Electric railway - The town of Bechyně

As early as the end od the 19th century the inhabitants of Bechyně began to aspire to establish a railway connection with the town of Tábor and possibly with the towns of Týn nad Vltavou and Vodňany. "The Co-operative of the Bechyně Railway" was headed by the mayor Hynek Daniel, MD. Very soon the co-operative won the favour of the goverment and the Land Diet and so as early as in 1896 the Diet of Czech Kingdom decided to take over guarantee of the construction of the railway from Tábor to Bechyně.

At approximately the same time it was "The Czech Edison" František Křižík who was doing experiments with the electric propulsion on the railway and who was constantly and stubbornly persuading people about the advantages of modern electric transport. And so, after common efforts of the co-operative and Křižík`s firm, a permit to work out the project of electric propulsion was granted. The complicated negotiations of "The co-operative of the Bechyně Railway" were succesfully ended by granting the concession to build the railway with electric propulsion between Tábor and Bechyně on 19th April 1902. The granted concession stated that the construction was to be completed by the end of 1904 but the land committee appointed the dead-line as 1st June 1903. Construction was completed exactly in the term and the first test drive took place on 1st June 1903. The first electrified railway of the former Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy was born. A number of celebrities took part in the opening drive: the vice-regent (the governor) of the Czech Kingdom, the count (earl) Coudenhove, the chairman of the land committee, the count Schönborn, the highest earl marshal of the kingdom, the duke Jiří Lobkowic, the inventor Dipl. Ing. František Křižík and others.