The idea of the electrical tram starts to become a reality on December 1, 1898. On this day Sofia Municipality gives application for a concession to electrification of the city and to construction of tramways to the French company “Marseille” and to the anonymous Belgian company “Electrical Trams”. After a little more than a year – on January 1, 1901 officially was given the beginning of the Sofia Railway Transport on six destinations with overall length of 23 km. There were 25 railcars and 10 trailers. The wheel gauge was 1000 mm.
The lines with most passengers were the one from the Central Railway Station through Lions Bridge to “Slaveykov” square and the one from “St. Nedelya” square to Knyajevo district. The first railcars were very small with open platforms and metal grid.
The salon was divided into first and second class. With increasing the number of the passengers new and more modern railcars, produced by European company and mostly by the German company “Siemens”, were delivered.
In 1916 Sofia Municipality began a deprivation procedure and took away from the Belgian company the exploitation of the Sofia Railway Transport. The procedure was long and difficult and comes to an end in the beginning of 1927. In the same year The Main Technical Workshop was founded on the territory of “Maria Luiza” depot. Thus was created a company for repair and reconstruction of the railcars and trailers. In 1931 were manufactured the first Bulgarian trailers. Five years later – in 1936 begins the manufacturing of the first Bulgarian biaxial railcars equipped with imported controllers and motors. New types of constructions are introduced. The tram park is constantly growing. The expansion and the modernization of the tram network continues.
At the moment the Sofia tram transport carries passengers in 15 lines with length of 308 km.
