Hamburg S-Bahn
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| S-Bahn Hamburg | |
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| Transport Authority | Hamburger Verkehrsverbund |
| Number of lines | 6 |
| System length | 115 km |
| Total no. of stations | 59 |
| No. of underground stations | 9 |
| No. of national railway stations | 4 |
| Rolling stock | BR 472/473, BR 474/874 |
| Power supply | 1200 V DC third rail power supply. Overhead lines are supposed to be used for the extension to Stade. |
Hamburg S-Bahn is a railway network for public rapid transit in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Together the S-Bahn, the U-Bahn, the AKN Railway and the regional railway form the backbone of railway public transport in the city and surrounding area. The network has operated since 1907 as an electric rapid transit system, under the direction of the contemporary state railway company and is part of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund.
The S-Bahn network consists of six lines and has a total length of 115.2 kilometres with 59 stations. Electric traction is powered by direct current supplied by a third rail running parallel to the tracks. The network is completely separate from the mainline railway. The network is operated by S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH, an independent subsidiary of DB Regio Nord.
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[edit] Route network
The route network now comprises six lines, covering 115 km. The operator is S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH, a subsidiary of DB Regio. The Hamburg S-Bahn is part of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund HVV.
Lines with single-digit numbers go through the inner-city tunnel ("City-S-Bahn"), lines with two-digit numbers use the Verbindungsbahn via Hamburg-Dammtor.
| Line | Route | Stations |
|---|---|---|
| S1 | Wedel – Altona – City-S-Bahn – Hauptbahnhof – Poppenbüttel | Wedel – Rissen – Sülldorf – Iserbrook – Blankenese – Hochkamp – Klein Flottbek (Botanischer Garten) – Othmarschen – Bahrenfeld – Altona (S2, S3, S31, regional rail) – Königstraße – Reeperbahn – Landungsbrücken (S3, U3, Hamburg harbor) – Stadthausbrücke – Jungfernstieg (U1, U2, U3, S2, S3) – Hauptbahnhof (U1, U2, U3, S1, S11, S2, S21, S31, regional rail) – Berliner Tor – Landwehr – Hasselbrook – Wandsbeker Chaussee – Friedrichsberg – Barmbek – Alte Wöhr – Rübenkamp (City Nord) – Ohlsdorf (U1, S11, Hamburg Airport bus service) – Kornweg (Klein Borstel) – Hoheneichen – Wellingsbüttel – Poppenbüttel |
| S11 | Blankenese – Altona – Verbindungsbahn – Hauptbahnhof – Ohlsdorf (only in rush hours) |
Blankenese – Hochkamp – Klein Flottbek (Botanischer Garten) – Othmarschen – Bahrenfeld – Altona – Holstenstraße – Sternschanze – Dammtor – Hauptbahnhof (U1, U2, U3, S1, S11, S2, S21, S31, regional rail) – Berliner Tor – Landwehr – Hasselbrook – Wandsbeker Chaussee – Friedrichsberg – Barmbek – Alte Wöhr – Rübenkamp (City Nord) – Ohlsdorf |
| S2 | Altona – City-S-Bahn – Hauptbahnhof – Bergedorf (only in rush hours) |
Altona (S1, S3, S31, regional rail) – Königstraße – Reeperbahn – Landungsbrücken – Stadthausbrücke – Jungfernstieg – Hauptbahnhof (U1, U2, U3, S1, S11, S2, S21, S31, regional rail) – Berliner Tor – Rothenburgsort – Tiefstack – Billwerder-Moorfleet – Mittlerer Landweg – Allermöhe – Nettelnburg – Bergedorf |
| S21 | Elbgaustraße – Verbindungsbahn – Hauptbahnhof – Aumühle | Elbgaustraße – Eidelstedt – Langenfelde – Diebsteich – Holstenstraße – Sternschanze – Dammtor – Hauptbahnhof (U1, U2, U3, S1, S11, S2, S21, S31, regional rail) – Berliner Tor – Rothenburgsort – Tiefstack – Billwerder-Moorfleet – Mittlerer Landweg – Allermöhe – Nettelnburg – Bergedorf – Reinbek – Wohltorf – Aumühle |
