MORE THAN 130 YEARS IN BELGRADE: The first tram in the capital was pulled by horses, and here is the legendary route it drove! (FOTO)

The first tram in Serbia set off from Belgrade’s Kalemegdan 131 years ago with its main destination being Slavija Square, and instead of today’s electric motors with a multitude of horsepower, it was pulled by two – with a mane and hooves.

After a few minutes of driving, the tram stopped in front of the then social office on Terazije, „where a lot of people gathered to attend the consecration“, according to a text in the Belgrade Municipal Newspaper published after the event that changed the traffic history of the Serbian capital.

Less than two years later, Belgrade also got electric trams, and by 1905, horse traction was completely replaced by electric power.

During the 20th century, „Germans, French, and Czechoslovaks“ strutted along the Belgrade rails, transporting passengers mainly to today’s central Belgrade neighborhoods, and in 1984, the first tram set off from Kalemegdan, crossed the river, and the rattling of the rails was heard for the first time in New Belgrade.

The total number of trams and tram wagons in Belgrade today is 231, most arrived from Spain and Switzerland, and today they operate on 12 tram lines, according to data from the City Public Transport Company (GSP).

HOW DID BELGRADE GET THE „HORSE TRAM“?

In 1891, the Belgrade municipality concluded a concession contract for street lighting and the city railway with Pericles Cikos, a Greek from Milan.

The following year, the city got the „Belgrade City Railway and Lighting“, or the „horse tram“, as the citizens of Belgrade immediately nicknamed it, according to the monograph 110 years of tram transport in Belgrade, published by the City Public Transport Company (GSP) in 2002.

The „City Railway“ on the Kalemegdan – Slavija line was officially put into operation on October 14, 1892.

The tram pulled by two horses started its first ride around 11 o’clock in the morning, and the first passengers were the then president of the municipality Milovan Marinković, members of the court, and municipal clerks, as described at the time in the Municipal Newspaper, reports the weekly Vreme.

„The space between the social office and the vehicle was occupied by curious people, so a passage was made from the social office to the vehicle,“ it is added.

The tram route was 2,300 meters long, leading from Kalemegdan, through Vasa Čarapić Street to the then Theatre Square (today’s Republic Square), and then through Knez Mihailova Street and across Terazije to Slavija.

Eight horse-drawn trams operated on that line, running every 10 to 12 minutes, as described by GSP Belgrade in the monograph.

Not long after the first line, the second one started operating.

It was two kilometers long and led from Slavija, down Kralja Milana Street to the former Officers’ Casino (today’s Student Cultural Center).

The tram then turned into today’s Resavska Street, then into Nemanjina Street, which it descended to the Railway Station and further to the Sava Port.

Due to the large ascent in Nemanjina Street, three trams with double horse-drawn teams operated on this line, as described in the GSP monograph.

The third tram line was opened two months later and led from Terazije, across today’s Kralja Aleksandra Boulevard (then Fišeklijska Street) and Ruzveltova Street to the New Cemetery.

In addition to passenger trams, it was planned that this line would also be used by special trams for funeral processions, according to GSP.

Electricity instead of horses and a connection between the city and Topčider

A year after the introduction of the first horse-drawn tram, Belgrade got an electric power plant in Dorćol, which was the first step towards the introduction of electric lighting and trams with the same type of drive.

Already in 1894, the tram line between Terazije and Topčider was completed, which was six kilometers long and passed through Kneza Miloša and Kralja Milana streets, as well as over the Mostarska Petlja interchange.

The first electric tram passed along this line on June 5, 1894, and the number of tram cars operating on that line soon increased to six.

In November of the same year, the electric tram also began driving from Dušanova Street in Dorćol to the Sava Port, and soon after to Slavija.

That year, the Žagubica – Electric Power Plant line in Dorćol was also put into operation.

Initially, only two horse-drawn trams traveled on this 2.8-kilometer line, but by the end of that year, electric-powered trams also began moving on the rails.

The first part of the program for establishing tram traffic in Belgrade was completed with the construction of these lines, GSP adds.

There was a stagnation in the development of tram traffic until 1903, when the infrastructure construction works were entrusted to the Belgian Anonymous Society, according to the publication of this company.

In the next two years, all „horse“ trams were replaced by electric ones, the tram lines in Belgrade were adapted for the use of electric drive, and in 1906 a new line was built, which extended from today’s Republic Square (then Kolarac), through Svetogorska Street to Tašmajdan.

Two decades after the introduction of the first and seven years after the electrification of the last tram line, in 1912 Belgrade had eight lines, 24 tram motor cars, and 12 trailers, and the city was intersected by tram rails totaling 21.6 kilometers in length, according to GSP data.

From Germans, Czechoslovaks, and Belgians, to Swiss and Spanish

On the eve of and during the First World War in Belgrade, the development of tram infrastructure was stopped, and in 1919 it passed from the hands of the Belgians to the jurisdiction of the city authorities.

At the end of 1932, the city had 13 lines and 65.5 kilometers of tram track, and citizens could take the tram to Voždovac, Senjak, Dedinje, or Čukarica.

In the period between the two wars, Belgrade had 81 motorized tram cars and 42 trailers.

The largest part of them was German and Czechoslovak production from the Škoda and Siemens factories.

The post-war recovery was marked by the introduction of the trolleybus in 1947, which functioned like a tram but had wheels and moved on the road, not on rails.

In 1952, the city authorities bought five PCC trams from Belgium, which was the first purchase of trams after the war.

From 1960, the „largest renewal of the GSP vehicle fleet“ in the post-war period began, and in the first half of the seventies of the 20th century, more trams were bought than in the previous 25 years, according to the company.

Then, 18 PCC II motor trams and eight Breda III trams arrived in the Serbian capital, which allowed the old Siemens trams, which had been transporting the citizens of Belgrade for more than 40 years, to retire.

During the last two decades of the 20th century, Tatra trams from Czechoslovakia dominated the Belgrade rails, and a total of 195 of these trams were purchased during that period.

For a time, this was the only type of tram that could be seen in Belgrade, GSP reminds.

In addition to new vehicles, Belgrade also got a new connection between the old and new parts of the city during the 1980s – on August 30, 1984, the line between Kalemegdan and New Belgrade became operational.

With the new century, new trams arrived in Belgrade, this time from Switzerland.

In the period from 2001 to 2016, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) donated 113 vehicles (65 trams and 48 trailers) of the Divag brand to Belgrade, which arrived from Basel in the Serbian capital.

The most modern trams that transport the citizens of Belgrade today arrived from Spain in 2012.

A total of 30 Spaniards, as the locals call them in jargon, were the last step in the modernization of tram traffic in Belgrade so far.

Where did the first trams in the world appear?

The first horse-drawn tram in the world was acquired by Swansea, today one of the largest cities in Wales.

The Mumbles railway was built during 1804 and 1805, and as early as 1807 the first passengers were riding trams through the city.

The tram soon arrived in the United States of America, and the first cities where it came to life were New York (1832) and New Orleans (1835).

The French capital Paris got the first tram in the continental part of Europe in 1839.

In the middle of the 19th century, the then new technology also arrived on other continents: in Alexandria, Egypt, the tram appeared in 1850, in the Chilean capital Santiago eight years later, the Australian city of Sydney got a tram in 1860, while in Jakarta, Indonesia, the first tram line became operational in 1869.

The electric tram was invented by the Russian inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in Saint Petersburg in 1880, and the basic principles of the technology he devised are still used today.

The first regular electric-powered tram line started operating in 1881 in Lichterfelde, a suburb of the German capital Berlin.