Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland and stands on the River Vistula. It was founded in the 13th century but became prominent in the late 16th century when the King of Poland, Sigismund III, moved the Polish capital from Krakow. From then on, Warsaw (and Poland as a whole) saw many changes of government and authority over the centuries, including German occupation from 1939 to 1945. By the end of World War II, most of the city had been destroyed including the Royal Castle shown in the background on our postcard, but it was reconstructed between 1971 and 1984 and now houses a museum and State meeting rooms.
This unusual artist-drawn postcard shows Warsaw 'Type-A' tram 52. All is not what it seems at first sight because the novelty is that the route number on the left of the roof and the route description above the side windows can be changed by turning a cardboard wheel sandwiched between the front and back of the postcard. The protrusions top and bottom can just be seen in the image. By turning this wheel, all 24 tram routes of the time (1909) - routes 0 to 23 - can be displayed.
The card was posted from Warsaw to Liege (Belgium) on 8 April 1909, arriving two days later. The apparently young Polish writer (Janka, a kitchen worker), wishes her grandmother a 'Happy Easter' but also includes a short comment about the picture: 'Such a pretty tram I have never seen before!' On the back of the card is printed (in translation): "I filed a patent application with the Minister of Industry and Trade with no. 38126". However, there is no publisher's name and, unfortunately, no record of this old application number can now be found at the Polish Patent Office.
The first Warsaw tramway came in 1866 when a 6km (3.7 mile) horse tram line was built to transport goods and passengers between the Vienna Railway Station and the Petersburg and Terespol railway stations across the River Vistula. In 1880, a second line was constructed by a Belgian company for public transport in the city. The company expanded its own lines and took over the line between the railway stations in 1882. In 1899 the entire tram system, by then 30km of tracks with 234 tram cars and 654 horses operating 17 lines, was purchased by the city. By 1903, plans were drafted to convert the system to operate electric trams and these were completed by 1908. After World War I, the network developed rapidly, handling increased traffic and extending to the outskirts of the city. The city network still used Russian gauge (5 ft., 1524 mm), a legacy from Russian times.
The tram system remained operational, although gradually deteriorating, during most of the Nazi occupation from 1939 until the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, after which all the infrastructure was systematically destroyed. After the war it was rebuilt relatively quickly. As the system was practically rebuilt from scratch, the occasion was used to convert it to standard gauge.
Today, the Public Transport Authority (Zarząd Transportu Miejskiego w Warszawie, or ZTM) is the local government body organising public transport in Warsaw and the surrounding metropolitan area. Their services are branded as Warszawski Transport Publiczny or WTP (Warsaw Public Transport) and include the approximately 125 kilometre (78 route mile) tram system. After 1989, the tram system in Warsaw initially received little investment with a large part of the city's budget spent on the construction of the first Warsaw metro line. However, since 2005, the situation has been changing with the purchase of new rolling stock and modernisation of key tram routes.
Warsaw is one of the world's largest tramway networks with over 800 tramcars and a sizeable historic fleet, much of it operational, including restored 'Type-A' tram 43 of 1907 (built by Falkenried of Hamburg and MAN) which is of the same type shown on our postcard.
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