| S3 | Pinneberg – Altona – City-S-Bahn – Hauptbahnhof – Neugraben | Pinneberg – Thesdorf – Halstenbek – Krupunder – Elbgaustraße – Eidelstedt – Langenfelde – Diebsteich – Altona – Königstraße – Reeperbahn – Landungsbrücken – Stadthausbrücke – Jungfernstieg – Hauptbahnhof (U1, U2, U3, S1, S11, S2, S21, S31, regional rail) – Hammerbrook – Veddel – Wilhelmsburg – Harburg (regional rail)– Harburg Rathaus – Heimfeld – Neuwiedenthal – Neugraben |
| S31 | Altona – Verbindungsbahn – Hauptbahnhof – Berliner Tor / Neugraben | Altona – Holstenstraße – Sternschanze – Dammtor – Hauptbahnhof (U1, U2, U3, S1, S11, S2, S21, S31, regional rail) – (outside the rush hours: Berliner Tor, otherwise:) Hammerbrook – Veddel – Wilhelmsburg – Harburg – Harburg Rathaus – Heimfeld – Neuwiedenthal – Neugraben |
[edit] History
[edit] 1906: Opening
On 5 December 1906, under the description Hamburg-Altonaer Stadt- und Vorortbahn the Prussian Eisenbahndirektion (Railway Directorate) Altona opened a passenger transit using steam trains between the towns of Blankenese, Altona (Elbe) and Hamburg.
The Stadt- und Vorortbahn (City and Suburban railway) included the Altona-Blankeneser Bahn (opened in 1867), the local tracks of the Hamburg-Altonaer Verbindungsbahn (opened in 1866) and a new section to Ohlsdorf.
The Verbindungsbahn had been extended from one track to four and its level crossing with streets eliminated between 1893 and 1903. The newbuilt double-track line adjoining it was completed in the summer of 1906 after an 8-year construction period. It runs alongside the tracks of the Lübeck-Büchener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft until Hasselbrook and then in its own right-of-way until the new Ohlsdorf cemetery. A new main cemetery with good transit connections was necessary in part due to the extension of the central railway lines, which had reduced the existing and already strained cemetries in the areas near the city's medieval fortifications.
[edit] 1907/08: First electric operation
The line was electrified with overhead lines supplying alternating current with a voltage of 6.6 kV and frequency of 25 Hz. The electricity came from a coal fired power station in Leverkusenstraße in Barhrenfeld which also provided power to the Altona harbour railway.
The first electric trains ran on 1 October 1907, and form 29 January 1908 the entire line from Blankenese to Ohlsdorf was serviced exclusively by electric trains. These dates are considered the birth dates of the Hamburger S-Bahn.
The basic unit of an AC train consisted of two connected compartment carriages on six axles with motorised two axle bogies under each cab front end and a Jacobs bogie in the middle, upon which both carriages were connected. The compartment carriages with doors on each side of the compartments took their design and function from the Prussian comparment carriages.
[edit] 1924: Network expansion along the Alster valley railway
A railway line, constructed and operated by a local company in 1914, and taken over by the district of Stormarn after bancruptcy, lead from the Hamburg quarter Ohlsdorf to Poppenbüttel in Prussia with the goal of connecting neighbouring settlements along the Alster: the Alster valley railway. The railway was opened in 1918 and originally served by benzene powered trains. The district of Stormarn gave the line away to the German Imperial railway company, which electrified it and provided for the extension of the Hamburg-Altona City and Suburban railway to Poppenbüttel in 1924.
