Citybanan

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected future tunnel.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change as the construction or completion of the tunnel approaches, and more information becomes available.

Citybanan (Swedish: roughly "City track/line") is a planned railway tunnel beneath central Stockholm in Sweden. The project was proposed by the national Railways, SJ, in 1988 and has, after initially being disregarded as too expensive, been seriously considered since 2002. In 2006, the national railway management authority Banverket agreed with the City and County Council of Stockholm on the financing of the project; and the last step in the planning process is scheduled for 2006-2007. The cost of the tunnel and stations is estimated to 15.5 billion SEK. The new Alliance government in Sweden, after the general elections of 2006, has however put the project in question. Representatives of the government announced on October 1 of that year that they were scrapping Citybanan in favor of building a third railway track through the city. In December 2006, however, the government's appointed expert, after a renewed assessment of the project, recommended building the tunnel.

The tunnel is planned with a length of 6 km (4 mi), with two rail tracks and two new commuter rail stations: City, beneath the current Metro station T-Centralen; and Odenplan, at Odenplan next to the metro station there. Traffic is planned to start somewhere between 2013 and 2016.

The tunnel would significantly improve the traffic throughput to and from south of Stockholm as there are only two rail tracks in that direction from Stockholm Central Station, the same number that were in place in 1871 when rail tracks were initially built there. This place is nicknamed "the Wasp waist". It has 24 scheduled trains per hour and direction, a density that otherwise only exist in metros. The commuter trains pass Stockholm with up to 16 trains per hour per direction. The other 8 trains are regional and long-distance trains.

Placing the commuter rail traffic into a tunnel of its own will thus open up for more of other national rail traffic through the central station. The entire system for long distance passenger railways in Sweden suffers from this bottleneck, since so many of them go to or through Stockholm. There are wishes for more traffic, both commuter trains, regional trains and long distance trains, but no more room.

Seen from south to north, the route the Citybanan tunnel would have is forking off the Sammanbindningsbanan after the Stockholms södra station on Södermalm, continuing beneath the bay bottom of Riddarfjärden at Söderström, beneath the islet of Riddarholmen, beneath Riddarfjärden at Norrström, to the new City station; after which it will continue beneath the Norrmalm quarter to the Odenplan station, then beneath the Vasastaden quarter to join with Norra stambanan at Tomteboda.