Sarajevo got its first tram on this day

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - On this day, January 1, 1885, Sarajevo got its first tram, making the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina one of the few cities with this form of transport.  

So as not to tear up the streets of Vienna or Pest in vain, the Austro-Hungarians decided to test the "horse railway" - as the tram was then called - first in Sarajevo.

Thus, in the summer of 1884, digging of Sarajevo's streets and laying of tram tracks began. On that occasion, Sarajevo lost one of its most beautiful bridges - a stone bridge that spanned the Koševski stream near Alipašina Mosque, but it also gained the title of the first city in the Balkans and Central Europe to have a tram. The first tram line in Sarajevo was 3.1 kilometers long, starting from today's Faculty of Economics, running along Ferhadija and further down the main city street (today's Titova) past Marijin Dvor, ending at the narrow railway station. Only one track was laid at the time, so the tram returned along the same rails it came on. It was prescribed that a single horse should not pull more than two rounds, so as not to exhaust it. Johan Hanke was the first "tram driver," writes historija.ba

The first tram officially began operation on January 1, 1885, at 10 a.m. All four passenger cars stood in front of the station in Ferhadija, and gathered before them were the provincial governor Appel, civil adlatus Nikolić, sub-marshal Buvard, generals Haas and Arlow, heads of the Provincial Government, and the City Administration. This entire entourage then got into the cars and in 13 minutes rode to the city station "smoothly, cleanly, silently, as if on the palm of a hand."