The Berlin–Hohenschönhausen tram was a tram operated under the Prussian Small Railway Act between Berlin and the rural municipality of Hohenschönhausen, which was incorporated into Berlin in 1920 (from 1911: Berlin-Hohenschönhausen). Opened in 1899, the line was operated by the Continentale Gesellschaft für elektrische Unternehmungen from Nuremberg until 1906, and then by the Aktiengesellschaft der Neue Berliner Straßenbahnen Nordost. In 1910, the Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS) bought the company and renamed it the Nordöstliche Berliner Vorortbahn (NöBV). In 1919, the line was absorbed into the GBS and thus became an integral part of the Berlin tram network. Large parts of the route are still in operation and are currently served by the M5 tram line of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG).
History
Past history After the construction of the Stettiner Bahn in 1842 and the Ostbahn in 1867, Hohenschönhausen was in a region that was only inadequately connected to the Prussian railway network. With the construction of the central cattle and slaughterhouse along the ring line south of Landsberger Allee in 1881, the community experienced major population growth. Along Berliner Straße (from 1985: Konrad-Wolf-Straße), the colonies of Neu-Hohenschönhausen were created in the area of today's Sportforum and Wilhelmsberg in the area of today's Fennpfuhl district. Another major employer from 1892 was the Hohenschönhausen brewery (from 1903: Löwenbrauerei) on Berliner Straße.
In 1890, Manon Gropius sold the Hohenschönhausen manor to the merchant Gerhard Puchmüller, who had it divided into parcels from 1892 onwards. The following year, the Aachen banker Henry Suermondt acquired the estate from Puchmüller and founded the Berlin Land Acquisition and Construction Company to market the land. The first Hohenschönhausen villa colony was subsequently built on the site between Berliner Strasse and Orankesee. The Neue Boden Aktien-Gesellschaft later acquired the land north of it on the Obersee from the brewery, and a second villa colony was built on it around the turn of the century. In order to connect the village and the colonies to Berlin, the Land Acquisition and Construction Company set up a horse-drawn bus line in 1893 to the intersection of Landsberger Allee and Elbinger Strasse (today: Danziger Strasse). Here there was a connection to the lines of the New Berlin Horse-Drawn Tram (NBPf) in the direction of Alexanderplatz. With the Landsberger Allee ring station, which opened west of the municipal border on May 1, 1895, Hohenschönhausen had another connection point to local public transport.
Planning and approval procedures By 1894, the bus was already carrying 137,950 people and was soon reaching its capacity limits. In the same year, Suermondt submitted an application to the Niederbarnim district committee for approval of a Berlin–Hohenschönhausen tram line. The application included a detailed plan of the route, which was to run from Landsberger Allee via Thaerstrasse (from 1911: Oderbruchstrasse), Hohenschönhauser Strasse and Berliner Strasse to Bahnhofstrasse (from 1912: Degnerstrasse). Passing points were planned on Hohenschönhauser Strasse and at the level of Orankestrasse. The plan also envisaged a depot with an attached power station at the eastern end of the route. The line ran on Berliner up to the control house at the intersection of Landsberger Allee and Thaerstrasse, then up to the junction of today's Berkenbrücker Steig in the Lichtenberg municipal area.
On 17 January 1895, the district committee granted approval for the section running through Lichtenberg subject to conditions. These called for the track to be relocated to the south side of the street. The company had to bear the costs of paving or resurfacing the streets, as well as removing the tracks if the line was closed. A deposit of 10,000 marks had to be paid as security. The tree protection measures demanded by the rural municipality of Lichtenberg (with town rights from 1907/08, Berlin-Lichtenberg from 1912) at the company's expense did not have to be complied with. On 30 July 1895, the municipality of Hohenschönhausen passed a resolution to grant the railway approval until 31 December 1925; the corresponding approval letter was written on 20 January 1896. It largely corresponded to its Lichtenberg counterpart, from which some passages were taken. The company agreed to this without reservation on January 29, 1896.
To carry out the construction and operation of the railway, the land acquisition and construction company concluded a contract shortly afterwards with the Continentale Gesellschaft für elektrische Unternehmungen (Continentale) from Nuremberg, which then founded the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen electric tramway in 1897. Continentale then held negotiations with the Berlin magistrate in order to be able to extend the railway as far into the city as possible. Both sides agreed to extend the railway over the NBPf tracks to the corner of Landsberger Strasse and Waßmannstrasse. On June 29 and July 8, 1898, both sides signed the corresponding consent contract. In it, Continentale undertook to pay eight percent of the gross revenue generated annually to the city of Berlin for the use of the toll route. If the profits exceeded six percent of the invested capital, the city would receive half of these surpluses.
