page_title: Trams in Belgrade
section_title: From 1892 to World War I
hierarchical_section_title: Trams in Belgrade / History / From 1892 to World War I
caption_attribution_description: Српски / srpski: Трамвајска мрежа Београда 1908. године
context_page_description: The Belgrade tram system is a 1000 mm gauge network that in 2011 had 10 routes running on 43.5 kilometres of track in the city of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is operated with around 200 trams, including ČKD Tatra KT4, CAF Urbos, and DUEWAG Be 4/6 vehicles. The first tram line was introduced on 14 October 1892. In the late 2000s, complete reconstruction of the system commenced.
context_section_description: Belgrade administration signed a contract with Periklos Tziklos from Milan, Italy, in 1891, regarding construction of 21 km (13 mi) long tram grid ("city railway"). Tziklos headed the Serbian-French Society and was concurrently awarded with the concession on introduction of the electricity in Belgrade.
  On 14 October 1892, the first tram line in Belgrade was opened. It went from Kalemegdan to Slavija and was horse-powered. A large festivity was organized in the city for this occasion and two cars were placed in front of the municipal building (Belgrade was organized as a municipality at the time). First passengers were municipal president (mayor) Milovan Marinković and members of the municipal administration (deputies, clerks, etc.). The tram started its inaugural ride at 11:00 AM, in the direction of the central Terazije square, where several thousand of citizens gathered to greet "city train", and where the Metropolitan of Belgrade, Mihailo Jovanović, blessed the first tram.
  The line had a total of 8 cars, operated by 2 horses each. The interval between the cars was 10-12 minutes and the total duration of the line was 18 minutes. Each car had 6 horses assigned to it, which changed shifts at every 2 hours. There were no designated stops except at the terminuses. The passengers were simply stopping the trams wherever they needed to get on or off. Each car had room for 16 sitting and 16 standing passengers. Second line was Slavija-Belgrade Central railway station-Sava Port, and the third was Terazije-Belgrade New Cemetery.
  First chief of the tram transportation in Belgrade was Czech émigré Vinčenc Blažek, while the treasurer was Jean Salot from France. The horses were stationed in the tram depot, built along the Tsarigrad Road, modern Depo in Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra. The complex was called "tram stables". Despite the introduction of the electricity powered trams two years later, the horses continued to be used until 1904.
  The first electric line was introduced on 5 June 1894. The first electric line (fourth in total, with "tracks for technical power") connected Terazije, the very downtown of Belgrade, with Topčider, at the time a suburban forest and an excursion area. By the second half of the 1890s, the city already had 10 km (6.2 mi) of tracks. The route to Topčider went down the steep Topčider Road (modern Kneza Miloša Street), which caused frequent derails of the trams and subsequent constant complains from the citizens. Then for about 10 years, from the end of 1894, there were no works on modernization and widening of the tram system. It was not until 1903, when the operations related to the construction and exploitation of tram transport and electric lighting were passed, that the electrification of tram lines sped up.
  In 1894, the first strike occurred, which halted trams for several days. Employees had only 2 days off in a month and the bosses wanted to abolish that, too. In the end, the company raised wages for 10 dinars per month. Citizens often made official complaints to the city regarding trams. Main complaints were: that trams were getting late already at the start; general unreliability of the organized transportation; deliberate reducing of number of the cars by the Society, below the number of trams stipulated by the contract with the city; frequent stopping of the trams due to the voltage and ensuing fighting with the conductors which were supposed to refund the passengers in these cases but were refusing to do so; inadequacy of the "summer cars" and "winter cars". According to the archived complaints, a major problem was height of the kids. Children lower than a meter (3 feet 3.5 inches) weren't paying the ticket. The conductors had a special stick to measure the children, but the parents often claimed that their children were lower than the stick would show.
  During 1904, electric trams replaced horse-drawn trams on the Kalemegdan – Slavija and Kafana Žagubica – Električna centrala routes and in 1905 the last ones were replaced at Terazije - New Cemetery route. Apart from performing the function of pub
caption: Belgrade tram grid in 1908
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