Stadtbahn Karlsruhe

The Stadtbahn Karlsruhe is a German tram-train - stadtbahn system in Karlsruhe and its region. The transport system combines tram lines in the city with railway lines in the surrounding countryside and thereby opens the entire region of the middle upper Rhine valley and creates connections to neighbouring regions. The Karlsruhe Stadtbahn combined the idea of an efficient urban railway in the city with an S-Bahn (suburban railway) - it overcomes the border between trams/light railways on the one hand and heavy railway on the other hand. Its logo does not include the green and white S-Bahn symbol used in other German suburban rail systems and the symbol is only used at stops and stations outside the inner-city tram-operation area.

The idea to link tram and railway lines with one another in order to be able to offer an attractive transport system for town and outskirts, was developed in Karlsruhe and implemented gradually in the 1980s and 1990s. This idea, known as the "Karlsruhe model" or "tram-train" was adapted in the meantime to other European cities.

The Karlsruhe Stadtbahn is operated in co-operation by Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (Alb valley transport corporation, AVG), Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe transport authority, VBK) and Deutsche Bahn (DB). The two urban transport operators, VBK and AVG, operate most services, while DB is responsible only for the sections from Pforzheim and Bretten to Bietigheim-Bissingen.

Network

The network of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn currently includes ten lines, which are operated in four different forms:
*tram lines under the German law regulating tram operations, but in a modernised form with a large proportion of segregated track and priority at traffic lights. These lines are electrified at 750 V, direct current: Stadtbahn line S2 (consequently operated by VBK in addition to its own seven tram lines).
*a combination of tram line sections within urban Karlsruhe and the secondary line lines of the AVG, electrified at 750V DC: lines S1 and S11.
*a combination of tram line sections within urban Karlsruhe, Wörth am Rhein, Bad Wildbad and Heilbronn and the railway lines of the DB and AVG, which are electrified at 15kV AC, 16.7 Hz: lines S4, S41, S5 and S6.
*pure rail operations on DB and AVG tracks, which are electrified at 15kV AC: lines S31, S32 and S9.

S-Bahn line S3 between Germersheim, Speyer, Ludwigshafen, Mannheim, Heidelberg and Bruchsal and Karlsruhe is not controlled by the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn, but by RheinNeckar S-Bahn. It is operated by DB Regio with Class 425 EMUs.

History

The city Karlsruhe attempted to create of a network of street and interurban tramlines for the development of the surrounding countryside modelled of the Mannheim Oberrheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft. However, by the middle of the twentieth century there had been little lasting achievement due to the difficult economical times in between.

Acquisition and extension of the Albtalbahn

The acquisition of the Albtalbahn by the city of Karlsruhe, the establishment of AVG and the integration of the Albtalbahn cross-country line into the Karlsruhe tram system between 1957 and 1966 formed the foundation for the later Stadtbahn network. The Albtalbahn was connected to the tram system and electrified as a tramway, so that modified trams could make a direct connection between the southern outskirts and the Karlsruhe city centre.

The success of the Albtalbahn encouraged the Karlsruhe planners in the 1960s to connect the northern surrounding outskirts by a modern tram/stadbahn system as well. For this it negotiated with Deutsche Bundesbahn to use the railway line Karlsruhe-Neureut-Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, sharing with the local goods traffic, and reached an agreement at the end of the 1970s. After building a connecting line between the tram network and the railway line in 1979 the tram service shared the railway line for 2 km to Neureut, where the few remaining goods trains left the line. In 1986 and 1989 the stadbahn was extended north to Leopoldshafen and Linkenheim-Hochstetten as well as to the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, again sharing existing railway tracks. Since the remaining goods traffic was hauled by diesel locomotives, the electrification of the line with the tramway’s 750 V DC system did not cause technical problems.

Line B: introduction of tram-trains

Apart from the Stadtbahn line Hochstetten-Karlsruhe-Albtal (formerly line A, since 1994 lines S1/S11), a further Stadtbahn line, S2 (Stutensee-Karlsruhe-Rheinstetten), was built in stages between 1989 and 2006 in between by the new building of streetcar distances, extending an existing city tram line. This line connects the northeast with the southwest suburbs. This line included single-track sections in the main streets of the local centres of Blankenloch, Forchheim and Mörsch. This routing was preferred for its preferred development effects to a route on the edge of these localities or in tunnels.

