Prague metro celebrating 50 years of service
The Prague metro is celebrating 50 years of service this week with a number of special events for the public. People can visit an exhibition on the history of the metro, ride on the historic first trains that opened the Prague subway or play a geo game that will take them to all the stations around the city.
It is May 9th 1974 and at 9 hours and 19 minutes, Prague’s first metro train carrying the communist top brass and selected journalists undertakes its first journey on line C, going from Kačerov to Florenc. The event was the main story on the prime time evening news.
Fifty years later the Prague metro operates on three lines (A, B and C) has 61 stations around the capital and is 65.2 kilometers long. The metro serves about 1.5 million people every day.
To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Prague Transit Company is bringing out its historic trains for a symbolic birthday ride. On May 9,, at 9 hours and 19 minutes members of the public can board the metro and set off on the same route from Kačerov to Florenc.
Other historic trains will be available for people to ride a day earlier, on VE day, says Petr Witowski, Director of the Prague Transit Company.
"On May 8, which is a public holiday, people will be able to take a ride on four historical trains that will run on the C line from 9am to 4pm. They will be running throughout the day so that everyone gets a chance to ride in them.”
People interested in the history of the Prague metro will also be able to play a special geo game in the metro in the coming months. Petr Malík, the head of the Museum of Public Transport in the Střešovice depot explains.
"People can download the app and install the game, which will then take them around all the Prague metro stations, all 61 of them. Players will get a lot of interesting info about each station – when it was built, how deep it is and why it is named the way it is. And there's a question to be answered at the end of each visit. People who answer correctly fifteen times will get a certificate and a small gift."
In the coming months people can also visit a travelling exhibition on the history of the Prague metro, which will be on display at several locations. It charts the development of the Prague metro from the first design to the not too distant future, which should bring driverless trains.
Prague City Council has already given the go-ahead for the purchase of 69 driverless trains which are expected to start operating in 2029.
The exhibition also reports on the ongoing construction of metro line D will should come into operation that same year. The D line will be 10.6 km long and will have a total of ten stations, stretching from Náměstí Míru (on line A) via Pankrác (on line C) to Písnice in the south of Prague.
The exhibition on the history and future of the Prague metro was first on display at the Kačerov Depot this weekend.
A calendar of the travelling exhibition and further details can be found on: metroslavi.cz.
