Rapid transit

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Class 481 railcar of the Berlin S-Bahn on the S7 line in Berlin-Nikolassee station

The term Schnellbahn is a historical as well as a contemporary designation of the traffic system with changing, sometimes overlapping meanings. At the end of the 20th century it became the generic term for various rail-based means of transport in public passenger transport . In local transport (ÖPNV), in contrast to trams , rapid transit trains run on their own tracks. Different groupings of individual modes of transport are made regionally different.

Emergence of rapid transit systems

In many large cities in North and South America as well as Europe, inner-city and suburban routes for steam trains were developing rapidly at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. In addition to the originally used city-connecting traffic. In the beginning, only trains in urban traffic - the city express trains - were referred to as rapid transit systems.

The first two routes built in this mode in Germany were the Berlin Ring (from 1871) and the Stadtbahn (1882). This was followed by suburban ( ger .: Suburban railway ) and S-Bahn trains with steam (from 1891) and electric power (from 1903). Likewise, the world's oldest elevated railway system in Germany, the Barmen - Elberfelder or Wuppertal suspension railway (1901) as well as the former Viennese light rail (from 1898) as well as underground and elevated railways should also be mentioned.

The term has expanded through the increasing area of ​​cities in the surrounding area (including satellite cities ), the progressive expansion of transport systems and network areas. Today, all S-Bahn, U-Bahn and Stadtbahn trains running within metropolitan areas and larger cities must be included, as well as regional trains (RB). Similarly, regional express trains (RE), for example in the Ruhr area and Berlin, achieve higher speeds (max. 160 km / h) are counted as the local commuter trains to high-speed trains. That becomes clear through

  • Adjustments of underground, light rail and S-Bahn to one another, for example
  • the rapid transit systems abroad.
  • Alignments between S-Bahn and regional trains, for example using similar or identical vehicles, long routes beyond the urban area and the metropolitan area (e.g. S-Bahn Hanover line S 5 to Paderborn or the extension of the S-Bahn Hamburg line S 3 to Stade with power system change) and large intervals (hourly).

In this way, new, extensive high-speed transport networks are being created in the conurbations or interconnected areas, which can also include other railways ( Wuppertal suspension railway , H-Bahn or similar).

However, the development of an approximation of different rapid transit systems began earlier. Mention should be made of the subterranean S-Bahn line in Berlin between Anhalter Bahnhof and Nordbahnhof ( north-south tunnel ), which was completed at the end of the 1930s and resembles a subway in terms of its construction and speeds. The development of the S-Bahn in Berlin (West) after the handover of operations to the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe BVG (West) in 1984 until the political turnaround represented an alignment with the Berlin U-Bahn (expansion plans similar to an inner-city U-Bahn, for example through closer station spacing, redesign and design of the vehicles).

City express train

A city express train is a train that serves urban local transport (ÖPNV) . Often suburbs are included, sometimes beyond city limits. It is characterized by speed (over 30 km / h travel speed), high performance (over 15,000 people per hour and direction) and dense train sequence (more than twelve trains per hour) (the values ​​in brackets are reference values). This is achieved through its own rail structure, high- speed, electric traction vehicles with many doors, elevated platforms and appropriate distance between stations.

In general, the abbreviation " S-Bahn " stands for Stadtschnellbahn (or Schnellbahn , Stadtbahn ). Furthermore, Stadtschnellbahn is a generic term for S-Bahn and U-Bahn . The transition here is partly fluid. As a rule, a distinction is made between S-Bahns, which have developed out of the classic railway, and U-Bahns or elevated railways , which have developed from a municipal initiative and / or from the area of trams . The line between regional trains on the one hand and light rail vehicles on the other hand can no longer be drawn sharply.

Examples of typical city high-speed railways are the S-Bahns in Hamburg and Berlin , which are operated with direct current via busbars , as well as the pure underground trains in Berlin , Hamburg , Munich and Nuremberg and some of the former Vienna steam light rail from 1898 and the Vienna electric light rail from 1925 created U-Bahn Vienna (see main article S-Bahn ).

Trivia

In the tram Würzburg are tram lines Quick also referred to as high-speed railway.