ROUTE FUNCTION
LIST OF STOPS
- 14 April 1980: operation of line 25 to the Československo sovětského přátelství Broumovská estate was officially launched at a 13-minute interval.
- 1981: operation on the growing estate was introduced at weekends too and the peak interval shortened to 10 minutes.
- 1990: after the major optimisation of the route network, the line was extended to the square in Ruprechtice.
- 1 July 2004: the line was extended to the Ruprechtice sídliště stop, which is designed as a through stop. The line thus takes on its present form.
- 1 September 2018: selected services continue from Ruprechtice sídliště to the Pavlovice křižovatka stop and vice versa.
Line 25 is fairly specific for Liberec in that one of its ends is a through stop. The terminus is officially Ruprechtice sídliště, but because the Ruprechtice náměstí stop is passed in one direction only, the Hlávkova - Ruprechtice sídliště section can be taken merely as a detour with no real terminus. This does not, of course, apply to the few services to/from the Pavlovice křižovatka stop.
The most common variant is shown in the first video. Since for the driver the whole round is practically one service, exceptionally the entire round is in a single video. It was filmed on a pleasant, calm spring evening, when passenger frequency is already low. At least that shortened the length of the video. The vehicle is an Iveco Urbanway #720.
In the next footage you will see the first morning service, which sets out already from the Pavlovice křižovatka stop and continues all the way to the Broumovská terminus. The other services from the junction usually end at Fügnerova. It was at summer dawn, when it is already light by this time, with an Irisbus Citelis #701.
Next is a weekend service Fügnerova - Pavlovice křižovatka with an Iveco Urbanway #710. Since there are few of these services, passengers from the Ruprechtice náměstí stop, used to line 25 taking them to the centre, tend to be confused when the service stops at the 'wrong' stop, Ruprechtice sídliště. Some realise it and transfer, others do not and unintentionally ride all the way to the Pavlovice junction, where they have to get off and wait for a service to the centre. As can be seen at the end, there were quite a lot of these people in this case too.
And finally, the last two number-switching services to the Pavlovice junction, where they change to line 13 and continue to Kateřinky. Beyond the Na Pískovně stop you can see a number-switching line 12/28 service which departs alongside this one from Fügnerova in the collective departure (in the footage you can hear the dispatcher's departure signal). The services share a route from the Hlávkova x Generála Svobody junction to the Janův Most stop. It was again with vehicle #710.
From chatting with drivers, it seems the 25 is among the least popular lines. It is long — one of its services takes almost an hour. Not that it is so long in kilometres, but it is because the terminus in Ruprechtice is a through one. Another thing is that there are several shifts where line 25 is driven round and round. On the other hand, the line is fairly calm — it does not pass through places where queues often form, and the passengers consist mainly of long-time residents of the estates served. Some may take that as a positive, but some also as a negative, because it is not exciting enough. For me too, it holds that I am not exactly putting myself forward for an assignment on this line.
A calm district, yet within sight of the centre
We begin the journey, of course, at that non-through terminus, and that is Broumovská. It is hard to say whether it is named after the estate or after the street, but, oddly, this narrow loop adjoins neither the street nor the estate. The narrowness has to be stressed, because besides line 25 some line 12 services also turn around here. Both lines are mostly operated by articulated buses, so complicated situations often arise here. Despite the reference to the nearby estate, we are in a surprisingly calm spot among older villas. There is a great view of Ještěd and the incinerator below the hill, but of the Broumovská estate there is no trace — we will have to drive around several villas to reach the other stops.
A detour around the estate
By the Plátenická stop the first panel blocks are already visible, but we do not pass right by them. Instead, on the right, villas continue, and on the left is the service part of the estate. It is dominated by a primary school and the traditional dilapidated socialist service centre with a grocery and a few other businesses. Only beyond it do we reach the edge of the estate, which we slowly drive around. Opposite it a smaller grove with a little meadow has been preserved, which serves the locals as a piece of nature and a place where pets can let off steam.
Off to the centre, past Textilana
Soon, however, a change awaits us — from the fairly calm road we cross onto Jablonecká, drive around the Secondary Vocational School with its popular garden centre, leave the last panel blocks behind and already cross the tram track at the U Lomu junction. Next to it is hidden a small pond that once served the huge Textilana complex, whose remains are before us. Only a kind of wasteland is left of it, which over time turned into a little wood, and it is still uncertain what will be on the site of the old ruins, and whether anything ever will. We will drive around this brownfield for a fairly long time; the name of the next stop will remind us of it too, while on the opposite side, on the hill behind the trees, the oldest Liberec estate, Králův Háj, rises. As a memento of Textilana they left a single half-ruined building, which ends this area. On the other side another panel-block estate looks down on us. Soon we also rejoin the tram track and pass through Na Bídě street, with panel blocks on one side and old houses on the other. These old houses still remember several other houses that had to give way to new projects, namely the reconstruction of the tram track. It is not so long ago that it wove between the old development along a broken street, whereas now its path runs straight and parallel with the Harcov brook along a new street.
