The Frankfurt am Main tramway network is a network of tramways forming a major part of the public transport system in Frankfurt am Main, a city in the federal state of Hesse, Germany.
, there were 10 tram lines, along with two special lines and one heritage tourist tramline. The network had 141 stops, and a total route length of . In the same year, the network carried 66.9 million passengers.
History
The network is the oldest light rail system in the city, the first horse tram lines having started operations on 19 May 1872. It includes one of the first electric tramways in the world, with the first electrified tram line starting in 1884.
Frankfurt Trambahn-Gesellschaft The Frankfurt Trambahn-Gesellschaft (FTG), founded in 1872 as a subsidiary of the Brussels-based company F. de la Hault & Cie, introduced tram traffic with horse trams in Frankfurt. On 19 May 1872 they opened the first line with horses as draft animals from Schönhof in the northwestern neighboring town of Bockenheim on the Bockenheimer Warte, through the Westend on the Bockenheimer highway and today's Opernplatz to the Hauptwache.
The FTG opted for tracks in a gauge of , as it was then also common in the railway, the so-called standard gauge. The decision made at that time is still valid until today, all Frankfurt street and subway lines have this track, even if the draft horses were long ago displaced by electric railcars.
The first line was extended a short time later on the Zeil towards the east and reached in 1875 the Hanau station. From 1879, a second line from Bornheim (at the clock tower), which had been incorporated two years before, led over the Sandweg to Friedberger Anlage, and a year later to the Westbahnhof. This line was extended on 24 October 1881 to the Kirchner school at the Hohen Brunnen. Also in 1881 the first time horse trolleys drove across the river Main to Sachsenhausen, since 1882 trains have been going to the Nordend.
The city of Rödelheim, located northwest of Frankfurt, was connected to the horse tramway in 1889. However, the line led only to the Schönhof; at first there was no connection to the original line that began there, since the route of the Main-Weser-Bahn was there and the passenger-occupied horse-drawn carriages were not allowed to cross at ground level. Only with the construction of the Breitenbach Bridge in 1915 was a continuous line from Rödelheim to the city center created.
In the 1890s more routes followed through the city center and the fast-growing Wilhelminian era belt. From 1892, horse-drawn trams ran to the main cemetery, from 1895 to the Galluswarte.
In 1898, FTG had reached of the tram lines and had 16 tram lines in total.
The first electric trams In 1882, an Offenbach consortium applied for permission to build an electric tram from Sachsenhausen to Offenbach. It was a real pioneer project as it was to become one of the first electric trams ever. Only a year earlier, on 16 May 1881, the world's first electrically operated test track in Lichterfelde near Berlin had opened for traffic, and on 1 May 1882 the second from Charlottenburg to the restaurant Spandauer Bock. Now, as in Berlin with the participation of Siemens & Halske, an electric tram under commercial conditions should prove its suitability commercially and transport passengers between Frankfurt and Offenbach. At the end of 1883, the concession was granted and soon after the consortium started construction and founded an operating company, the Frankfurt-Offenbach Tramway Society (FOTG). On 18 February and 10 April 1884 the long route was opened.
The route began at the Sachsenhaus side of the Old Bridge and ran on the Offenbacher road and through the community Oberrad to the Prussian-Hessian border. From there, the tram went through Offenbach, over Frankfurter Straße and the marketplace to Mathildenplatz. The depot with its own power plant and company office was located in Oberrad at the Buchrainplatz. The FOTG was the only tram operator in the Frankfurt area to opt for the narrower gauge of . The railways reached a respectable for that time conditions speed of about .
Since there was still no public power supply, for the operation of the railway the construction of its own coal-fired power plant was necessary, which also delivered electricity for the first time to businesses and private households in Oberrad. The power plant was in operation during the entire period of operation of the FOTG from 1884 to 1906.
Eschersheimer Lokalbahn On 12 May 1888 the Frankfurter Lokalbahn AG (FLAG) opened a horse tram line from Frankfurt city center to Eschersheim. The route led from the Eschenheimer Tor on the northern edge of the city center on the Eschersheimer road to the neighboring village about north. The single-track line ended at the former level crossing of the Main-Weser-Bahn, nearby in the street Im Wörth was the depot of the new operator. The FLAG also decided on a gauge of , although initially there was no track connection to the horse trams of the FTG. In the same year, the FLAG replaced the horses by more efficient steam locomotives, the Eschersheimer Lokalbahn was thus the first steam tram in Frankfurt.
Waldbahn Another private company, Hostmann & Cie. from Hanover, received in 1887 the concession to build railway lines in the south of the city and to operate them for a period of 35 years. The tracks were opened on 5 February and 18 April 1889. It began at two starting points in Sachsenhausen, the Untermain Bridge and the Lokalbahnhof, led over the Mörfelder highway to the southwest and split into three branches that led to Niederrad, Neu-Isenburg and Schwanheim.
