Prague Metro - History

History

Although the Prague Metro system is relatively new, ideas to build some kind of underground transport in the city reach far into its history. The first proposal to build a sub-surface railway was made by Ladislav Rott in 1898. He encouraged the city council to take the advantage of the fact that parts of the central city were already being dug up for sewer work. Rott wanted them to start digging tunnels for the railway at the same time. However, the plan was denied by the city authorities. Another proposal in 1926, by Bohumil Belada and Vladimír List, was the first to use the term "Metro", and though it was not accepted either, it served as an impulse for moving towards a real solution of the rapidly developing transport in Prague. In the 1930s and 1940s, intensive projection and planning works were being held, taking into account two possible solutions: an underground tramway (regular rolling stock going under ground in the city center, nowadays described as a "pre-metro") and a "true" metro having its own independent system of railways. After World War II, all work was stopped due to the poor economic situation of the country, although the three lines, A, B and C, had been almost fully designed.

In the early 1960s the concept of the sub-surface tramway was finally accepted and on 9 August 1967 the actual building of the first station (Hlavní nádraží) started. However, at the same year, a substantial change in the concept came, as the government, under the influence of Soviet advisers, decided to build a "true" metro system instead of an underground tramway. Thus, during the first years, the construction continued while the whole project was conceptually transformed. The regular service of the first section of line C began operating on 9 May 1974 between Sokolovská (now Florenc) and Kačerov stations. Building continued quite rapidly after that. In 1978 the first section of line A was opened and, finally, line B opened in 1985, thus forming the triangle with three crossing points. Since then, the tracks have been extended further from the center. Line B was extended from Nové Butovice to Zličín in 1994 and from Českomoravská to Černý Most in 1998. The Kolbenova and Hloubětín stations were opened in 2001.

On 22 February 1990, 11 stations with names reflecting communist ideology were changed to be politically neutral. Leninova station, which contained a giant bust of Lenin before the Velvet Revolution, was renamed Dejvická after a nearby street and surrounding neighbourhood.

In the meantime, the old Russian trains are slowly wearing out and are being refurbished or replaced. The refurbished trains are projected to serve for another 15 years. The renewal of the rolling stock should be completed by 2007.

In August 2002, the metro suffered disastrous flooding that struck parts of Bohemia and other areas in Central Europe (see 2002 European flood). 19 stations were flooded, causing a partial collapse of the transport system in Prague; the damage to the metro has been estimated at approximately 7 billion CZK (over US$200 million). The affected sections of the metro stayed out of service for several months; the last station (Křižíkova, located in the most-damaged area - Karlín) reopened in March 2003. Small gold plates have been placed at some stations to show the highest water level of the flood. All the trains were terminated at:

• Radlická and returned to Zličín B
• Kolbenova and returned to Černý Most B
• Malostranská and returned to Dejvická A
• Náměstí Míru and returned to Skalka A (before the Depo Hostivař extension)
• Hlavní nádraží and returned to Haje C

Was suspened between:

• Between Radlická (Prague Metro) and Kolbenova on the line B
• Between Malostranská and Náměstí Míru on the line A
• Between Hlavní nádraží and Nádraží Holešovice (before the extension to Ladvi in 2004 and to Letnany in 2008) on the line C

A northern extension of line C was opened on 26 June 2004, with two more stations, Kobylisy and Ládví. Notable is the way that new tunnels were built under the Vltava river. A unique "ejecting-tunnels" technology was chosen for this. First, a trench was excavated in the riverbed and the concrete tunnels constructed in dry docks on the riverbank. Then the docks were flooded, and the floating tunnels were moved as a rigid complex to their final position, sunk, anchored and covered.

Line A was recently extended farther to the east. On 26 May 2006, a new terminus, Depo Hostivař, opened. The station was constructed within the buildings of an existing railway depot. The extension is the first segment of the system that has been built above ground and not through a tunnel.

Line C has been recently extended further to the northeast to connect the city center to the large housing blocks in Prosek. Three stations (Střížkov, Prosek and Letňany) opened on 8 May 2008.