Siemens History

With or without a claim: for more than 30 years, the company mark has mainly appeared in the color petrol against a white background. Nowadays, petrol is a fashionable color that represents elegance and profundity. When Siemens opted for this color and came up with a newly designed company-name logo a few years later, it created a unique mark that also embodied the uniformity it had been striving for for decades.

The world’s first electrically operated streetcar, one of Werner von Siemens' major innovations, was inaugurated 140 years ago on May 12, 1881 in the Berlin suburb of Gross-Lichterfelde. The 2.5-kilometer-long line connected the Lichterfelde station with the military academy.  From the first day of regular service the streetcar was a great success: it transported 12,000 passengers in its first three months alone. But the development of this milestone of urban transport didn't go according to plan. 

It is still in use today – the Budapest subway line, which bears the name M1 on the Hungarian capital's metro network. For the locals it is simply the "little underground one". Constructed by Siemens & Halske, it has made history, since it is the first electrical powered underground line on the European continent, serving as a model for other subway projects. After a construction period just short of two years, the 3.75 km long line with its total of eleven stops was inaugurated on May 2, 1896.