The first tram in Budapest – 135 years ago, the new vehicle appeared on Nagykörút
In Budapest, on November 28, 1887, the vehicle was not driven by horses or steam locomotives, but by electricity, which was completely unusual at the time. Although Ányos Jedlik created the first electrically driven vehicle 32 years earlier, it was a tiny structure, not much bigger than a modern RC model. In order for electricity to actually move passenger vehicles, decades of development were needed, in which the work of Werner von Siemens was a pioneer.
The first test trams in front of Nyugati railway station (Photo: Fortepan/Image number: 24111)
The tram with pantograph was presented by Werner von Siemens at an exhibition in Berlin in 1879, in fact at the same time as a Russian inventor, Fyodor Apollonovich Pirocki, who created his invention in St. Petersburg, but it was not a success in the then tsarist capital. Siemens knew about the experiment because his younger brother, Carl Siemens, was working in St. Petersburg.
Starting in 1881, the Siemens structure connected the Lichterfelde station and the military academy 2.5 kilometers away in Berlin, i.e. it ran in the suburbs, because the Berlin city leaders were so distrustful of the system that they only allowed its use there.
It is true that the first tram line in a European city was delivered a few years later, in Budapest, although it was only an experiment at that time, but the vehicles were already carrying passengers. This system was also supplied by Siemens & Halske, and the appearance of the tram in Budapest was really made possible by a patent dispute.
In Budapest, the BKVT, the company that operates the horse railways, had the privilege of the horse railway network. The privately-owned company and the capital’s management were in a dispute about where the network should develop, since the company wanted to expand it according to its own business considerations, while the city administration followed the city’s interests, and these two interests often did not coincide. The city was powerless, since BKVT had entered into the horse railway business with a contract.
Tram station in Budapest in 1896 (Photo: Fortepan / Budapest Capital Archives. Archive reference: HU.BFL.XV.19.d.1.01.030)
An engineer, Balázs Mór, brought a new point of view into this debate, who wanted to be the first to create a steam-powered urban railway network, and discussed this with the leadership of Budapest. The city was inclined to do so, as this would have bypassed the BKVT. The company changed its plans from steam to electric when Mór Balázs managed to win Siemens as a partner, with whom he had a good personal relationship, and thus proposed the introduction of Siemens & Halske electric traction.
Since such a structure had never operated anywhere within the city, the city first requested the construction of a test track, for which the section from the Nyugati railway station to Király Street was designated. The permission to build the line was issued on October 1, 1887, and thus Balázs Mórék prepared the first test track. It still had a gauge of 1,000 millimeters, and the authorities set the tram speed at 10 kilometers per hour, but at the Andrássy út intersection, a mounted policeman had to escort the tram through.
The tram had a special feature, because the previous foreign vehicles received electricity from an overhead wire, using a pantograph. In the Budapest test, however, it received its energy from an underground line, via a pantograph hanging from the bottom of the car, the electric system, i.e., it operated in an underwire system, because the Public Works Council did not allow the construction of overhead wires.
On November 25, 1887, Pesti Hírlap wrote the following about the tram’s official inspection, when only representatives of the official bodies inspected the vehicle:
“First two fortunes started. One was connected to the lightning cable underground, the other car was connected only after the first one. One property can accommodate 22 passengers. The driver rang the bell, applied the brakes, the train started and headed towards Király Street, surrounded by the cheers of a large number of villages. On a normal road, it takes 3 minutes to enter the line, the cars travel at a speed of 10 kilometers per hour, taking into account the heavy traffic that occurs on some of the crossing streets of the boulevard and mainly on the boulevard. Then they connected 3 cars; the committee held many trial runs, the train was stopped several times suddenly and more slowly, then one car was disconnected in the middle of the journey and it went back, while the other two continued their journey. The trial sessions made a very favorable impression on the committee members. The electric railway car does not rattle, it can be stopped at any time, the train can be accelerated or decelerated as desired, all this was done with the car brakes.”
The green, winterized, stove-heated cars were brought by Siemens from Vienna, where they were presented earlier, and the first flight left on Monday, November 28, 1887, at half past three in the afternoon. The cars stopped at Andrássy út, and also at Szondi utca, if needed. The electricity was generated by two steam locomotives, which were placed in a barn next to the Nyugati railway station.
Double-decker car, BVV tram at the Új Köztemető between 1891-1893 (Photo: Fortepan/Image number: 24113)
The pilot plant was successful, there were no major accidents, only once, with a milk truck, did the tram crash. The technical problems encountered were the most important with the power-generating steam engines, and thus the tram eventually became a great success, I convinced even the skeptics about the new means of transport. Mór Balázs thus founded a company called the Budapest City Railway, and in 1889 the first regular tram was able to run. Everyone can see where electric transportation has developed in Budapest.
Opening image: The tram is already in regular traffic (Photo: Fortepan / Budapest Capital Archives. Archive reference: HU.BFL.XV.19.d.1.07.109)