with mines and workers' villages. Some of them are passenger ones.

NORTHERNEST TRAM

Closest to North Pole There is a tram line in Ust-Ilimsk with a length of 16 kilometers. Since 1991, the world's northernmost tram has been running along it. A tram line connects the city with the forest complex.

The oldest tram route in Moscow is 6th. Cars with this number first set off 116 years ago, that is, in the century before last - April 6 (March 25, old style) 1899. On that day, the first line of electric cars opened in Moscow. MOSLENTA recalls the very first Moscow routes.

Prayer service with blessing of water

The first tram rolled with a ringing sound from Butyrskaya Zastava along Nizhnyaya and Verkhnyaya Maslovka to Petrovsky Park. All Moscow newspapers wrote about this event. Here is a fragment of one of the reports: “On March 25, the long-awaited opening of the electric tram took place with great solemnity, arranged by the First The Society of Horse-Drawn Railways on the suburban line from Butyrskaya Zastava to Petrovsky Park. On this occasion, in the electric park, near Bashilovka, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, a prayer service was held with the blessing of water in front of the revered icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands and local shrines.”

The brass of the orchestra thundered. A large crowd of curious townsfolk gathered to look at the wonder. The event was honored by the presence of important people: Moscow Governor Alexander Bulygin, Moscow Postal Director, Privy Councilor Konstantin Radchenko, mayor Prince Vladimir Golitsyn, acting Moscow Chief of Police Colonel Dmitry Trepov, members of the City Duma.

Steam horsecar on Vorobyovy Gory, 1899.

Horse-drawn horse at the Serpukhov Gate, 1900

Today, trams of that time, produced in Belgium, by the way, can be seen in old newsreels and feature films. They were simple, with wooden seats and “holds” for standing passengers. In winter it was wildly cold in them, the thought of stoves never occurred to anyone.

Trams rarely ran, and therefore the carriages were jam-packed. Well, those who did not have enough space in the carriages sat on the “tail”. Dangerous, but free...

Until 1912, horse-drawn carriages - carriages to which horses were harnessed - somehow coexisted with trams. This type of transport brought significant funds to the Moscow treasury, and passengers shared their preferences equally. There were enough retrogrades even then...

But gradually it became clear that you wouldn’t get far in the old carriage. The tram was replacing the horse-drawn carriage, the coachmen were being retrained as carriage drivers, and the conductors were still shouting out stops and tearing off tickets.

From dawn to night

Over time, route 6 extended to the center - to Okhotny Ryad, from there he walked to Kalanchevka, always crowded with people, then to Krasnoprudnaya Street. The final stop of the tram was in Sokolniki, which at that time was a remote Moscow outskirts.

Sretenka Street, 1932

Wherever fate has thrown the “six”! To Maroseyka, Myasnitskaya, Tverskaya, Pushkinskaya Square, to Pokrovka, to Kitay-Gorod, to Zatsepa. Over the years, the tram, a tireless traveler, has traveled all over Moscow.

The silent carriage driver pressed the pedal, and the conductress, a usually talkative woman who was aware of all the capital's news, shouted out stops and tore tickets from the roll hanging on her chest. She reproached the “hares”, helped the elderly and mothers with children. The conductor knew the way by heart and instructed the visitors: “Citizen, get off here. It’s a stone’s throw from here to Mostorg...”

Out of town by tram

In 1944, the rails for the “six” were extended to the northwest. The two-car train “in yellow and red clothes, with a number on the head” rushed from Leningradsky Prospekt already outside Moscow - to Tushino. The final stop was at the Eastern Bridge, where the trams stood as tired horses who came to drink. The waves of the canal splashed nearby...

Over time, the route changed again, for the umpteenth time: it ran from Marina Raskova Street - the intersection of Leningradsky Prospekt and two streets - Peschanaya and Novopeschanaya - to Zakharkovo, to Khimki Boulevard.

In the 50s and 60s, the tram ran along Svoboda Street. Here dilapidated barracks and wooden shacks collapsed, and in their place grew big houses with light windows and thick walls. And in the apartments of the new residents, unprecedented amenities awaited them: a sparkling kitchen and a bathroom, where cold and hot water flowed from the taps.

Passenger compartment of a tram from the 1930s

Rehearsal of the Tram Parade dedicated to the 116th anniversary of the launch of the first electric tram in Moscow

“It’s a pity Shakespeare didn’t know about the tram!”

How many poems have been written about the tram! He inspired Arseny Tarkovsky, Bulat Okudzhava, Yuri Vizbor, and many other poets. But here’s an unexpected twist in Oleg Stolyarov’s lines:

Hurry, hurry, connecting

Day with night, with a moment - a whole world...

The fate of the great tram

Sounds like an unearthly harp -

It's a pity Shakespeare didn't know about the tram!

