Stockholm City Line

Citybanan tunnel under Stockholm

The new tunnel will divert Stockholm's commuter traffic from the busy main line through the city.

The Stockholm City Line (Swedish: Citybanan) is a railway tunnel under construction beneath central Stockholm in Sweden which will be used by the Stockholm Commuter Rail. The line will be 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) long, double track and electrified. It will have two stations: Stockholm City Station will be located directly below T-Centralen, the central station of the Stockholm Metro. Stockholm Odenplan Station will be the other station, and will be located next to the Odenplan metro station. The line is scheduled to enter service in 2017.

Route

The tunnel will significantly improve the traffic throughput to and from south of Stockholm as there are only two tracks in that direction from Stockholm Central Station, the same number that were in place in 1871 when the railway was originally built. It has 24 scheduled trains per hour in each direction. The commuter trains pass Stockholm with up to 16 trains per hour per direction. The other eight are regional and long-distance trains. The tunnel will take all commuter trains, allowing more regional and intercity trains to operate along the old line.

Placing the commuter rail traffic into a tunnel of its own will thus allow increased capacity for other national rail traffic through Central Station. The entire system for long-distance passenger railways in Sweden suffers from this bottleneck, since 80% of train rides in Sweden start or stop in Stockholm [1]. As a result, there is no room to increase the frequency of commuter, regional, and long-distance trains despite their heavy usage.

Seen from south to north, the route of the Citybanan tunnel will branch off the Connection Line after Stockholm South Station station on Södermalm, and continue beneath the bay bottom of Riddarfjärden at Söderström, beneath the islet of Riddarholmen, beneath Riddarfjärden at Norrström, to the new City Station. From there, it will continue beneath Norrmalm to Odenplan Station, then beneath Vasastaden to join with the Northern Main Line at Tomteboda.

History

Citybanan in March 2009

The project was proposed by the Swedish State Railways in 1988 and has, after initially being disregarded as too expensive, been seriously considered since 2002. In 2006, the Swedish Rail Administration agreed with the city and Storstockholms Lokaltrafik on the financing of the project, and the last step in the planning process was scheduled for 2006–2007. The cost of the tunnel and stations is estimated to 16.3 billion Swedish kronor.

The new Alliance government in Sweden, after the general elections of 2006, did however put the project in question. Representatives of the government announced on October 1 of that year that they were scrapping Citybanan in favor of building a third railway track through the city. In December 2006, however, the government's appointed expert, after a renewed assessment of the project, recommended building the tunnel. In May 2007 the government finally decided to build the tunnel. Ground works and the construction of work tunnels has begun.

Coordinates:

• Southern tunnel entrance: 59°18′54″N 18°04′04″E / 59.315052°N 18.067773°E / 59.315052; 18.067773
• Northern tunnel entrance: 59°20′57″N 18°01′09″E / 59.349252°N 18.019209°E / 59.349252; 18.019209

External links

• Swedish Rail Administration - The City Line in Stockholm
• Dagens Nyheter – Citybanan börjar byggas i sommar (Swedish)