The Bochum Stadtbahn is a

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

line in

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, linking the cities of

Bochum Bochum (, ; ; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 372,348 (April 2023), it is the sixth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous German federa ...

and Herne. It is operated by BOGESTRA, and is integrated into the Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn network. It consists of a single ''

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 ...

'' line, which includes a tunnel section between the city centers of Bochum and Herne.

History

The Bochum Stadtbahn opened on 2 September 1989, then operating a route between Castle Herne Strünkede and Bochum Central Station. An extension of the line from the Bochum Central Station south to the Ruhr-University Bochum and to Hustadt opened for service on 28 November 1993. Planned sections of the Bochum Stadtbahn northwest to Recklinghausen and southeast to Witten were never implemented due to the associated costs to these respective municipalities.

Route and operations

The Bochum Stadtbahn route is called the U35 line. It runs north-south for approximately from Schloss Strünkede in Herne, via the city center of Bochum and the

Ruhr University Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began ...

, to Querenburg in Bochum. More than two-thirds of this line runs underground. Only the southernmost six stations are at grade, in the portion of the U35 line that runs in the

median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

of a highway. On this section, there are three at-grade road crossings, which renders it not a true metro system, but rather a

one. Despite that, however, it is one of the few ''Stadbahn'' systems not to share tracks and stations with regular trams, like the

Frankfurt U-Bahn The Frankfurt U-Bahn is a Stadtbahn ( premetro) system serving Frankfurt, Germany. Together with the Rhine-Main S-Bahn and the tram network, it forms the backbone of the public transport system in Frankfurt. Its name derives from the German te ...

, making it closer to true metro systems like

Munich U-Bahn The Munich U-Bahn () is an Railway electrification system, electric rail Rapid transit, rapid transit network in Munich, Germany. The system began operation in 1971, and is operated by the municipally owned Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG; Mun ...

than other similar light rail systems like

Düsseldorf Stadtbahn __NOTOC__ The Düsseldorf Stadtbahn () is a ''Stadtbahn'' ("city train", i.e. urban light rail system) serving Düsseldorf and surrounding areas in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of the Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Togeth ...

. The U35 is by far the busiest public transport line in the BOGESTRA service area – it is the only rail line to run every 5 minutes on weekdays and the only one on which the trains consist of two coupled-car trainsets. Stadtbahn Bochum - RiemkeMarkt

The other Stadtbahn lines that were planned for the Bochum Stadtbahn system were never finished, but portions of those planned lines were built and are in use by transit. In Bochum, two more tunnels were built under the city center, one east-west tunnel and one northeast-southwest tunnel. Both of these have four underground stations. In Gelsenkirchen, a tunnel was built as well – it begins at the train station and from there heads north, via the city center.

Rolling stock

The U35 line uses 25 standardized Stadtbahnwagen B trainsets from

Duewag Düwag or Duewag (stylised in all caps), formerly Waggonfabrik Uerdingen, was a German manufacturer of rail vehicles. It was sold in 1999 to Siemens with the brand later retired. History Duewag was founded in March 1898 as Waggonfabrik U ...

supplemented with 12 Stadler

Tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Arge ...

trainsets (6 delivered in 2008, 6 more in 2021). With the additional Tango trains in stock, the old Stadtbahnwagen B trains will be modernized within the next few years. The first of the modernized trains arrived back in Bochum in March 2024 and is due to be re-integrated into public traffic for the autumn of the same year.

References

Inline references

External links

BOGESTRA Homepage

Track plan of the Bochum/Gelsenkirchen tram system, including the Stadtbahn
{{Urban public transport in Germany Bochum Light rail in Germany Tram transport in Germany Underground rapid transit in Germany