The modern route of the 6th tram appeared in 1969 - from the Sokol metro station to the ancient Bratsevo - 34 stops or 45 minutes of travel. Nowadays, it’s a rare person who will travel from terminus to terminus by tram - there is a metro, which is much faster than an electric car. But in the subway the cars run in boring darkness, and from the tram you can watch city ​​life, remember, reflect.

The route of number 6 is bizarre, sometimes even mysterious. Sometimes the tram glides through the forest. There is a short, echoing section when the cars slow down in the tunnel under the Moscow Canal, and it becomes a little scary from the thought that many meters of water hangs overhead. Then the car takes off onto an overpass built into a traffic intersection and it seems as if it is rushing into the sky. But here he is rushing along the bank of the bypass canal. In the summer, branches knock on the carriage glass and the sun winks cheerfully, as if calling: get off at Novoposelkova and plunge into the warm water. And when you cheer up, continue on your way.

The line is elegant, theatrical

I would also like to remember the route of tram “A”, affectionately nicknamed “Annushka” by the townspeople. This is one of the symbols of the capital, one of the most famous routes not only in Moscow, but throughout Russia. When the line opened in 1911, it ran along the Boulevard Ring.

“The line was elegant, theatrical and shopping, and the passenger was different - intelligent and official,” wrote Konstantin Paustovsky. The tram runs from Kaluzhskaya Square to Chistye Prudy, and passengers can see many of the city's sights from their windows.

In 1936, the ring was opened and the route changed, and at the end of the 20th century the route was completely eliminated. However, in 1997, during the celebration of the 850th anniversary of Moscow, tram route “A” was restored.

Route “B”, nicknamed “Bug”, was launched in 1912. In 1937, the tram was replaced by a trolleybus with the same name. Since 2005, the Blue Trolleybus has been running on this route on Saturdays, where bard song concerts are held.

By the way, about creativity. The tram inspired not only musicians, poets, artists, but also filmmakers. The tram became the “character” of many films. Among them are “Obsession”, “Come tomorrow”, “The meeting place cannot be changed”, “Pokrovsky Gate”, “The Master and Margarita”, “Girl without an address”... Here the characters met, had leisurely conversations, this was part of their daily life.

View of the tram line from the driver's cabin

Tram "A" at a stop

Under the sound of wheels

Some tram parks are also worthy of mention. The oldest in the capital is Andreevsky. It was built in 1885 for horse-drawn carriages. Then the park was reconstructed by the Second (Belgian) Society to serve electric trams of the Dolgorukovskaya line. But it has not existed for a long time; now there is a residential complex on this site.

Other old tram depots are Sokolnicheskoye, Presnenskoye and N.E. Bauman (formerly Ryazanskoe). The first was built in 1905, the second in 1909, the third in 1911. However, trams have not spent the night here for a long time.

Tram car type F, trams Tatra T3 and Tatra T2 in the tram depot named after. Apakova

According to the press service of the Department of Transport and Development of Road Transport Infrastructure in Moscow, 47 kilometers of new tram tracks are expected to be built in the capital by 2017. In addition, another 20 kilometers of the network will be restored. In total, by 2017 in Moscow it is proposed to restore 20 kilometers of tram lines and build 47 kilometers of new routes. Some new lines will have “double-headed” trams - with two cabins for drivers and doors on both sides of the cars.

Valery Burt

IN last years the tram began to be treated as something outdated. At the same time, few people think about the fact that until quite recently this type of transport seemed so unusual that they were afraid of it and looked at it as something new and ultra-modern. In the very emergence of this transport, there is indeed much that is very unusual. By a strange coincidence, the very first trams appeared almost simultaneously in Russia (F.A. Pirotsky), Germany (W. von Siemens) and the USA (L. Daft).

The predecessor of the electric tram was a horse-drawn carriage - a carriage that was pulled along rails by horses (sometimes zebras and mules). The horse tram first ran in Baltimore in 1828.

There were also traction trams, driven by a rope. In San Francisco, a cable car was built in 1880, which still exists today. They tried to replace horse traction with steam. In Russia, at the end of the 1880s, similar cars appeared in St. Petersburg, but they did not take root due to the very loud noise - along the narrow streets there was a “smoke puffer” steam engine (four horse-drawn carriages) long time I couldn't drive. In the then Russian capital, in 1885, “ice” trams began running on rails along the winter Neva.

The first electric tram went into service in St. Petersburg only in 1899. While in Europe, with the active participation of Werner von Siemens, trams went in operation already in 1881, in the USA Sprague created an entire tram network in 1888. Even in Russian Kyiv, due to the fact that it was difficult to ride horse-drawn horses there, they decided to launch the first tram earlier than in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in 1892.

But it was precisely with St. Petersburg that the first experiments of the engineer Fyodor Pirotsky are associated, who, based on the research of B.S. Jacobi and the electric motor he invented, in August 1880 presented to the audience the two-tier horse tram No. 114, which moved independently with the help of an electric motor. But as surprising as it was, in St. Petersburg it was considered that a lot of money would be spent on electricity, and, according to the government, it would not be possible to make a profit from this invention, so the horse-drawn tram ran in many cities even before the 20s of the 20th century.

