Essen Hauptbahnhof underground station
| Essen Central Station | |
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 Essen Hauptbahnhof underground station |
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| Basic data | |
| District | City center |
| Opened | May 28, 1977 |
| Tracks (platform) | 4th |
| Coordinates | 51 ° 27 '1 " N , 7 ° 0' 46" E |
| use | |
| Stretch) | Main route (U11, U17, U18) , Rüttenscheider Tunnel , tram route from Rathaus Essen to Essen Hbf, tram route from Essen Hbf to Moltkestrasse |
| Line (s) | U 11 U 17 U 18 101 ( 103 ) 105 106 107 108 |
| Switching options |
 ,  ,  (Regional remote +)
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The Essen Hauptbahnhof underground station is an underground station in Essen . It is located in the tunnel under the Platz Freiheit and under the Ruhrschnellweg tunnel and borders on Essen Central Station to the south . The underground station is located in timetable area 1 of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) and is served by tram and light rail trains of the Ruhrbahn .
history
About ten years before the opening of the Essen Hauptbahnhof underground station, the first tunnel station in North Rhine-Westphalia was opened on October 5, 1967 with the Saalbau underground station (now the Philharmonie) , the tunnel section initially being only 552 meters long.
On May 28, 1977, the Essen Hauptbahnhof underground station, the first almost eight kilometers long underground line in Essen, was inaugurated. It led from the new underground stations Wiener Platz (since 1985 Hirschlandplatz), Essen Hauptbahnhof and Bismarckplatz (official stop from November 27, 1981), on over the ramp to the stops on the surface at Savignystraße, Hobeisenbrücke, Breslauer Straße, Wickenburgstraße to Mülheim an der Ruhr . At the same time, the Saalbau underground station (now the Philharmonie) was initially connected to the Grugahalle with the meter-gauge tram line 111 (until the introduction of the VRR on January 1, 1980, line 11) . On May 31, 1986, the U11 subway line, after being converted to standard gauge , replaced the 111 tram line. With the opening of the subway on May 28, 1977, the meter-gauge tram connection in the tunnel to the Porscheplatz subway station (today: Essen Town Hall) was started.
On November 27, 1981, the U17 line began operating on the standard gauge to Margarethenhöhe .
location
The station replaces the above-ground tram stops Hauptbahnhof (located on the north side of the main station in front of the Hotel Handelshof ) and Freiheit (south of the station underpass on the area of today's roundabout). The two underground platforms with the four tracks are located south of the main station in the -2 level below the surface and run in a north-south direction. The road tunnel of the Ruhr Expressway runs directly above it in an east-west direction. The underground station has north and south exits. The north exits of the underground station lead to the −1 level with the Ruhrbahn customer center and retail stores. From here you can get to the surface to the south entrance of the main train station with access to more than twenty bus routes running on the surface, which operate as express bus , night express and regular bus routes.
On the −1 level, a passage leads to the north side of the main station, where there are also shops and several exits to the city center. The passage originally consisted of a double tunnel on the tunnel tubes under the railway underpass, which was about 200 meters long. From the exit at the end of Kettwiger Strasse, passengers from the city center therefore had to walk a nearly 300-meter-long underground footpath until they reached the first underground access to the platform. This passage, perceived as monotonous by passengers, was modernized in 2010 with an LED light wall.
Railway station and traffic
Essen Hauptbahnhof underground station has four tracks with two central platforms that are served in one direction . Tram cars operate on meter gauge on low-floor platforms and light rail cars on standard gauge on high-floor platforms. The platform height of the underground light rail tracks is 80 cm for the type B light rail vehicles that operate here, which is 45 cm higher than that of the meter-gauge tram. The length of the platforms is almost 110 meters, although only 90 meters would be necessary for a long train consisting of three type B light rail vehicles, as the plans were originally based on the type A light rail vehicle (never realized).
The eastern, meter-lane track 1 serves the tram lines 101, 103, 105, 106, 107 and 108 coming from the south and leading to the station Rathaus Essen. To the west follows the standard-gauge platform 3 for the underground lines U11, U17 and U18, also coming from the south and leading to the Berliner Platz underground station . The central platform between these two tracks is 45 cm higher on the underground side and connected to the low tram platform by steps and barrier-free ramps. The same applies to the western central platform between tracks 4 and 2. Track 4 forms the opposite direction of tram track 1 and the westernmost track 2 the opposite direction of underground track 3. Both central platforms have north and south exits via stairs, escalators and barrier-free via elevators . All underground and tram lines currently run every 10 minutes during the day Monday to Friday and every 15 minutes on Saturday and Sunday during the day.
South of the subway station, the south-facing tracks of the subway and the tram will be brought together in each direction, so that they run into a three -rail track for meter and standard gauge after Rüttenscheid . The consistently high platform heights of the U11 line at the following underground stations must therefore be compensated for by trams with folding steps. This means that no modern low-floor vehicles can be used here. The reason is that there were originally plans to carry out all subway traffic on standard gauge, which was discarded quite early on. The U-Stadtbahn track of the U17 and U18 in the direction of Bismarckplatz crosses the meter-gauge track in the direction of the Philharmonie. For this purpose, a track crossing between normal and meter gauge had to be developed in a special design with adjustable tongues, which has been in operation since 1977.
At the eastern and western edges of the subway station, platform-like, pure pedestrian passages run in a north-south direction. As platforms, these platforms should enable passengers to get off more quickly (so-called Spanish solution), which is currently only practiced in Germany on the Munich S-Bahn at the Marienplatz, Karlsplatz and Hauptbahnhof stations. In the meantime, the eastern platform for changing passengers had been in operation since 1977, as the tramway trains going north ran here. Both paths are now separated from the respective track by railings, so that there is no longer any possibility of getting on or off.
Originally, the station was clad with white, large-format ceramic tiles and brightly lit, which, according to the architects' wishes, gave it a spacious and function-appropriate character. Due to structural damage, these tiles finally had to be removed at the end of the 1990s and were not replaced for cost reasons, so that the concrete of the columns and walls is now visible. This appearance should be enhanced by the current blue lighting.
On the surface, you can change to more than 20 bus routes at the main train station's bus station. The buses run on city bus, express bus or night express lines.
Additional information
See also
- Tram Essen - Main article about the Essen tram
- Stadtbahn Essen - Main article about the Essen Stadtbahn
- Stadtbahnnetz Rhein-Ruhr - Main article about the Stadtbahn system in the greater Rhine-Ruhr area, of which the Essen Stadtbahn is a part
- Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr - Main article about the transport and tariff association, of which the Essen city railway is a part
literature
- Civil engineering department Essen (ed.): Say you to the underground - Essen is an underground city . Accompanying document for the construction of the Essen underground in 1977
Web links
- Flickr image: U-Bahn construction of the north side of the station in 1973
- Flickr picture: Underground construction in front of the Hotel Handelshof in 1973
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lampenwelt.de of October 4, 2010: Light wall in the newly designed passerelle in Essen ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed on February 22, 2015
- ↑ Track plan of the Essen city and tram ; accessed on February 20, 2015
