Six Weeks Without Trams to Nákladové Nádraží Žižkov — Because the New Line Is Finally Starting

Trams stop running between Olšanské náměstí and Nákladové nádraží Žižkov from about 4.30am on Saturday 29 August until the end of Saturday 10 October. PID gives the reason in one line: preparatory work before construction of a new tram line. That line is Olšanská–Habrová, and the closure is the first physical sign that it is actually being built.

What changes on the network

Five lines are affected, and the pattern is a familiar one — the network folds inward around the missing section.

• Line 34 is cancelled outright.
• Line 26 is cut back to terminate at Olšanské hřbitovy instead of running through to Nákladové nádraží.
• Lines 9 and 95 are diverted via Flora and Olšanské hřbitovy to Želivského.
• Line 5 is rerouted entirely, and in two stages.

Line 5 is the one worth following. Over the weekend of 29 and 30 August it runs via Masarykovo nádraží, Náměstí Republiky and Strossmayerovo náměstí to Nádraží Holešovice, where it continues as line 6. From Monday 31 August it swaps Strossmayerovo náměstí for Bílá labuť and Těšnov — because that is the day tram service returns to Hlávkův most. Praha 7's town hall, which put out its own notice on 24 August, frames the change as a gain rather than a loss for Holešovice: from Vltavská the 5 gives a faster run into the centre, and line 12 a faster run into Karlín.

PID's notice lists no replacement bus service for the closed section.

The line the closure is for

DPP awarded the Olšanská–Habrová contract in May. A consortium of FIRESTA, rekonstrukce, stavby; PEDASTA, dopravní stavby; and N+N – Konstrukce a dopravní stavby Litoměřice won with a bid of CZK 599.2 million excluding VAT — almost CZK 110 million under the tender's estimated value. The build period is 12 months, and DPP said at the time that construction would begin in the third quarter of this year. A closure starting on 29 August is that promise landing on schedule.

The route is unusual for Prague. Nearly two kilometres long, it runs mostly in the alignment of the disused Praha-Žižkov – Praha-Malešice local railway and through the former Nákladové nádraží Žižkov site, where a new district is being built. DPP reuses the railway formation as far as possible, and over roughly the last 600 metres reuses the railway track itself, adapted for tram operation.

It starts from a new junction off Jana Želivského at Olšanská and ends in a stub terminus south of Osiková. About two thirds of it — 1.34 kilometres, from Jana Želivského to just past the future Vackov stop — is double track. Around a hundred metres beyond Vackov it becomes single track. Power comes from a new substation DPP is building on Na Viktorce.

Six stops, now with final names

The stop names were confirmed by Prague City Hall's transport department at the same time as the contract:

• Nákladové nádraží Žižkov and Bernasova (working names Nový Žižkov and Nákladová), both on a newly laid street inside the former freight yard, serving the district going up there.
• Třebešín (working name Malešická), where the alignment passes under K Červenému dvoru. DPP says these will markedly improve access for existing housing north and south of the tracks, served today only by buses; the nearby Třebešín bus stops will be renamed Zvěřinova once trams run.
• Vackov (working name Pod Kapličkou), at the crossing with the footpath linking Nad Kapličkou to Malešická.
• Habrová, on the single-track section, with a single platform — passengers will always board from the north, whichever way the tram is going. It sits about 150 metres from the existing Habrová bus stops.
• Jarov (working name Sídliště Jarov), the terminus, a two-track stub with an island platform south of Osiková.

The project is co-financed by the European Union through the Transport Programme 2021–2027.

What is actually being rebuilt, and the loop next door

DPP's own announcement on 27 August put the engineering behind the closure on the record. The work is the first part of rebuilding the track fan at the junction of Olšanská and Jana Želivského, and building the connection of the future Olšanská–Habrová line into the existing network. The geometry of the crossing has to change so that a tram can continue straight ahead from Olšanská onto the new line towards Jarov and back again, and new facing points have to be installed in the direction from Olšanská.

It runs in stages. The first keeps to the track in Olšanská between the junctions with Ke Kapslovně and Jana Želivského, so that trams in Jana Želivského between Želivského and Biskupcova are not disrupted. The next stage of the rebuild will run at the same time as the modernisation of the northern section of track in Jana Želivského, which DPP plans for this autumn. The same consortium that won the new line — FIRESTA, PEDASTA and N+N Litoměřice — is carrying out the junction rebuild.

From the same Saturday, and for two weeks until the morning of 12 September, DPP is also repairing the track in the Spojovací loop, with trams suspended in the turning loop itself. All four life-expired switches are being replaced with heated ones, two of them remotely controlled so drivers no longer have to throw them by hand; the switches get new drainage, and two worn crossing frogs in the track fan are being replaced too. Lines 9, 11 and 98 are cut back to Vozovna Žižkov, and line 31 covers the Kněžská luka/Spojovací section, strengthened at peak times to a four-minute interval.

Two closures in one district at once is not an accident of scheduling, and DPP said so plainly.

The coincidence of these two projects of ours does not please us at all, but unfortunately it was not possible to do it otherwise or at another time, given other construction works this year and next and with regard to maintaining maximum service to Prague 3 by high-capacity tram transport.

— Jan Šurovský, vice-chairman of the board and technical director of DPP – Surface

The reason is what comes after. Once these two jobs and the second stage of the Jana Želivského modernisation are done — that runs to about mid-December — the reconstruction of the tram line in Seifertova, Táboritská and Jičínská takes over, starting in earnest right after the new Václavské náměstí and Muzeum lines open at the end of June 2027. During that, Šurovský said, DPP cannot afford larger repairs on Vinohradská, Jana Želivského or Hartigova, because those are the tracks that keep trams reaching Prague 3 at all. Nor can the work be deferred past it: on DPP's account the existing tracks might not survive to the end of 2028.

Read together, the closure notice and the May contract say the same thing from two directions: the six weeks of missing trams on Žižkov are the cost of a line that turns a derelict freight railway into scheduled public transport for a district that does not exist yet.