The Freiburg im Breisgau tramway network (also known as Stadtbahn or formerly as Hoobl (Alemannic for Hobel))Manfred Gallo: Freiburg: Der „Hoobl" fährt seit 107 Jahren. Badische Zeitung, 3 November 2008, retrieved 21 March 2014. is a network of tramways that forms part of the public transport system in Freiburg im Breisgau, a city in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Established in 1901, the network has been operated since its foundation by the company now known as Freiburger Verkehrs (VAG Freiburg or VAG), and powered by electricity. The tramway network currently has five lines. The expansion of the tram network since 1980 has served as an example of the "renaissance of the trams" in Germany. As of 2023, 73 trams were available for regular use: 2 of these were high-floored, 36 partial and 35 low-floored.VAG Freiburg, .Tram-Info Freiburg, . Almost the entirety of the network is located within Freiburg's urban area; only a few metres of the balloon loop at Gundelfinger Straße are located outside the boundary of Gundelfingen to the north of Freiburg. In total, the trams serve 20 out of the 28 districts in Freiburg.

History Time before trams After Freiburg was connected to the railway network via the Rhine Valley railway from 1845, there was an intercity transport link between the Hauptbahnhof and the Wiehre Train Station, which used the Hell Valley Railway for the first time in 1887. From 1891, horse-drawn buses, operated by two different private companies, transported citizens throughout the town. The horse-drawn buses were used on three lines: Lorettostraße to Rennweg, Waldsee to Hauptbahnhof, and Siegesdenkmal to Horben. They were eventually replaced by trams, except between Günterstal and Bohrer.Peter_Kalchthaler: Wo fuhr einst Freiburgs erster Omnibus? Badische Zeitung, 6 February 2012; retrieved, 13 June 2014.

In May 1899, the city council made the decision to build an electric transport system in Stühlinger. Reasons for it included the University of Freiburg's increasing requirement for light and power, and the planned refurbishment of the town's trams. An 1899 survey by the city council resulted in a power requirement for more than 20,000 incandescent lamps.

The acting mayor at the time, Otto Winterer, decisively ensured the fast implementation of the trams. The concession for powering the tram was safeguarded by Direktion des Elektrizitätswerkes und der Straßenbahn, the name of the former VAG company. The tasks of building electric centre for producing light and power and the tramway were assigned to Siemens & Halske from Berlin. Because the supply of hydropower in the environment was too low, the decision was made to generate electricity via a steam power plant.

The tram's planners considered Freiburg Bächle in the Old City to be problematic, since it was feared that the trams could fall into the Bächle in the event of a derailment. It also had to be ensured that the entrances on the Bächle side remained closed. In the end, a senior engineer from the Hamburg trams project, "could not recommend the building of platforms next to the Bächle under any circumstances" and recommended that the Bächle be covered, which was ignored in order to preserve the Bächle as a landmark of Freiburg.Viktor Kuntzemüller: Freiburgs Bächle einst und jetzt . In: Freiburger Almanach. 38, 1987.

Not included in the construction contract were the conversion and restoration of the streets after laying the tracks and erecting the depot at Urachstraße; this work was undertaken by the city and municipal building authorities. At the same time as the tram network, Freiburg had access to electric road lighting that was powered by the same electricity plant, which still exists today, and is located on Eschholzstraße, away from the tram network. From there, a subterranean supply led to the corner of Betheroldstraße and Wilhelmstraße and another to the square in front of the Johanneskirche.

Initial operation On 30 August 1901, the first test run took place,Freiburger Zeitung, Ausgabe 1 September 1901. with the first public-serving trams operating in the autumn. From 14 October 1901 onwards, lines A and D went into operation before lines B and C, which opened on 2 December 1901. The original length was nine kilometres and had 34 stops. The latter two routes were only able to operate once the Schwabentor had been converted. For the two-tracked tramway, it was extended, like the Martinstor, with a second passageway.Simone Höhl: Hochfrisur und Tiefenanalyse: Die Risse im Schwabentor sind noch immer ein Rätsel. Badische Zeitung, 30 January 2013, retrieved 13 June 2014. At first, however, the lines were only used for internal purposes and were not prescribed to trams. Freiburg was the fourth tram network installed within the Grand Duchy of Baden. In contrast to the older networks in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, and Mannheim, which were all supplied with electricity three months before the plant opened in Freiburg, trams in the Breisgau were powered by electricity from the outset and used lyric current collectors.

The power plant opened on 1 October 1901 and regularly produced direct current. In the first year, 61 percent of the 177,000 Kilowatt hours were used by the tram network until 1933, when it received its own supply. In the beginning, the network ran as follows:

