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Essen Stadtbahn
The Essen Stadtbahn (German: Stadtbahn Essen) is a 19.6-kilometer (12.2 mi) light rail (Stadtbahn) network in Essen and the two neighbouring towns of Mülheim an der Ruhr and Gelsenkirchen in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia. It forms part of the Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn.
Like the Frankfurt U-Bahn, it is a mixed system of light rail and underground railway. One of its three lines, U18, runs completely free of intersections with other traffic. The other two lines are partly tramlines and partly underground lines. The sections of tramline have only a few sections that have no intersections with road traffic.
Like all urban public transport in Essen, the Essen Stadtbahn is operated by Ruhrbahn, a company owned by the Cities of Essen and Mülheim an der Ruhr. The transport companies of neighbouring municipalities are also involved with the operation of some lines under concessions.
The Essen Stadtbahn includes three standard gauge lines: U11, U17 and U18. The Essen tram network also has seven "classic" tram lines, which run on metre gauge tracks, with around 52 kilometres (32 mi) of track. Both the metre and standard gauge lines run underground in the centre of Essen. While sections are built as Stadtbahn lines, partly in tunnel, and have stations with high platforms, there are also tram lines used only by low-floor trams serving stops with low platforms. An exception is the underground section of the southern route to Bredeney where the stations are served by a mixture of high-platform and low-platform rollingstock and therefore the stations have to be adapted for both types of vehicle.
The four-track station at Essen Hauptbahnhof is the most important point of intersection between the three Stadtbahn lines and four, sometimes five tram lines where it is possible to switch between Stadtbahn trains and trams on the same platform. For this purpose the two different levels of the platform are connected by ramps. The platforms are arranged so that it is possible to transfer across the platform between trains and trams running to the north and between trains and trams running to the south. A bridge spans the entire underground station that is accessible by lifts, providing an easy interchange and a barrier-free transfer for the disabled to trains running in opposite directions. Stadtbahn cars and trams share several other stations. Tram lines 101 and 107 run on the southern section of the Stadtbahn tunnel from Essen Hauptbahnhof to Martinstraße, using the high platforms of the Stadtbahn. Therefore, the high-floor tramcars use fold-up steps on these two lines. This line is equipped with dual gauge track with three rails to cater for the different track gauges.
All three Stadtbahn lines run to the same pattern: services on each line run during the peak hour at 10-minute intervals, in the evenings and on weekends or public holidays at 15-minute intervals and late in the evening at 30-minute intervals. During trade fairs, services on line U11 run on weekends at 10-minute intervals; between Messe (fair ground) and Berliner Platz they sometimes even run at 5-minute intervals. Operations end on all three lines at about 23:00.[citation needed]
During the building of the first tramline in Essen in 1893, planning began on a partially underground railway, which was not realised until decades after the Second World War. The first preliminary line of the current Stadtbahn emerged in the early 1960s and were laid partly as tram tracks on the median strip of the Ruhrschnellweg ("Ruhr Expressway"), which is exactly where the modern line U18 runs. In this case, an underground Stadtbahn (U-Stadtbahn) was not initially planned. Construction work on the tram line in the Ruhr Expressway was carried out simultaneously with the upgrade of the Ruhr Expressway itself, since the latter up to that time had only three lanes and flat junctions and had insufficient capacity because of the large increase in traffic. Following the upgrade of other forms of public transport, the possibility of some form of public transport on the Ruhr Expressway were considered, including express buses on a separate bus lane. Ultimately, however, an option based around a rapid tramway gained favour. Thus a line was built on parts of today's Essen–Mülheim route, which was initially connected by temporary exit ramps with the rest of the tram network.
The plans for a tunnel under the centre of Essen replacing an above-ground tram line began in 1961. Again, there were considerations of relieving the above-ground tramway and congestion in the quite small Essen inner city (about 1,400 by 700 metres (4,600 ft × 2,300 ft)), which suffered from increasing traffic. The initial solutions ranged similarly from the retention of the surface tramway with the creation of a new centralised node, up to the creation of a pure U-Bahn (metro) system as in Berlin and Hamburg. For various reasons, however, it was agreed to build an underground tramway with the possibility of future upgrade to a full U-Bahn. The idea of building a pure U-Bahn system at once was considered, but discarded due to the need to handle the existing passenger flows linking the tramway systems of the neighbouring cities of the Ruhr.
