The end of an era
Decline
In the second half of the 20th century the tram began to yield the streets to cars and buses. One by one its routes disappeared.
The end of an era
In the second half of the 20th century the tram began to yield the streets to cars and buses. One by one its routes disappeared.
Every form of transport has its age. The Baku tram, which lived through several eras, in the end gave way to a new urban rhythm.
Decline
From the 1970s the network began to shrink: tram tracks were lifted from busy central streets, routes to the far suburbs were closed. The city gave its streets more and more to cars.
Old cars and rails gradually became a sign of a passing era rather than of modern transport.
Decline
In January 2004 the Baku tram made its final run — it was route No. 6. The city was just short of the 80th anniversary of the electric tram's launch.
So ended more than a century of the tram in Baku — quietly, without loud farewells, but not without sadness for those who remembered it.
How the tram departed
The start of the network's decline.
Rails lifted from busy streets.
Closure of the far routes.
The final run of route No. 6.
The images in this section are atmospheric reconstructions; the real 1987 shot shows a tram of the later period.