The TW 2000 is a

Stadtbahn ' (; German for "city railway"; plural ') is a German word referring to various types of urban rail transport. One type of transport originated in the 19th century, firstly in Berlin and followed by Vienna, where rail routes were created that co ...

vehicle in operation on the

Hanover Stadtbahn The Hanover Stadtbahn is a Stadtbahn (light rail) system in the city of Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany. The Stadtbahn opened on 29 September 1975, gradually replacing the city's tramway network over the course of the following 25 years. Current ...

network in

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

History

After winning the bid for the

Expo 2000 Expo 2000 was a World Expo held in Hanover, Germany from 1 June to 31 October 2000. It was located on the Hanover Fairground (Messegelände Hannover), which is the largest exhibition ground in the world. Initially some 40 million people were expe ...

in 1990, the city of Hanover faced the need to greatly improve its transportation system. Therefore, the

autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track' ...

system was brought up to better standards, new

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es were ordered (the StadtBus), and it was decided to buy new light rail vehicles for the

. Whilst a ninth series of the

TW 6000 The TW 6000 is a type of articulated light rail vehicle used on the Hanover Stadtbahn system, manufactured by Duewag, Linke-Hofmann-Busch, AEG, Kiepe and Siemens. The vehicle can serve both high platforms and street-level stops; it has cab ...

, the Stadtbahn vehicle built from 1974 to 1993, could have technically been produced, the Hanover public transport operator

üstra üstra Hannoversche Verkehrsbetriebe AG is the operator of public transport in the city of Hanover, Germany. The company is a member of the Großraum-Verkehr Hannover (GVH) transport association. From 2003 to 2006, it had outsourced its opera ...

decided to build a new vehicle from scratch, using up-to-date technology, without the necessity to make the vehicle compatible to the aged design of the TW 6000. The car was designed by

Herbert Lindinger Herbert Lindinger (born 3 December 1933 in Wels) is an Austrian graphic artist, exhibition designer, industrial designer, and university professor. He is known for designing trains and trams such as the S-DT8.12 Stuttgart light rail cars, and the ...

with British designer Jasper Morrison and was manufactured from 1997 to 2000 by

Linke-Hofmann-Busch Alstom Transport Deutschland, formerly Linke-Hofmann-Busch, is a German manufacturing company originally established in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) to produce locomotives and rolling stock. Its origins lay in the wheelwright business of Gott ...

Salzgitter Salzgitter (; Eastphalian: ''Soltgitter'') is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven ''Oberzentren'' of Lower ...

(now part of Alstom). The first car delivered was 2002, which was delivered to the Döhren depot on April 12, 1997. 2001, the first of the series, was delivered the following day to the

Hanover fairground The Hanover Fairground (in German: ''Messegelände Hannover'') is an exhibition area in the ''Mittelfeld'' district of Hanover, Germany. Featuring 392,453 m² (4.2 million sq.ft.) of covered indoor space, 58,000 m² (624,306 sq ft) of open-ai ...

to serve as a showcase at

Hannover Messe The Hannover Messe (HM; "Hanover Fair") is one of the world's largest trade fairs, dedicated to the topic of industry development. It is organized by Deutsche Messe AG and held on the Hanover Fairground in Hanover, Germany. Typically, there are ...

. The official presentation to the general public was on April 27, 1997, at Döhren depot, the cars went into official operational use on route 8 by September 1, 1997. A notable feature is a system of several monitor pairs mounted under the ceiling. While the left monitor displays the next four stops, the right one provides news and adverts.

Daily usage

Two versions have been built, the TW 2000 with two cabs on each side and the TW 2500 with one cab and an

open gangway A gangway connection (or, more loosely, a corridor connection) is a flexible connector fitted to the end of a railway coach, enabling passengers to move from one coach to another without danger of falling from the train. Origins: Coaches in Br ...

at the rear end, supposed to run with another 2500 unit. In daily use, these configurations can be found: *2000 *2000+2000 *2500-2500 *2000+2000+2000 (very rare) *2500-2500+2000 *2000+2000+2500-2500 (during trade fairs at

) *2500-2500+2500-2500 (during trade fairs) Note that several high platform stops are too short for the last four configurations, therefore the first and last door remain shut.

External links

Stadtbahn Hannover TW 2000 (German language)
{{Public transport in Hanover Hanover S-Bahn Tram vehicles of Germany Train-related introductions in 1997