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Essen Stadtbahn
The Essen Stadtbahn (German: Stadtbahn Essen) is a 19.6-kilometer (12.2 mi) light rail (Stadtbahn) network in Essen and the two neighbouring towns of Mülheim an der Ruhr and Gelsenkirchen in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia. It forms part of the Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn.
Like the Frankfurt U-Bahn, it is a mixed system of light rail and underground railway. One of its three lines, U18, runs completely free of intersections with other traffic. The other two lines are partly tramlines and partly underground lines. The sections of tramline have only a few sections that have no intersections with road traffic.
Like all urban public transport in Essen, the Essen Stadtbahn is operated by Ruhrbahn, a company owned by the Cities of Essen and Mülheim an der Ruhr. The transport companies of neighbouring municipalities are also involved with the operation of some lines under concessions.
The Essen Stadtbahn includes three standard gauge lines: U11, U17 and U18. The Essen tram network also has seven "classic" tram lines, which run on metre gauge tracks, with around 52 kilometres (32 mi) of track. Both the metre and standard gauge lines run underground in the centre of Essen. While sections are built as Stadtbahn lines, partly in tunnel, and have stations with high platforms, there are also tram lines used only by low-floor trams serving stops with low platforms. An exception is the underground section of the southern route to Bredeney where the stations are served by a mixture of high-platform and low-platform rollingstock and therefore the stations have to be adapted for both types of vehicle.
The four-track station at Essen Hauptbahnhof is the most important point of intersection between the three Stadtbahn lines and four, sometimes five tram lines where it is possible to switch between Stadtbahn trains and trams on the same platform. For this purpose the two different levels of the platform are connected by ramps. The platforms are arranged so that it is possible to transfer across the platform between trains and trams running to the north and between trains and trams running to the south. A bridge spans the entire underground station that is accessible by lifts, providing an easy interchange and a barrier-free transfer for the disabled to trains running in opposite directions. Stadtbahn cars and trams share several other stations. Tram lines 101 and 107 run on the southern section of the Stadtbahn tunnel from Essen Hauptbahnhof to Martinstraße, using the high platforms of the Stadtbahn. Therefore, the high-floor tramcars use fold-up steps on these two lines. This line is equipped with dual gauge track with three rails to cater for the different track gauges.
All three Stadtbahn lines run to the same pattern: services on each line run during the peak hour at 10-minute intervals, in the evenings and on weekends or public holidays at 15-minute intervals and late in the evening at 30-minute intervals. During trade fairs, services on line U11 run on weekends at 10-minute intervals; between Messe (fair ground) and Berliner Platz they sometimes even run at 5-minute intervals. Operations end on all three lines at about 23:00.[citation needed]
During the building of the first tramline in Essen in 1893, planning began on a partially underground railway, which was not realised until decades after the Second World War. The first preliminary line of the current Stadtbahn emerged in the early 1960s and were laid partly as tram tracks on the median strip of the Ruhrschnellweg ("Ruhr Expressway"), which is exactly where the modern line U18 runs. In this case, an underground Stadtbahn (U-Stadtbahn) was not initially planned. Construction work on the tram line in the Ruhr Expressway was carried out simultaneously with the upgrade of the Ruhr Expressway itself, since the latter up to that time had only three lanes and flat junctions and had insufficient capacity because of the large increase in traffic. Following the upgrade of other forms of public transport, the possibility of some form of public transport on the Ruhr Expressway were considered, including express buses on a separate bus lane. Ultimately, however, an option based around a rapid tramway gained favour. Thus a line was built on parts of today's Essen–Mülheim route, which was initially connected by temporary exit ramps with the rest of the tram network.
The plans for a tunnel under the centre of Essen replacing an above-ground tram line began in 1961. Again, there were considerations of relieving the above-ground tramway and congestion in the quite small Essen inner city (about 1,400 by 700 metres (4,600 ft × 2,300 ft)), which suffered from increasing traffic. The initial solutions ranged similarly from the retention of the surface tramway with the creation of a new centralised node, up to the creation of a pure U-Bahn (metro) system as in Berlin and Hamburg. For various reasons, however, it was agreed to build an underground tramway with the possibility of future upgrade to a full U-Bahn. The idea of building a pure U-Bahn system at once was considered, but discarded due to the need to handle the existing passenger flows linking the tramway systems of the neighbouring cities of the Ruhr.