The first tram line in St. Petersburg was opened only in 1907. Therefore, in history, Werner von Siemens is considered the first inventor of the tram, who presented at the Berlin Exhibition in 1879 a new miracle machine - an electric tram, which reached a speed unprecedented at that time - 7 km per hour.

Yulia Misyura, Samogo.Net

In the summer of 1872, the Polytechnic Exhibition was held in Moscow, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great. Especially for the exhibition, the War Ministry laid the first temporary horse-drawn tram line along the central streets of the city - from the Iversky Gate to the current Belorussky Station. Carriage traffic was opened on June 25 (July 7), 1872. Traffic along the first rebuilt Petrovskaya line of the horse-drawn tram (from the Iverskaya Chapel through Strastnaya Square, Tverskaya Zastava to Petrovsky Park) opened on September 1 (13), 1874. In subsequent years, the horse-drawn railway network grew steadily. In November 1891, all previously existing horse-drawn tram routes were revised and 25 new lines began operating.

In July 1898, the First Horse Railroad Society, with the consent of the city government, began electrifying the first three sections of its network. The company began to re-equip the Dolgorukovskaya line of the horse-drawn railway from Strastnaya Square along the street. M. Dmitrovka and further to Butyrskaya Zastava (i.e. from Pushkin Square, along Chekhov Street, Dolgorukovskaya, Novoslobodskaya, along Suschevsky Val), as well as two experimental suburban lines: Petrovskaya (from Tverskaya Zastava to Petrovsky Palace) and Butyrskaya (from Butyrskaya outpost along Upper and Lower Maslovka to Petrovsky Park). Along with the reconstruction and construction of lines, the First Society decided to build a traction substation near Butyrskaya Zastava, which was supposed to supply electricity to these three lines. And back in June, construction of the “Electric” tram park began on Bashilovka.

The rails on the Dolgorukovskaya and Petrovskaya lines were laid grooved on wooden sleepers. The railway gauge was adopted - 5 feet - 1524 mm. Rails of the Vignolles type were laid on the Butyrskaya line.

Twenty-three motor-electric and one carriage with mixed battery-electric traction were manufactured during 1898 at the Fankelried plant in Hamburg, and the electrical equipment for them came from the Siemens and Halske factories. The carriages were biaxial, 8.41 m long and 2.45 m wide. The carriage interior had two longitudinal benches with 20 seats in summer and 18 in winter. The front and rear platforms housed electrical equipment for controlling the car, as well as standing areas. Maximum speed movement was provided for 25 versts per hour (27 km/h).

All major construction work on the first section from Petrovsky Park along Verkhnyaya and Nizhnyaya Maslovka to Butyrskaya Zastava was completed by the end of January 1899. Therefore, in February, a trial run of the electric tram line and training of operating personnel began.

The grand opening of the tram service on the first line in Moscow from Butyrskaya Zastava along Nizhnaya and Verkhnyaya Maslovka to Petrovsky Park took place on March 25 (April 6), 1899 in the “Electric” Park. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon a prayer service was held with the blessing of water in front of the revered icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands and local shrines. The prayer service took place in the engine building, decorated with flags. It was attended by the Moscow Governor, Chamberlain A.G. Bulygin, the Moscow Postal Director, Privy Councilor K.G. Radchenko, the Moscow City Mayor, Prince V.M. Golitsyn, the acting Moscow Chief of Police, Colonel D.F. Trepov, and the Chief of the Postal Service. telegraph district F.A. von Pistolkers, government inspector P.D. Vonlyarovsky and others. After the prayer service, all those present were invited to take seats in cars decorated with national flags.

Soon the first carriage with officials and dignitaries set off, and a tricolor ribbon was cut at the exit from the park gates. Behind this carriage, at short intervals, 4 more carriages, filled with guests invited to the celebration, moved.

2 Petrovsky Park

Electric cars were heading to Petrovsky Park. There were people all along the route, looking with curiosity at the movement of the electric tram. In Petrovsky Park, the arrival of the tram was expected by the local population.

From Petrovsky Park, guests were very quickly transported along the second route to Butyrskaya Zastava. Here they were waiting for horse-drawn railway carriages, into which all the invitees transferred to travel to the Moskovskaya Hotel, where lunch was prepared for the invited persons.

Regular tram service along the suburban line from Butyrskaya Zastava to Petrovsky Park opened the next day, March 26 (April 7), 1899. The carriages ran at intervals of 14 minutes from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. A ticket along the entire line cost 6 kopecks.

All construction and installation work on the Dolgorukovskaya Line and the suburban section of the Petrovskaya Line (Belorussky Station - Petrovsky Palace) were completed in June-July 1899. The grand opening of electric tram service on these lines took place on July 27 of the same year.