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Bochum Stadtbahn | |||
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Overview | |||
Locale | Bochum/Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany | ||
Transit type | Light rail ( Stadtbahn ) | ||
Number of lines | 1 | ||
Line number | U35 | ||
Number of stations | 21 (15 underground) | ||
Website | BOGESTRA | ||
Operation | |||
Began operation | 2 September 1989 | ||
Operator(s) | BOGESTRA | ||
Technical | |||
System length | approx. 15 km (9 mi) | ||
Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) (standard gauge) | ||
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The Bochum Stadtbahn is a light rail line in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, linking the cities of Bochum and Herne. It is operated by BOGESTRA, and is integrated into the Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn network. It consists of a single Stadtbahn line, which includes a tunnel section between the city centers of Bochum and Herne. [1]
The Bochum Stadtbahn opened on 2 September 1989, then operating a route between Castle Herne Strünkede and Bochum Central Station. An extension of the line from the Bochum Central Station south to the Ruhr-University Bochum and to Hustadt opened for service on 28 November 1993. Planned sections of the Bochum Stadtbahn northwest to Recklinghausen and southeast to Witten were never implemented due to the associated costs to these respective municipalities.
The Bochum Stadtbahn route is called the U35 line. It runs north-south for approximately 15 kilometers (9 mi) from Schloss Strünkede in Herne, via the city center of Bochum and the Ruhr University Bochum, to Querenburg in Bochum. More than two-thirds of this line runs underground. [2] Only the southernmost six stations are at grade, in the portion of the U35 line that runs in the median of a highway. On this section, there are three at-grade road crossings, which renders it not a true metro system, but rather a light rail one. Despite that, however, it is one of the few Stadbahn systems not to share tracks and stations with regular trams, like the Frankfurt U-Bahn, making it closer to true metro systems like Munich U-Bahn than other similar light rail systems like Düsseldorf Stadtbahn. The U35 is by far the busiest public transport line in the BOGESTRA service area – it is the only rail line to run every 5 minutes on weekdays and the only one on which the trains consist of two coupled-car trainsets.
The other Stadtbahn lines that were planned for the Bochum Stadtbahn system were never finished, but portions of those planned lines were built and are in use by transit. In Bochum, two more tunnels were built under the city center, one east-west tunnel and one northeast-southwest tunnel. Both of these have four underground stations. In Gelsenkirchen, a tunnel was built as well – it begins at the train station and from there heads north, via the city center.
The U35 line uses 25 standardized Stadtbahnwagen B trainsets from Duewag supplemented with 12 Stadler Tango trainsets (6 delivered in 2008, 6 more in 2021). With the additional Tango trains in stock, the old Stadtbahnwagen B trains will be modernized within the next few years. [3] The first of the modernized trains arrived back in Bochum in March 2024 and is due to be re-integrated into public traffic for the autumn of the same year. [4]
The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr, abbreviated VRR, is a public transport association (Verkehrsverbund) in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It covers most of the Ruhr area, as well as neighbouring parts of the Lower Rhine region, including Düsseldorf and thus large parts of the Rhine-Ruhr conurbation. It was founded on 1 January 1980, and is Europe’s largest body of such kind, covering an area of some 5,000 km2 (1,900 sq mi) with more than 7.8 million inhabitants, spanning as far as Dorsten in the north, Dortmund in the east, Langenfeld in the south, and Mönchengladbach and the Dutch border in the west.
The Bochum-Gelsenkirchener Straßenbahnen AG, abbreviated BOGESTRA, is a public transport operator in the Ruhr area, most notably in the cities of Bochum, Gelsenkirchen and Herne. As of 2012, the company operated, in whole or in part, 9 rail lines, and 65 bus lines. In 2012, BOGESTRA transported a total of 144.9 million passengers. The company is a member of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) public transport association.
Duisburg Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the city of Duisburg in western Germany. It is situated at the meeting point of many important national and international railway lines in the Northwestern Ruhr valley.
Bochum Hauptbahnhof is a railway station for the city of Bochum in western Germany. In its current incarnation, it was built from 1955 to 1957 and is one of the most notable 1950s railway stations in Germany. The station underwent extensive remodeling and modernisation from 2004 to 2006 and was officially reopened on 29 May 2006.
The Bonn Stadtbahn is a Stadtbahn system in Bonn and the surrounding Rhein-Sieg area, that also includes the Bonn Straßenbahn. Although with six actual Stadtbahn lines the network is relatively small, two of Bonn's Stadtbahn lines connect to the much larger Cologne Stadtbahn.
The Düsseldorf Stadtbahn is a Stadtbahn serving Düsseldorf and surrounding areas in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Together with the S-Bahn Rhein-Ruhr, the Stadtbahn forms the backbone of the local public transport system in the city, which is supplemented by other tram and bus lines. On some lines, the light rail operates beyond the city limits of Düsseldorf to the neighboring cities of Neuss, Meerbusch, Krefeld, Duisburg and Ratingen.
Rapid transit in Germany consists of four U-Bahn systems and 14 S-Bahn systems. The U-Bahn, commonly understood to stand for Untergrundbahn, are conventional rapid transit systems that run mostly underground, while the S-Bahn or Stadtschnellbahn are commuter rail services, that may run underground in the city center and have metro-like characteristics in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin which they only have to a lesser extent in other cities. There are also over a dozen semi-metro or Stadtbahn systems that are rapid transit in the city center and light rail outside.
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The Dortmund Stadtbahn is a light rail system in the German city of Dortmund and is integrated in the Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn network. Its network consists of eight lines and is operated by Dortmunder Stadtwerke, which is operating under the brand DSW21 since 2005.
Herne station was opened in the inner city of Herne in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1847 together with the Cologne-Minden trunk line. It was located between the village of Herne, which had about 1,000 inhabitants, and the moated castle of Schloss Strünkede and was south of the current station on Von-der-Heydt-Strasse. It soon had a connection to the more southerly city of Bochum, which until 14 years later did not have its own station. For this reason the station was called Herne-Bochum until 1855.
The Düsseldorf tramway network is a network of tramways serving Düsseldorf, the capital city of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In combination with the Düsseldorf Stadtbahn and Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn, it forms the backbone of the public transport system in Düsseldorf.
Dortmund-Lütgendortmund station is a single-track, underground terminal station in the city of Dortmund in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The platform is accessible by stairs, escalator or lift. It was opened in 1993 at the end of an extension of Line S 4 trains of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn. Trains reverse here in order to return to Unna station. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 5 station.
The Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn is an umbrella system of all of the Stadtbahn lines included in the integrated public transport network of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR), which covers the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area in western Germany. It does not include the Cologne and Bonn Stadtbahn systems, which are integrated in the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg (VRS).
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The Bochum–Essen/Oberhausen railway was built by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company to the north of its main line through the central Ruhr to tap traffic from mines and factories in the northern Ruhr region, which is now in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
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