The Waldbahn was operated as a standard gauge steam tramway. The steam locomotives used caused displeasure among the residents of the streets in Sachsenhausen and were the reason why the line was not allowed to operate into Frankfurt city center. The routes were predominantly single track and were partly in the street, partly on its own railway body. The company had depots at the termini in Niederrad, Schwanheim and Neu-Isenburg, and in Textorstraße in Sachsenhausen. At night, a brisk freight traffic was operated on the routes.
Other occasions On the occasion of the International Electricity Fair in 1891, the companies Schuckert & Co. on the route Kaiserstraße – Mainkai and the company Siemens & Halske on the route Hauptbahnhof – Opera Square demonstrated electric trams. While the Schuckert car was supplied with power from a sub-line and also from a catenary by means of a pantograph, the Siemens & Halske rail company drew its power from accumulators. From 1 May 1897 accumulator trams of the Frankfurt tramway company operated experimentally between the main train station and the Galluswarte. The main reason for these attempts were critical voices, which fought against the catenary of an electric tram because of the feared "blighting the cityscape", although the experience had already clearly demonstrated the technical superiority of the trolley system. For example, the heavy accumulator vehicles resulted in considerable damage to the tracks of the horse tram designed only for low axle load.
The spa town Bad Homburg vor der Höhe in the North of Frankfurt received an electric tram on 26 July 1899. Their gauge was , as in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt Lokalbahn AG led over their distance to Oberursel for years a continuous line.
The Frankfurt Lokalbahn AG was able to open in October 1899 in addition to its steam tram in the Eschersheimer highway a second route: the so-called mountain railway began at the station Oberursel the Homburger Bahn and ran over to the terminus Hohemark in the Taunus. The Oberurseler route was initially operated with steam.
Frankfurt trams In view of the success of the private tram operators, the city administration also began to be interested in setting up its own tram network. The electrical drive, which reached the stage of technical efficiency at the end of the 1890s, caused an investment wave in many cities around the world. Everywhere it was necessary to convert the existing horse-drawn railway networks to the considerably more efficient electrical operation. The gauges selected by the horse tram decades ago were retained in most cases, so that a mixed operation of horse and electric trains was possible. The electric railways now in use everywhere, along with the impending turn of the century, provided many city dwellers with a boost of progress.
The city of Frankfurt received the concession for the operation of electric trams on 20 January 1898. Since the horse train network of FTG was already well developed, it was decided against the competing construction of its own network, but on 1 January 1898 without further ado they took over the private operator and his tram lines. Just one year later, the first line was switched to electric operation.
In 1899, the city also took over the Waldbahn, but initially continued to use steam traction on it. Only in 1929 the lines were electrified to Schwanheim and Neu-Isenburg and included in the urban tram network. The Niederräder line had already been replaced in 1907 by a new urban line.
In 1901, the city bought the Eschersheim local railway for 500,000 marks from the FLAG. In the same year, the tram line 13 was extended to Holzhausenstraße, but steam trains continued to drive the total distance between Eschersheimer Tor and Eschersheim. In 1908, the section Holzhausenstraße-Eschersheim was electrified and integrated into the urban network.
To electrify the tram network of the horse tram, the city of Frankfurt transferred the right to construction and operation until 1 April 1900 to the companies Siemens & Halske and Brown, Boveri & Cie, and to take care of the operation afterwards themselves. They decided on a system already proven in other cities with a single-pole electric catenary system made by Siemens. The DC with a driving voltage of 600 volts was generated in purpose built substations. The vehicles received Lyra pantographs, which were replaced only in the Second World War because of the lower sparking by pantograph collectors.
The first test drive of the electric tram in Frankfurt was carried out on 22 March 1899 from Sachsenhäuser Depot, the first own depot of the urban tram, to Bornheim and back, then on the Mörfelder highway to Palmengarten and from there back to Sachsenhausen.
A few days later, on 10 April 1899, the first electrified line of the urban tram was put into operation. The starting point was the eastern entrance of the Palmengarten on the Siesmayerstraße, from there it went over the Feldbergstraße, the Grüneburgweg and the Reuterweg to the Opernplatz, then over the Neue Mainzer Straße and the Untermainbrücke to the Schweizer Platz. From there, first the Mörfelder Landstraße, then the Darmstädter Landstraße was used to local railway station, then to cross the Main via Obermainbrücke (now Ignatz-Bubis-bridge) and the Lange Straße, the Zeil, the Sandweg, the Arnsburger Straße and the Berger road to reach the destination Bornheim school. Since the entire route had a length of , established two lines whose endpoints were at the local station.
From 25 July 1899, the second route in Frankfurt could be driven by electric railcar; the line led from the Glauburgstraße to the Lokalbahnhof. The central Bockenheimer Depot was built at the Bockenheimer Warte. Towards the end of the year 1900, 15 lines had already been converted to electrical operation, at the end of 1901 it was 17. The last three horse-drawn railway lines, the routes from Bockenheimer Warte to Bockenheimer Bahnhof, Schönhof and Rödelheim were electrified on 18 June 1904.