A noisy centre
After crossing the tram track and driving around the well-known house now dominated by the Chicago restaurant, the space opens up further and the Fügnerova public transport terminal appears. We pull in to it past several important buildings — the labour office, behind which the S-tower sticks up, the parking house and the Fórum and Delta department stores. These replaced the well-known Ještěd department store, whose loss some cannot bear to this day. After extricating ourselves from Fügnerka, we set off along another of Liberec's traffic arteries towards Šaldovo náměstí. It is lined mostly with taller apartment houses, but also, for example, with the complex of the former Liberec printing works. As soon as we pass the Liberec chateau by literally centimetres, a large open space opens up with two traffic-light junctions, the Plaza shopping centre, the Hotel Liberec, the Zlatý Lev grand hotel, the majestic savings-bank building and other important buildings. At the first traffic-light junction we head onto the tram track-bed, this time of the city tram route. We stop in front of the Plaza, a large exchange of passengers takes place, and we move on to the upper traffic-light junction, which is none other than the most complicated junction in Liberec. After overcoming the Šalďák, we again plunge into a narrow dark street between tall houses that remember much. One of them is the old post office, still the main Liberec post office today. We briefly glimpse the F. X. Šalda Theatre and the Vienna-style town hall. If we are heading towards the centre, we even stop right next to it and circle the Liberec theatre. Heading out of the city, however, we stop at perhaps the most famous Liberec stop, which is at the same time a work of art called the Breakfast of the Giants. Another interesting building in the immediate vicinity of the line is the modern-looking Regional Research Library in Liberec, standing on the site of the old synagogue burned down during Kristallnacht in November 1938. The first buses ran past it from the town hall to Ruprechtice, then still in private hands. The empty space was finally filled in 2001 by the library, linked with a new synagogue. Along Rumjancevova street we pass the cadastral office, one of the technical university buildings and several residential houses, all the way to the area of Tržní náměstí and the swimming pool. The interesting pool building has also served long enough and awaits a major reconstruction, as does the whole area of Tržní náměstí, through which the city ring road should run in the coming years. Right beyond the square awaits a stop by another shopping centre, opposite the Mrtvolky park. Today there is an Albert and a few small shops in it, but locals still use the name Interspar, or just Spar, after the original owner of the building. Beyond the roundabout we finally leave the crowded centre and enter a long section lined with houses, villas and smaller apartment houses. Among them are several well-known pubs; the best known is probably U Jelena, after which one of the stops is named too. The residential character is broken only by the factory of the former Lipa (today Mocca), from which the scent of the well-known sweets can still sometimes be smelled.
Náměstí Míru, the Hockey Stick and the dog field
Beyond the U Beránka stop, which is named after a no-longer-existing restaurant, we continue straight, unlike the 14, which heads by a shortcut into Hlávkova street. A detour to the Ruprechtice náměstí Míru still awaits us. It runs through a villa district in which is hidden, for example, the interesting U Kudrnáče restaurant in a Bavarian style with a terrace, where I often watch the guests increase as the evening goes on. The villa district ends with the open space of náměstí Míru, of which I have memories from childhood. Adjoining it is a primary school, and on the corner there has for years been the popular Ruprechtická cukrárna (patisserie), where my grandparents sometimes used to take me on the way back from trips. Honestly, I am a little surprised that it has survived in such a place to this day, but it has. Sadly that is not the case with the restaurant Repre, which I also occasionally visited for excellent and hearty food. It did not survive the Covid crisis. From náměstí Míru we drive along the little Vrchlického street, clearly dominated by the Church of St Anthony of Padua. We descend the little hill and at the junction rejoin the 14. But only for a moment, because we are already almost at the terminus. The character has suddenly changed. We have reached the largest and best-known panel building in Liberec, which is called the Hockey Stick after its twice-bent shape, because originally it was meant to be bent only once. At each end it has its own stop and it dominates all views of the northern and eastern parts of Liberec. At its end is also the Ruprechtice sídliště loop. For a long time, however, no line actually ends there. The 25 turns around here, but pulls straight into the stop and continues back towards the centre and to Broumovská. So the driver has this whole journey still ahead — in reverse.