[edit] 1934: Designation as an S-Bahn
The apt short description S-Bahn was introduced in Berlin in 1930, where a similar system of urban rapid transit on the City, Ring and Suburban lines been in place since 1924. This term was also used by the German Imperial railway to designate its Hamburg-Altona City and Suburban railway from 1934. The term was additionally used to describe non-electric services on lines within the local suburban tariff; this was valid for the steam powered lines from Blankenese to Wedel, from Altona to Elmshorn and from Hamburg to Friedrichsruh and to Harburg. Since 2002, the lines not served by electric trains within the railway network around Hamburg are designated "Regional railway lines".
[edit] 1939/40: Move to DC system
In the 1930s, after almost 30 years of service, the necessity to renew the trains and infrastructure of the Hamburg S-Bahn had become apparent. Since the DC system had proved itself over more than a decade with the Berlin S-Bahn, where the 750 volt DC power was supplied by a third rail next to the tracks, the German Imperial Railway decided to adopt the same system for Hamburg in 1937 and to abandon overhead AC lines. In order to allow improved acceleration, the Hamburg S-Bahn uses a 1200 volts system; as a consequence, the Berlin and Hamburg S-Bahn rolling stock are not compatible with each other. The first DC trains of the class ET 171 were delivered in 1939; daily service began in July 1940 along side the existing AC trains. Due to the second world war, this mixed usage did not end until 1955.
The basic DC train unit consisted of three connected four-axled carriages, each with four sliding double doors per side. The middle carriages had upholstered second class seats, whilst the motorised end carriages had third class wooden seats.
[edit] Network expansions from 1950 to 1965
The DC S-Bahn system was extended along the single track suburban line from Blankenese to Sülldorf in 1950 and once more to Wedel in 1954. A section of the mainline between Hamburg and Berlin, which, due to the devision of Germany, had very little traffic, between Haupbahnhof and Bergedorf was added to the S-Bahn network in 1959 through the addition of a third rail to the tracks. This was the first section where S-Bahn and mainline trains, whose number until 1990 remained small, had to share the tracks. And thus the Hamburg S-Bahn received a second line; the trains from Bergedorf travelled via Berliner Tor to Altona. In 1962 a connecting curve was constructed branching from the Verbindungsbahn at Holstenstraße station to the Altona-Kaltenkirchener railway, whose terminus was relocated to Langenfelde. The S-Bahn was extended in 1965 over the tracks of the AKN to Eidelstedt and from there along the mainline tracks towards Kiel as far as Elbgaustraße station.
[edit] HVV and Line designations
Also in 1965, the German railway, along with two local transport companies, founded the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund, in whose common tarif system its lines of the suburban tarif have been included since December 1966. For the first time in January 1967 the designations S1 to S6 (more to these under Network) were introduced for these lines, whose form with a leading "S" has since been adopted for other S-Bahn systems in the German-speaking world.
[edit] Network expansion since 1967
In the following years, further extensions were added: 1967 on separate tracks from Elbgaustraße to Pinneberg and 1969, this time on the existing mainline tracks, from Bergedorf to Aumühle. To help ease the strain on the connection railway, a new main connection was constructed, the City S-Bahn, which traverses thew city centre of Hamburg in a tunnel. The first section was opened in 1975 between Hauptbahnhof and Landungsbrücken, the extension to Altona in 1979 and in completed 1981 with the final connection, above ground, to Diebsteich. 1983 saw the opening of the S-Bahn line via Wilhelmsburg to Harburg Rathaus, which runs for the most part along the existing mainline route, through Hammerbrook on a concrete viaduct and in a tunnel under the centre of Harburg. The line was extended in 1984 along the Niederelbebahn to Neugraben.
The S-Bahn line to Bergedorf received its own tracks due to increased traffic on the mainline tracks during the 1990s; due to the same reason S-Bahn servic between Bergedorf and Aumühle was suspended for "a short time" in 1994. The section up to Reinbek was reopened in 1997; completion up to Aumühle however was delayed until 2002 due to court challenges from local residents. In 1999 the station Allermöhe between Mittlerer Landweg and Nettelnburg entered service in order to connect the new housing development of Neu-Allermöhe West.
