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Bielefeld has 320,000 inhabitants and lies in the east of the German land of North-Rhine - Westphalia, half way between Hanover and Dortmund. The Bielefeld Stadtbahn is a system similar to those operating in Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt or Hanover, i.e. a network combining metro/subway and tram features. When construction of Stadtbahn tunnel sections started in the early 1970's in the near Rhine-Ruhr area (Dortmund, Essen, Bochum, etc.), Bielefeld built its first underground station Beckhausstraße, which opened on 21 Sept. 1971. After that further expansion of the underground network came to a halt due to financial problems. It was finally resumed in the mid-1980's when the north-south tunnel through the city centre was excavated. It opened on 28 April 1991 and included 4 underground stations, Jahnplatz and Hauptbahnhof (central railway station), which are used by all lines, and Wittekindstraße and Nordpark, which are only served by Line 3 trains heading for Babenhausen Süd. Hauptbahnhof was built as a major junction with four tracks, 3 of them on the upper -2 level, and one for Line 1 and Line 2 southbound trains on the lower -3 level. The last tunnel section for Line 4 from Rathaus to the Universität, with two underground stations Siegfriedplatz and Rudolf-Oetker-Halle, finally opened on 2 April 2000 after some delays. The surface extension to Lohmannshof opened on 29 Sept. 2002. The Stadtbahn network has a total length of 33.5 km and uses 1000 mm gauge. The seven underground stations all have high platforms, surface stops have either high or low platforms, therefore trains are equipped with unfoldable steps.
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21
Sept 1971: Beckhausstraße
underground station (Line 2) |
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Ch. Groneck, P. Lohkemper, R. Schwandl: RHEIN-RUHR STADTBAHN ALBUM 2: Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Bochum, Dortmund + Special Bielefeld. - Spring 2006, Robert Schwandl Verlag, ISBN 3936573 085
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MoBiel - Stadtwerke Bielefeld (Tram Operator) Stadtbahn Bielefeld at Wikipedia.de 
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