Horse-drawn railways were first

The railways were brought to Prague by the desire for cheaper wood and coal in 1830. Horse-drawn railway cars ran from today’s Dejvice towards Lány and were supposed to continue to Plzeň. Although the entire length of the project could not be completed, the surveying work for it was of unexpected importance for science. This is because Joachim Barrande, who discovered trilobite fossils in the Berounka valley, also participated in the work.

The first steam locomotive arrived in Prague from Olomouc in 1845 and the station it arrived at, which we now call Masaryk Station, has been in operation since then. Prague thus gained a connection to Vienna. However, the station was bisected by the walls, which contained six large gates that were closed for the night. The tracks also led almost to today’s náměstí Republiky, as the local customs house also had a siding.

The construction of main lines was gaining momentum. Next came a connection to Děčín, so the railway needed to cross the Vltava River. This was accomplished thanks to the builder Alois Negrelli, whose bridge, which is over a kilometre long, is still in use today (and after Charles Bridge it is the oldest preserved bridge in the capital). Negrelli was really not afraid of bold projects and also authored plans for the Suez Canal.

Grébovka was created thanks to the Main Station

The railway boom continued at the turn of the 1860s and 1870s, with 791 kilometres of track completed in the Czech lands in 1871. The individual lines were built by private companies based on government permits. The first track to Prague’s Main Station was built as a branch line from the railway between Vienna and Cheb. It was necessary to carve a tunnel under today’s Vinohrady (although there were actually vineyards and only a few farm houses on the rock then).

Did you ever wonder where they put all the dirt and rocks back then? They were taken care of by the tunnel builder, Moritz Gröbe, who used them to develop the land for his villa (called Gröbovka, later Grébovka or Havlíčkovy sady park). He also used topsoil from the track area at the future station as the final surface.

The first tunnel under Vinohrady was reflected in the street network above. If you ever walk down Londýnská Street, notice that it is unusually wide and all the buildings have front gardens. This is because the founders of the new district wanted to avoid building on the tunnel for safety reasons. Gradually, however, two more tunnels were added under Vinohrady. The last one was opened in 1989 and it is commemorated on the surface by a modern bank building at 20 Anglická Street built in 1995. The original building there was demolished because it had to give way to a construction shaft.

Locomotives ran on batteries in Prague as early as 1928

During the First Republic, a number of concepts were developed in an attempt to provide the development of the railways with a new direction. The developing city was to be supplied by several freight stations—for example at Vypich, Červený vrch, Střížkov and, the largest of them all, on Rohan Island. In the end, only the one in Žižkov was built. It was used, for example, for the quick transshipment of food, which could also be cooled there. Back then, problems were already being solved that experts are still struggling with today: for example, you can discover visions that anticipated the need for five or even seven tracks at Výtoň.

The railways were going electric. First in the centre itself to reduce smoke in the city. At the end of the journey, trains were given electric locomotives instead of steam ones at the outlying stations in Libeň, Vršovice and Smíchov and continued to the Main Station (at that time Wilson Station). However, the extensive track sections did not all have overhead lines, so battery-powered units were used for shunting. Thus, the technology that is slowly returning to the railways as we move away from diesel is not entirely new either.

Prague-Holešovice as a symbol of luxury

After the Second World War, additional links and bypasses were added to, among other things, divert transit freight traffic away from the centre. The socialist regime made it difficult to complete some of the construction projects: Braník Bridge was only opened in 1964, although construction started at the end of the 1940s. The first modern terminal was the Prague-Holešovice railway station. The wheelchair-friendly station, connected to metro line C, trams and buses, was to offer convenience to passengers from international trains. Some important services, for example from Germany to Slovakia, only passed through the Czech capital and did not stop at the Main Station at all. Near Holešovice you can also find the fourth (and currently the youngest) railway bridge, which crosses the Vltava at an angle.

The last key investment was the construction of the New Connection, which opened in 2008. A pair of two-track tunnels replaced the inadequate single-track connection between the Main Station on one side and Libeň and Vysočany on the other.

Do you want to learn even more about the history of rail transport in Prague? Listen to the recording of Marek Binko’s talk at CAMP:

Do you know what tunnels under Prague are to be built? And how will Prague’s railways develop in the future? The future of trains in the city is best presented in the Prague Tomorrow? Connected City exhibition.