Fedir Pirotski, a Ukrainian military officer and engineer, carries out in August 1880 in St. Petersburg the first documented trial of a tram propelled by electricity transmitted through the rails: he adapts a horse-tram car to run on an electric motor powered through the rails themselves. Werner von Siemens had demonstrated a small electric train on its own track at the 1879 Berlin Exhibition; Pirotski worked independently and applied electric propulsion to the existing urban tram system with shared rails. The first regular commercial electric tram was Siemens's in Lichterfelde (Berlin, 1881). Pirotski's technical priority in demonstrating the concept is recognized but rarely cited outside Ukrainian historiography.