And thus the Hamburg S-Bahn network reached its current size. The first ground-breaking for a 3.3km long streach from Ohlsdorf to the airport took place in 1991, the second in 2001 and the line is still under construction at the moment (2006).
[edit] Operating Company
The Hamburg S-Bahn is operated by S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH, an independent subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG. The company is directly answerable to DB Regio Nord and formed in 1997.
Whilst the S-Bahn as a mode of transport is also represented in Hamburg as a white "S" in a green circle, the logo of the operating company S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH shows a white "S" on a red background. The S-Bahn trains also carry the DB or S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH logo.
The company currently employees around 1100 employees in the driving, maintenance, train departure and resource management divisions. A further 300 employees are involved in the divisions security and cleaning through subsidiaries.
[edit] Projected Extensions
| Line | Route | Stations | Service |
|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | Ohlsdorf – Airport [1] (Planned opening 2008) |
Ohlsdorf – Airport | The intention is to split trains at Ohlsdorf with one section continuing to the airport and the other to Poppenbüttel. |
| S3 | Neugraben – Stade [2] (Planned opening 2007) |
Neugraben – Fischbek – Neu Wulmstorf – Buxtehude – Neukloster – Horneburg – Dollern – Agathenburg – Stade | This is the current electrified (Overhead lines) regional railway line. Since no third rail or additional tracks are to be laid, dual system trains (alternating and direct current) will have to be deployed. |
Further plans would have the S-Bahn network dramatically increased. S-Bahn trains would go as far as Kaltenkirchen (the private AKN railway currently connects to Kaltenkirchen from Eidelstedt).
A expansion plan which has been discussed for some time is the opening (or reopening) of a line S4. Plans for this have been around since the 1960s; Whilst planning the city S-Bahn and network extensions of the 1960s, the German railway thought of building an S-Bahn line 4. This line should have left Altona in a north westerly direction towards Lurup. To the east of the city, the new line should have travelled with the current S1 and S11 to Hasselbrook and from there further to the east and finally in a northerly direction via Wandsbek to Ahrensburg.
In the end, only the eastern part of the line from Hauptbahnhof was implemented, and this was only in the from of a regional railway line, which was designated a S-Bahn line, since the HVV did not offer travel with regional railways at the time, but wanted its tarif system to be valid on the new line. Neither is it the case that new stations were built along the regional line. This made sense, because the diesel driven S-Bahn locomotives had poor acceleration and decreased distance between stations would have been uneconomical, since the trains would have had to brake even before they had reached a high speed.
Since September 2000, a popular initiave in Stormarn is working for the improvement of the S4, today the R10. The initiave are currently basing their arguments on a feasibility study, which was ordered by S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH in the year 2002 and in principle dusted off the plans from the 1960s. According to the study, the extension involves improving the line to a proper S-Bahn line, served by electric trains and the addition of extra stations. The first step would be the improvement of the line as far as Ahrensburg with a further intended step being the continuation to Bad Oldesloe. Dual system trains would be necessary for the new line like those to be used on the extensions to Stade. A third rail would be built as far as Ahrensburg, from where the trains would use the overhead lines.
Despite large amounts of interest from the areas of Hamburg surrounding the proposed route, as well as neighbouring communities and the positive feasibility study, the Hamburg city council has yet to take any steps to put the realisation of this proposal in action.
[edit] Rolling Stock
The Hamburg S-Bahn makes use of three carriage eletrical multiple units (EMUs). They are driven by direct current supplied via a third rail. The rolling stock collection consists of 447 vehicles of the following classes:
- Class 470 (built from 1959 until 1970, in service until 2002, central carriage class 870)
- Class 471 (built from 1939 until 1958, in service until 2001, central carriage class 871)
- Class 472 (built from 1974 until 1984, central carriage class 473)
- Class 474 (built from 1996, central carriage class 874)
Such a three carriage train is designated a short train in service. Several units can be combined to form a full train with six carriages and a long train with nine carriages.