While the development of the lines to the nearby northern and southern municipalities could be acheieved by use of the Albtal and Hardtbahn as well as by building new tram lines, this was not true of the eastern suburbs. Therefore shared operations over the existing railway lines was considered, although they were electrified, at least in sections, with the 15 kV system of the mainline railways. After development of a stadtbahn vehicle, with the electrical systems of both trams and railways, which could be operated under both the tram and rail regulations, lengthy negotiations with DB were required (well before rail reform legally permitted access by other rail operators to Germany’s rail infrastructure) before it was agreed that the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn could share the Karlsruhe-Bretten railway line.

In 1992, stadtbahn operations between Karlsruhe and Bretten-Gölshausen finally started on the Kraichgaubahn (then line B, now S4). The tram and rail networks had been linked by the building of a connecting line between Durlacher Allee and Grötzingen station. This connecting line also contains the equipment that controls the change between the two current systems.

Extension of the network

The unexpected success of the new stadtbahn line between Karlsruhe and Bretten (passenger numbers increased five-fold in fewer weeks) led to an accelerated development of the stadtbahn system in the 1990s. The modernization and integration of additional lines resulted:
*1994 to Baden-Baden via Durmersheim and Rastatt im Vorlaufbetrieb via DB-tracks, to Bruchsal via Weingarten as well as the tangential connection from Bretten to Bruchsal
* 1996 from Bruchsal to Menzingen as well as from Karlsruhe inner city to Baden-Baden via Rastatt
* 1997 to Pforzheim via Pfinztal, from Bretten to Eppingen and to Wörth
* 1998 from Bruchsal to Odenheim
* 1999 from Bretten to Mühlacker and from Pforzheim to Bietigheim-Bissingen as well as from Eppingen to Heilbronn Hauptbahnhof (station)
* 2001 from Heilbronn Hauptbahnhof to Heilbronn city centre (new construction)
* 2002 from Rastatt to Forbach on the Murgtalbahn and Pforzheim to Bad Wildbad
* 2003 from Forbach to Freudenstadt on the Murgtalbahn and the Bad Wildbad town tramline (new construction)
* 2004 from Baden-Baden to Achern
* 2005 from Heilbronn to Öhringen
* 2006 from Blankenloch to Spöck and from Freudenstadt Hbf to Eutingen im Gäu

The Karlsruher Stadtbahn network is now over 400 km long. More than 120 stadtbahn trains are used on it. The longest line (S4) runs from Achern to Öhringen and takes three hours.

Rolling stock

On the Karlsruher Stadtbahn network, stadtbahn cars of the Karlsruhe type have been used since 1983. The fleet includes 60 single-current vehicles, which are appropriate for the direct current services only and operate on lines S1, S11 and S2. This type was derived from the Stadtbahnwagen B. 40 vehicles are implemented as 38 m-long 8-axle cars, while the remaining 20 6-axle cars are only 28 m-long.

For services running under a mixture of direct and alternating current overhead line an 8-axle two-system car of the design GT8-100C/2Sy was developed from the direct current vehicles, and 36 copies of it were supplied between 1991 and 1995. As technology advanced the follow-up design GT8-100D/2Sy-M was developed in 1997.

Planned works

The extensive development of the network into the 1990s opened all of Karlsruhe’s surrounding countryside. The proposed urban tramways in Bruchsal, Rastatt, Baden-Baden and Landau failed to proceed, however, because of the political resistance of local politicians. A separate network, the Stadtbahn Heilbronn, is planned in the Heilbronn area to link with line S4.

Few lines have been opened so far to the area west of the Rhine, the Vorderpfalz (eastern Palatinate. This area has a lower population density, has closer connections to Mannheim and Ludwigshafen and the railways connecting it to Karlsruhe are not electrified. Nevertheless, in 2010, under current plans the line from Wörth to Germersheim will be electrified and line S5 will be extended to Germersheim, with trains operating every 30 minutes.

This requires 27 km of the line to be electrified and the existing stations in Bellheim, Jockgrim, Rheinzabern, Rülzheim and Sondernheim to be converted to stadtbahn standard. New stations are planned in Wörth-Nord, Jockgrim-Süd, Rheinzabern-Süd, Rheinzabern-Mitte, Rülzheim-Süd, Bellheim-Nord, Germersheim-Süd and Germersheim-Ost. The estimated total cost is € 37.4 million and its estimated benefit-cost ratio is 1.4.

ources

German Wikipedia

External links

* [http://www.kvv.de/kvv/ Homepage of Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund (KVV)]
* [http://www.avg.info Homepage of Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG)]
* in Stadtwiki Karlsruhe