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The Kaliningrad Tram network is the most westerly urban tram network in
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
, and the only surviving tram network in the
Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Oblast () is the westernmost federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of the Russian Federation. It is a Enclave and exclave, semi-exclave on the Baltic Sea within the Baltic region of Prussia (region), Prussia, surrounded by Pola ...
, the administrative district that approximately corresponds with the northern part of what was, until 1945,
East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
. Electrified progressively between 1895 and 1901, it is the earliest electric tram network within the current territory of
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. It is also one of only two Russian tram networks still using a one-meter gauge. (The other serves
Pyatigorsk Pyatigorsk (; Circassian languages, Circassian: Псыхуабэ, ''Psıxwabæ'') is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Stavropol Krai, Russia, located on the Podkumok River, about from the town of Mineralnye Vody, which has an i ...
.)
Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
's tram network reached its greatest extent in 1937, at which time it was organised into 15 routes with a total length of . During many decades of Kaliningrad's history as a German and then a Russian city, the trams have been an important element in the city's overall public transport provision, although in recent years the trams have lost out to the powerfully promoted
share taxi A share taxi, shared taxi, taxibus, or jitney or dollar van in the US, or marshrutka in former Soviet countries, is a mode of transport which falls between a taxicab and a bus. Share taxis are a form of paratransit. They are vehicles for hire and ...
businesses in the city: on some routes trams have been replaced by trolley buses.


History


Horse power

Early trams in Königsberg (as the city was known before 1945) used horse traction. The first line opened on 26 May 1881. A second line was in operation from 5 June 1881, and was extended on 16 May 1882. A third line entered service on 29 June 1881 and a fourth on 11 October 1881. The central network was completed with a fifth line at the start of 1882. This fifth line included a steep slope which necessitated the use of extra horses. Trams ran on all the lines at ten-minute intervals. The network was operated by the "Königsberg Horse-tram Company" (''"Königsberger Pferdeeisenbahn-Gesellschaft"''). The city's horse tram network at this stage used a 1435 mm gauge, which reflected standard practice across Germany. The system continued to be extended and enhanced during the next few years, but in 1895 it retained its basic five line configuration.


Electric power during the Königsberg years

By 1897 the basic network had been expanded to eight lines. In the meantime, in 1895 Königsberg began to bring electric trams into service. The first line, linking the (pulled down even before 1945) "Pillau mainline station" (''"Pillauer Bahnhof"'') to the "New Market place" (''"Neuen Markt"'', today ''Moskowskij-Prospekt'') was opened on 31 May 1895. It crossed the existing horse-tram line at Kaiser Wilhelm Platz, but at this stage the electric trams had no interconnections with the horse trams, and they used a narrower one meter gauge which allowed for tighter turns. By the New Market Place was the Mühlenberg electricity works and the first depot for the electric trams. (These were later built over.) The first electric line was extended to Augusta Street (''Augustastraße'' / ''ul. Griga'') on 22 June 1895. The electric tram service was operated at this stage by the service provider, "Königsberg Urban Electric Trams" (''"Städtische Elektrische Straßenbahn Königsberg"''). A second electric tram line opened on 6 March 1898, with a branch added on 15 September 1899, and a third electric line followed on 8 August 1900. In order to obtain permission to switch to electricity the provider of the existing horse tram service was required to switch to the
meter gauge Metre-gauge railways ( US: meter-gauge railways) are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. Metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by several European colonial powers including France, Britain and ...
used by the new electric trams. They resisted the requirement and so horse trams continued to operate in parallel with the new electric service till 1900 when the "Königsberg Horse-tram Company" gave way, and on 11 May 1900 the first stretch of the horse tram service re-opened using a
meter gauge Metre-gauge railways ( US: meter-gauge railways) are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. Metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by several European colonial powers including France, Britain and ...
and operating with electric trams. In less than a year the gauge on most of the older tram lines had been reduced, and the horse trams were replaced. On 1 April 1901 the "Königsberg Horse-tram Company" was renamed, the "Königsberg Tram Company" (''"Königsberger Straßenbahn AG"'' / KÖSAG). The city took over the remaining assets of the horse tram service and swiftly closed down its remnants. The last horse trams ceased to operate shortly before the end of 1901. The old horse tram depot in the appropriately named "Heumarkt" (''"Haymarket"'') was closed down and new depot for electric trams was opened at the upper end of what later became Hindenburgstraße (''"Hindenburg Street"''). However, it was not till April 1909 that the tram operator, KÖSAG, passed into the ownership of the city, following which the tram network would be integrated into the overall public transport network. By 1899 the Königsberg tram network was organised, by some reckonings, into four lines. That had become eight by 1902 and eleven by 1904. Initially each line was identified by a different colour. Line numbers were introduced only in 1910. Further new lines and line extensions were added during the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1927 the number of tram lines in the city had reached fifteen. A further management restructuring and renaming took place in 1922, following which the city trams were operated by "Königsberger Werke und Straßenbahn GmbH". The pace of network expansion slowed down in the 1920s, but in 1924 a tram link was provided to the city crematorium (today the site of the Mitschurinets Cemetery Nr.1) and there was a tram line extension constructed to the recently opened Devau airport, a couple of miles to the north of the city. The 1920s and 1930s were decades of extensive urban and infrastructure redevelopment in and around Königsberg, and this went hand in hand with further improvements, reconfigurations and extensions to the tram network, which reached its greatest extent, at a total of , in 1937. On 19 September 1929 a new mainline station (''"Königsberg Hauptbahnhof"'') was opened on the south side of the city, and three tramlines that had previously served the old main station were adapted to serve the new one, with a new four platform tram halt. The new mainline terminus also involved construction of a new railway junction station in the city which drove further adjustments to the tram network, and the opportunity was taken to reconfigure several other city tramlines at the same time. The opening of a new "Königsberg North Station" on the mainline network triggered additional changes to the tram network.