Of the different classes mentioned above, only class 472 and class 474 trains remain in regular service. The last remaining class 470 and class 471 trains were permanently removed from service in 2002 and 2001 respectively. The new class 474 trains primarily serves the lines S1, S11, S3 and S31, whereas class 472 trains are generally used for lines S2 and S21.
With the expansion of the S-Bahn network to the south of Hamburg, new dual system trains will be deployed. These are as identical as possible to the class 474 units, but with the additional pantograph to collect electricity from the overhead lines, which is situated on top of the central carriage.
With the introduction of class 474 trains, the colour scheme of beige and marine blue, which had been used up to then by the Hamburg S-Bahn, was given up in favour of transport red (RAL 3020). External advertising covering the entire bodies of trains was also abandoned at this time.
The implementation of a consistent corporate design lead to class 472 trains also being updated with the new colour scheme. This has left the Berlin S-Bahn as the only German S-Bahn system, whose trains have an individual design.
Less well known, however, is the fact that class 474 trains were originally given the same colour scheme, white, grey and red, as the class DT4 trains of the Hamburg U-Bahn, although this was quickly replaced by transport red.
[edit] Stations
The Hamburg S-Bahn network currently includes 59 stations, of which nine lie underground. These are the five stations on the City-S-Bahn (Jungfernstieg, Stadthausbrücke, Landungsbrücken, Reeperbahn and Königstraße), the S-Bahn area of Altona station as well as the three stations in the centre of Harburg (Harburg, Harburg Rathaus and Heimfeld). At the main station, the platforms for S-Bahn trains heading into the city centre are also located in a tunnel. After the completion of current plans, the network will have 68 station by the year 2008, whereby one of the new stations, at Hamburg Airport, will also be situated in a tunnel.
Most stations of the S-Bahn network consist of a single island platform. At the interchange stations Hauptbahnhof and Altona there are two each - one each for trains heading into and out off the city centre. At the end stations Neugraben and Pinneberg the two S-Bahn tracks are located between a side platform and an island platform, on the other side of which regional rail trains stop. Side platforms can additionally be found at the three track stations Bergedorf, Berliner Tor (lower level), Blankenese and Harburg Rathaus, the twin track station Billwerder-Moorfleet and at the only single track station Iserbrook.
All stations have electronic passenger information systems, which inform passsengers about the line, destination route, length and stopping position of the next train, missed connections and temporary disturbances to service. During the last hundred days before the opening of the World cup 2006, the systems also displayed a countdown of the remaining days.
Some stations, for example Landungsbrücken and Harburg Rathaus, are designed as civilian shelters. The observant passenger may well notice the heavy protective doors at the entrances as the only sign of this dual use.
[edit] Service time and intervals
Trains run daily from around 0430 until around 0100. The S-Bahn also offers a night service during nights from Fridays to Saturdays, from Saturdays to Sundays and before public holidays.
The base interval for lines S1, S21, S3 and S31 during the day is every ten minutes. In the early morning until around 0600, in the night from around 2300 and during night service, the interval is every twenty minutes. Because of multiple lines running on the same stretch in the city centre, the intervals are shorter there. Peak-time-only lines S2 und S11 further shorten the intervals in the morning and in the afternoon.
[edit] See also
- Hamburg U-Bahn
- Bw Hamburg-Ohlsdorf
- AKN Eisenbahn
- List of rapid transit systems
[edit] Literature
- Erich Staisch: Die Hamburger S-Bahn. Chronik eines modernen Verkehrsmittels., Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-455-08874-0
- Erich Staisch (Hrsg.): Die Hamburger S-Bahn. Geschichte und Zukunft., Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-89234-694-1
- Wolfgang Pischek, Jan Borchers, Martin Heimann, Die Hamburger S-Bahn. Mit Gleichstrom durch die Hansestadt., München 2002, ISBN 3-7654-7191-7
- Michael Braun: "Hamburg lernt von Berlin. Punktsieg für Gleichstrom", in: LOK MAGAZIN Nr. 259, München 2003, S. 68-77, ISSN 0458-1822