LineRouteCycleJourney timeTurnaround timeCoursesStopsARennweg-LorettostraßeEvery 10 minutes (7 am and 9 am) Every 5 minutes14 minutes40 minutes (7 am and 9 am) Every 35 minutes4 / 716BHauptbahnhof-Lorettostraßeevery 10 minutes13 minutes40 minutes411CHauptbahnhof-Bleichewegevery 10 minutes12 minutes30 minutes310DRennweg-GünterstalEvery 15 minutes23 minutes60 minutes421 Lines A and D ran along Habsburger Straße, Kaiser-Joseph-Straße, and Günterstalstraße, while the section Line D alone served encompassed the entire length of Schauninslandstraße. Lines B and C both followed Bismarckallee, Bertoldstraße, Salzstraße, Straße Oberlinden and the Schwabentorring until its southern end. From there, only Line B served Hildastraße and Urachstraße, while Line C followed Schwarzwaldstraße to the east. For train crossings, seven were accessible on the single-track east–west route.During the morning peak, up to 18 trams were used simultaneously, while nine others were in reserve. In the inner city, a denser supply resulted from the superposition of Lines A and D. There was on the single double-track railway of the network between Rennweg, now Hauptstraße, and Lorettostraße up to 16 trips per hour. On the interchange Lorettostraße-Günterstal, which was originally cross-bordered, the only intermediate passing loop was at Wonnhalde. The line to Güterstal, as a single line at the time, was operated by a trailer car, which was why there was a transfer line at the two terminals of Rennweg and Günterstal. There were four open summer carriages available for the strong holiday traffic during this season. The section serving Hauptbahnhof and Schwabentorbrücke was served by twelve cars an hour. However, due to the single-track infrastructure, the trams on lines B and C always ran very close behind each other.

An operational feature from the earlier years was the level junction at Günterstalstraße (a few metres south of Lorettostraße and Urachstraße) for the interurban route to Günterstal with Höllentalbahn, which had not yet been powered.

Since 1902, the tram transported more than three million passengers, while the horse-drawn bus lines in their last full year of operation in 1900 only transported 50,000 passengers. In the same years, Lines B and C were extended from their former endpoint at the Hauptbahnhof by approximately 200 metres to the northwest at Lehener Straße.Dietmar Gemander, Thomas Hettinger: Die Freiburger Straßenbahn. Die Zeit vor der Stadtbahn. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2006, , S. 15: Erste Streckenerweiterungen. Heading towards Lehener Straße, trams were still signposted for the Hauptbahnhof.

Within the inner city, the operating company introduced a uniform tariff of ten pfennigs in 1902, and it was the only reason for a one-off transfer to Bertoldsbrunnen junction (colloquially called Fischbrunnen, or Fish's Well), Schwabentorbrücke and Lorettostraße. The fee for the route from Günterstal to Lorettostraße was ten pfennigs. It also cost 20 pfennigs for trips beyond Lorettostraße.

Freiburger Verkehrs AG: Mobile Stadt – Die Geschichte der Straßenbahn in Freiburg. 2001, S. 19 (Betriebsbericht 1902: Einheitliche Tarife für die Straßenbahn).

First extensions

The 15-minute trip to Günterstal was inadequate for the high demand on this service, so the operating company installed two additional passing points at Waldhüterhaus on Schauinslandstraße and at Günterstaler Kreuz, which reduced the trip time to 10 minutes. In order to further increase capacity on this route, three more summer trams were put into operation in the same year, and the first extensions were installed. At the beginning of the summer schedule in 1905, Alter Messplatz, also called Bleicheweg, was added to the loop at Stadthalle—the first terminal loop in Freiburg. The terminus station was Waldsee, named after the waters in the recreation area of Möslepark.

In the following year, lines B and C were expanded into two-track lines, except for the short single-track section between Bleicheweg and Waldsee.

In 1908, both of the newly constructed stretch of tracks between Hauptstraße and Okenstraße, and Lehener Straße to Güterbahnhof became operational. The latter was located on Breisacher Straße and Hugstetter Straße to Hohenzollernplatz (now Friedrich-Ebert-Platz). The route followed along the course of Heiliggeiststraße and Friedhofstraße to the terminating station of Güterbahnhof on the corner of Waldkircher Straße/Eichstätter Straße. The route was designed to be double-tracked right for five-minute cycles.

Further extensions after 1909 When the new bridge from Siegesdenkmal via Friedrichring, Friedrichstraße, and Hauptbahnhof to Stühlinger was commissioned, a fifth line was introduced in 1909 using Arabic numbers. The new Line 5 operated on a ten-minute cycle and used the "Blue Bridge" to cross the main railway line.Gerhard Greß: Verkehrsknoten Freiburg und seine Umgebung in den fünfziger und sechziger Jahren. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1997, , S. 11. In Stühlinger, the terminal loop was built around the Herz-Jesu church. Further destinations included the districts of Haslach, Herdern, and Zähringen, as well as a short extension in Wiehre: 1910: Lorettostraße - Goethestraße and, after completion of the new railway underpass Komturbrücke, Rossgässle (today Okenstraße) - Reutebachgasse 1913: Stühlinger Kirchplatz (today Eschholzstraße) - Scherrerplatz 1914: Siegesdenkmal - Immentalstraße

Zähringen had only belonged to Freiburg from 1906, the tram connection was part of the Merger treaty.100 Jahre Straßenbahn in Zähringen, auf nahverkehr-breisgau.de, retrieved 13 June 2014. The route through Herdern forced the introduction of a sixth line.

Four other stretches of track were planned, but they could not be implemented because of World War I. A line was planned to connect Johanneskirche and Reiterstraße, another between Stühlinger Kirchplatz and Hohenzollernplatz via Eschholzstraße, and one more from the Betzenhausen and Mooswald districts.Dietmar Gemander, Thomas Hettinger: Die Freiburger Straßenbahn. Die Zeit vor der Stadtbahn. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2006, , S. 21–23: Planungen und Streckenerweiterungen zwischen 1910 und 1914.

An overland stretch from Günterstal via Horben and Schauinsland to Todtnau was planned, where the route was going to connect a metre gauge train line to Zell im Wiesental. The planners had hoped for a quick connection to the tourist-friendly southern Black Forest.

World War I