War

War War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...
resumed in September 1939 when
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
invaded
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
. Some rationalization of the city tram service followed, and the waiting interval between trams was extended from ten to twelve minutes. Destructive bombing of Königsberg began two years later, in August 1941, a couple of months after the German-Soviet wartime alliance had collapsed, with the German invasion of the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
. During the next four years the tram service was progressively adapted and reduced in response to deepening economic hardship and, especially from 1944, intensification of bomb damage. By 1945 much of Königsberg was rubble, and in January 1945 tram services were withdrawn as bombing and fighting over the besieged city reached a new level of intensity. Königsberg was formally surrendered to the
Red army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
early in April 1945, by which time four of the city's five tram depots had been destroyed, along with most of its trams.


Kaliningrad years

By 1945 the
Soviet leadership The political system of the Soviet Union took place in a federal single-party soviet socialist republic framework which was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only party permitted by the Co ...
had persuaded their
allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...
of that time to agree major changes to the international frontiers in central Europe. In 1945/46 a massive programme of
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...
deprived the city of its German population. They were replaced with dispossessed citizens, including large numbers of former soldiers and prisoners, from
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
,
Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
and
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
. By the end of 1946 German
Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
had become Soviet
Kaliningrad Kaliningrad,. known as Königsberg; ; . until 1946, is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, an Enclave and exclave, exclave of Russia between Lithuania and Poland ( west of the bulk of Russia), located on the Prego ...
. The city had strategic value and reconstruction was a priority. On 7 November 1946 a "rump tram network" came into service, initially connecting Kaiser Wilhelm Platz and the northern mainline station to the "Hufenallee" (literally ''"Hooves Alley"''). By the end of November 1946 this line had been extended and by summer 1947 there were three tram lines in service. During the ensuing fifteen years further lines were reconstructed, and by 1960 the network, now organised into ten lines, was served by 129 rebuilt tramcars. (There had been 251 trams operating in 1939.) In 1960 much the Kaliningrad tram network resembled the Königsberg network of the German years, albeit not without various significant realignments and other differences. The biggest differences were right in the heart of the old city centre, which had been utterly destroyed by the war. The lines and platforms in the former "Parade Platz" were not restored. The stretch of track along "Steindamm" (long since renamed Leninski-Prospekt) to Tragheim Palve had been replaced but, at least in 1960, the trams were still not using it. The former Cosse terminus station and the Sachkeimer Gate were still not accessible by tram. Beyond the network as it had existed before 1939, the post war period saw relatively few new line extensions. Between 1959 and 1989 the official population of Kaliningrad grew from 203,570 to 401,280, although actual numbers throughout the period were very fluid due to the high number of military personnel liable to be moved into or out of the city at short notice. Population growth was reflected in extensive Soviet era redevelopment which included necessary adaptations to the tram routes. By the 1970s, however, not every tram line displaced by urban redevelopment was being replaced. Nevertheless, throughout the Perestroika years and the ensuing economic traumas, the city retained its network of ten tramlines. There was no major tram line decommissioning till 1999, although there were also no significant new trams purchases during the closing decades of the twentieth century. There was a general overhaul of the existing tram fleet, however. The closure of Line 7 in 1999 and a certain ambiguity in published plans of that time suggested that having survived the economic turbulence of the 1990s, the Kaliningrad tram network might now face a more challenging future. The first ten years of the twenty first century were indeed years of tram line closure in Kaliningrad, and the line closures were mirrored by the closure of tram depots. By 2009 only two tram lines, with a total length of , remained.