Accordingly, the magistrate was granted the right to obtain information about the entrepreneur's financial situation. Meanwhile, the Hohenschönhausen municipal council was trying to extend the route to the schoolhouse on Dorfstrasse (from around 1900: Hauptstrasse). The company, represented by legal counsel Julius Grosse-Leege, was willing to agree to this provided the municipality made a corresponding contribution towards the costs. The municipality initially declared itself willing to cover the costs of paving Berliner Strasse, amounting to 50,000 marks, as well as an interest guarantee of five percent for six years. When Grosse-Leege pointed out that if an interest guarantee had been granted, the district committee would have had to negotiate again, thus delaying the process, the municipality increased the guarantee to 2,500 marks per year for a period of ten years. The district administrator then informed the municipality that he would not approve this project because the sum exceeded the municipality's ability to pay. He therefore demanded that the landowners adjacent to the route participate in the guarantee. The company finally promised more favorable conditions: instead of 50,000 marks, the municipality would now have to raise 30,000 marks for the paving and pay interest on the capital at a rate of five percent (1,500 marks) over ten years. On June 28, 1898, the municipal council decided to accept the company's conditions. When enough people had signed up, the district committee approved the project.
Construction and commissioning When the contract was signed in 1898, Continentale had committed itself to applying for official approval within six months. After the concession was granted, construction was to begin immediately and be completed after a year, otherwise it would expire. Despite the concession still being outstanding, the company made initial construction preparations in the same year and immediately began laying the line. According to Suermondt's plans, the operations center was to be built on Bahnhofstrasse. This was where the construction of a carriage shed, a power plant to supply electricity, and administration were planned. The work progressed relatively quickly, so that the railway could be officially approved on the morning of October 21, 1899. The opening took place afterwards. The carriages, eight motor cars and six trailers, were "adorned with fir leaves" and bore the Bavarian flag as a reference to the Nuremberg company. Around nine months later, on June 16, 1900, the Royal Police Headquarters in Berlin granted the outstanding concession.
The trains covered the route, which was given as a 6,616 meter long, in 30 minutes at a top speed of 30 km/h. Trains ran every 20 or 24 minutes. A more frequent service was initially ruled out because the electrical control center had not yet been completed and the railway therefore had to get its power from the Berlin power plants. In addition to passenger traffic, the company also had to transport waste, sewer contents and corpses in specially designed wagons at the request of the magistrate and in return for compensation. The frequency and extent of the latter transports are not known, but there are several indications in the company's annual reports that they were carried out. The necessity is explained by the fact that the railway provided a direct connection between the municipal hospital in Friedrichshain and the Protestant cemetery of the St. Andreas and St. Markus parishes and the Catholic cemetery of the St. Pius and St. Hedwig parishes.
Extension and takeover by the Great Berlin Tramway Transport performance was moderate in the first few years. In 1902 the railway carried 1.3 million passengers with a workforce of 55. No dividend was paid. As early as 1900, Continentale tried to extend the route via Kaiserstrasse, Alexanderstrasse, Grunerstrasse, Neue Friedrichstrasse and Wallstrasse to Spittelmarkt. The police headquarters rejected the application, citing the narrow width of Neue Friedrichstrasse. In the outward direction, the company was granted a preliminary concession in 1906 to extend the line to Ahrensfelde with an option to the new Ostkirchhof. This plan was not implemented. A further application in July 1919 was rejected due to lack of demand.
On December 10, 1906, the newly founded Neue Berliner Straßenbahnen Nordost AG took over the railway from the Continentale Company. In 1907, the company introduced a 7.5-minute cycle, and on August 4, 1908, the line was extended by around 700 metres to the immediate vicinity of Alexanderplatz. The track ran from the Waßmannstrasse terminus through Elisabethstrasse to Kurze Strasse. This also increased passenger numbers, so that the company was able to pay a dividend of four percent, or 48,000 marks, that year. In order to forestall further competition, the GBS, which had already taken over the NBPf in 1900, acquired the company's shares on May 3, 1910. From then on, the company was known as the Nordöstliche Berliner Vorortbahn AG (NöBV). At the same time, the GBS took over the administration of the railway.
In 1911, the railway carried around four million passengers. Demand was particularly high each year at Whitsun and Remembrance Sunday. On 5 May 1913, the extension from the schoolhouse to the intersection of Wartenberger Strasse and Falkenberger Strasse (since 1984: Gehrenseestrasse) went into operation. The NöBV line was withdrawn to Orankestrasse on the same day and given the line designation NO. The new section of route was taken over by GBS line 164, which had been running on the NöBV tracks to Landsberger Allee station since 15 April 1912. Its western terminus was initially at Jungfernheide station and from 1914 in Siemensstadt.