Image: Trolleybuses are returning to Prague after 50 years. However, part of the journey will run on batteries
Trolleybuses are returning to the streets of the capital after exactly 50 years. On Saturday, the transport company started operational test lines from Letňany to Čakovice. After the delivery of new trolleybuses next year, the route will be extended to Palmovka. The cars will travel roughly half of the route under the trolleys, the rest on batteries. Prague wants to electrify other lines in a similar way, for example to the airport or in hilly parts of the city.
Trolleybuses have been part of Prague’s public transport for more than three decades. The first line was opened in 1936, from the Střešovice train station through the residential area of Ořechovka and Hanspaulka to St. Matthew’s Church. The route was 3.5 kilometers long and the trolleybus covered the hilly terrain in 13 minutes.
“Trolleybus cars are proving themselves, they drive calmly and will mean a new, modern type of traffic for our big city,” wrote the press at the time. The essential advantage was the trolleybuses in the hills, where the trams and buses of the time could hardly go. Soon other lines were created, for example from Anděl through Malvazinky to Walter’s factory in Jinonice.
The greatest development of the trolleybus network occurred in the post-war period, between 1949 and 1954. Electric-powered cars also traveled beyond the borders of Prague at the time, for example from Smíchov to Velká Chuchle or from Libno to Čakovice and Letňan to Čakovice, i.e. similar to the line now in operation.
In the second half of the 1950s, however, trolleybus transport began to die and become obsolete, just like the entire socialist centrally planned economy. The problems were with the poor condition of the roads and the lack of energy for operation. Maxima reached the trolleybus network in 1959, when it measured 57 kilometers.
However, at that time the first line was already canceled and others soon followed, including those under construction. Also due to cheap Soviet oil, their role was gradually taken over by buses, which, according to the new concept, were the main means of transport to the subway being built. Trolleybuses and trams were to gradually disappear from the streets.
On the night of October 15, 1972, he took the last trolleybus in Prague. Today, this moment is commemorated by a monument at Orionka in Vinohrady next to the former carriage house. In 2010, a stop with four historic trolley poles and a marker was created there. The second monument is located in Prague 6 near Matěje, where the first trolleybus line ended.
The last trolleybus left on October 15, 1972. Exactly 50 years later, it is returning to service. | Photo: DPP
The return of trolleybuses has been waiting for 45 years
Soon after the cancellation of the trolleybus service in Prague, however, it became clear that it was a wrong move. Their return has been talked about again since the end of the 70s. In the 1980s, the city considered lines to the hilly parts of the city with large housing estates, where the weak Hungarian Ikarus buses of the time had the most trouble. Plans were thus created for a line to Barrandová, to Bohnice, from Smíchov to Jinonic, from Palmovka to Letňany or from Vysočany to Prosek.
After the fall of communism, the preparations for the lines to Jinonic or Strahov progressed, the transport company already demanded construction permits for some projects. In 1992, however, all work was stopped and it was decided that the trolleybuses would not return to Prague.
The people of Prague had to wait until 2017 for the next “bus with feelers”. Then, exactly 45 years after the last ride, the transport company started trial operation of the kilometer-long line in Prosecká street. Electricity had auxiliary cars in the steep climb, the rest of the route up to Letňany was continued by the battery-powered car. The company tried out technologies and different types of trolleybuses.
In 2020, he bought a second-hand trolleybus with an auxiliary diesel engine from Pilsen, which was used for driver training, but operated in normal traffic, being very dangerous. After the reconstruction of Prosecká Street and subsequently due to the coronavirus epidemic, the line stopped running and was never renewed. In the meantime, however, Prague decided to partially electrify the route from Palmovka through Prosek, Letňany and Čakovice to Miškovice and return the trolleybuses here. Construction began in January this year and ended in the fall.
The new line was given the number 58, which it carried already in the post-war era. After the delivery of a series of new trolleybuses, it is to completely replace today’s bus line 140. The cars will be powered by the trolleybuses on half of the track, the rest will run on batteries.
The first stage of the electrification of bus lines in Prague. | Photo: Ropid
Prague and the transport company are already preparing the electrification of other lines. Today’s line 119 from Veleslavín to Václav Havel Airport is the closest to it, the line is due to be built next year. The company has already put out a tender for the supply of new, extra-long three-section trolleybuses with a capacity of up to 180 people. Even in this case, the cars run the route under wires and half on batteries.
Electric-powered cars are to gradually replace other bus lines running through hilly districts. As in the heyday of trolleybuses in the middle of the last century, they will bear numbers starting with five or six.
VIDEO: Trial operation of the trolleybus in Prague in 2018
Trolleybus again in Prague. A regular line runs from the beginning of July from Palmovka to Letňany. | Video: Veronika Ljuba Bucková