Tram fleet

During the German years Königsberg had its own tram factory, operated by "Waggonfabrik L. Steinfurt AG". 60 kW electric motors and other electric componentry came from
Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...
. During the immediate postwar years some of the old Steinfurt trams continued to be used on the city's diminished tram network, but they were soon replaced with tramcars purchased from the
German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
. One issue affecting the Kaliningrad trams was the one-meter adopted in 1895, and which ruled out easy inter-changeability with the tram networks of other Soviet/Russian cities. However, during a period when investment in tram infrastructure was hard to finance, there were many cities in central Europe still using legacy systems, including some, such as
Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
,
Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
and
Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
, using the one-meter gauge. Tramcars designed in East Germany or Czechoslovakia were therefore designed from the start to be fitted for one of several different gauges, according to local requirements. Kaliningrad later switched from East German trams to Czechoslovak ones, and for many decades the network has, like many in central Europe, purchased its trams from Tatra. The current fleet comprises KT4s and T4s and their derivatives. Some of these were purchased direct from the manufacturer during the Soviet years, while others have been purchased second hand from former
East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
. Additionally, in 1995 two second hand trams, dating back to 1963, were acquired from the city of
Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (), is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, the States of Ger ...
: they were taken out of service in 1999, however, because of problems obtaining replacement parts. One of the ex-Mannheim
Duewag Düwag or Duewag (stylised in all caps), formerly Waggonfabrik Uerdingen, was a German manufacturer of rail vehicles. It was sold in 1999 to Siemens with the brand later retired. History Duewag was founded in March 1898 as Waggonfabrik U ...
trams has subsequently been rebuilt and operates as a "party-tram". A further challenge, especially during the Soviet era, was the
loading gauge A loading gauge is a diagram or physical structure that defines the maximum height and width dimensions in railway vehicles and their loads. Their purpose is to ensure that rail vehicles can pass safely through tunnels and under bridges, and k ...
applied during the construction of the Königsberg/Kaliningrad network. Platforms and other street furniture in other Soviet/Russian cities were designed to accommodate tramcars with a width of . The Kaliningrad network is designed to accommodate a tramcar width of only . Replacement trams for Kaliningrad's aging fleet from Russian manufacturers are therefore not available. In December 2012
Pesa SA Pesa SA (Polish language, Polish: Pojazdy Szynowe Pesa Bydgoszcz) is a Polish rolling stock manufacturer based in Bydgoszcz. The name 'Pesa' derives from the initials PS which stand for ''Pojazdy Szynowe,'' 'railway vehicles' in Polish. Pes ...
of Poland presented a prototype low-floor "Swing" tram for evaluation. At the end of 2012, along with its 51 Tatra trams and its one very old Duewag "party tram", Kaliningrad had one Pesa low-floor "Swing" tram in service. In 2013 a decision was announced to purchase three of the Polish Pesa trams. Other sources refer to plans to purchase ten of these tramcars. The city authorities also signaled an interest in purchasing Ukrainian Electron T5L64 low-floor multi-hinged trams.


References

{{Trams in Russia Tram transport in Russia Tram transport in Germany History of Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad Kaliningrad,. known as Königsberg; ; . until 1946, is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, an Enclave and exclave, exclave of Russia between Lithuania and Poland ( west of the bulk of Russia), located on the Prego ...