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92-488: Freudenstadt Hauptbahnhof is located on the southeastern edge of the city, where Bahnhofstraße meets Dietersweiler Straße. Its address is Hauptbahnhof 1. In the station building there is a Deutsche Bahn ticket office, a bakery and a kiosk. The station has a main platform (platform 1) and an additional island platform (platform tracks 2 and 3). Platform 1 mainly serves Stadtbahn traffic towards Karlsruhe ( Murg Valley Railway , Murgtalbahn ) and track 2 handles all traffic on

184-474: A state senator in Indiana. The Latin, inter urbes , means "between cities". The interurban fit on a continuum between urban street railways and full-fledged railroads. George W. Hilton and John F. Due identified four characteristics of an interurban: The definition of "interurban" is necessarily blurry. Some town streetcar lines evolved into interurban systems by extending streetcar track from town into

276-474: A boom in agriculture which lasted through the First World War , but transportation in rural areas was inadequate. Conventional steam railroads made limited stops, mostly in towns. These were supplemented by horse and buggies and steamboats , both of which were slow and the latter of which were restricted to navigable rivers. The increased capacity and profitability of the city street railroads offered

368-515: A connecting line between Durlacher Allee and Grötzingen station. This connecting line also contains the equipment that controls the change between the two electrification systems. The unexpected success of the new Stadtbahn line between Karlsruhe and Bretten (passenger numbers increased fivefold in just a few weeks) led to an accelerated development of the Stadtbahn system in the 1990s. The modernisation and integration of additional lines resulted in

460-665: A different route and start/end at Albtalbahnhof, deviating from the regular Route at Marktplatz. In 2019, the S5 ceased operation between Pforzheim and Bietigheim-Bissingen, being replaced by MEX17a, operated by SWEG Südwestdeutsche Landesverkehrs-AG over the same line and stopping at the same stations. Operations between Pforzheim and Bietigheim-Bissingen were possible due to an agreement with German national operator DB, which allowed AVG to run their S5 services in slots assigned to trains of DB, effectively replacing them. As DB lost several of their lines near Stuttgart to private operators in 2019,

552-480: A height of 34 cm (13 in), which are raised to a height of 55 cm (22 in) for a length of 15 metres (49 ft) to give step-free access to the first two doors of two-system trains. The extensive development of the network into the 1990s opened all of Karlsruhe’s surrounding countryside. The proposed urban tramways in Bruchsal, Rastatt, Baden-Baden and Landau failed to proceed, however, because of

644-426: A height of 55 cm (22 in), because the tunnel is used by trams and DC services of the Stadtbahn, which have an entry level on the modern lines of 34 cm (13 in). Since line S 2 formerly met Kaiserstraße at Durlacher Tor on Durlacher Allee, where there is no entrance to the tunnel, it was rerouted to branch off its former route at Hauptfriedhof and continue from there to Tullastraße. Stadtbahn cars of

736-411: A route from Rastatt, with or without crossing central Rastatt. Meanwhile, the results of the “standardised” cost–benefit analysis ( Standardisierte Bewertung ) used for German transport projects, show a moderately favourable value of 1.19 for the route via Baden station, and (a less favourable) value of 1.03 for the route from Rastatt generally along the route of the former Rastatt–Wintersdorf railway (of

828-502: A small part of their extensive business empires, which often include real estate, hotels and resorts, and tourist attractions. For example, the Keikyu network has changed unrecognizably from its early days, operating Limited Express services at up to 120 kilometres per hour (75 mph) to compete with JR trains, and inter-operating with subway and Keisei Electric Railway trains on through runs extending up to 200 kilometres (120 mi);

920-436: A substantial amount of freight. The typical interurban similarly served more than one city, but it served a smaller region and made more frequent stops, and it was oriented to passenger rather than freight service. The development of interurbans in the late nineteenth century resulted from the convergence of two trends: improvements in electric traction, and an untapped demand for transportation in rural areas, particularly in

1012-420: Is a German tram-train system combining tram lines in the city of Karlsruhe with railway lines in the surrounding countryside, serving the entire region of the middle upper Rhine valley and creating connections to neighbouring regions. The Stadtbahn combines an efficient urban railway in the city with an S-Bahn (suburban railway), overcoming the boundary between trams and trains. Its logo does not include

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1104-638: Is now owned by the state of Indiana and uses mainline-sized electric multiple units . Its last section of street running, in Michigan City, Indiana , was finally closed in 2022 for conversion to a grade-separated double-track line. SEPTA operates two former Philadelphia Suburban lines: the Norristown High Speed Line (Route 100) as an interurban heavy rail line, and the Media–Sharon Hill Line (Routes 101 and 102) as

1196-560: Is responsible for the sections from Pforzheim and Bretten to Bietigheim-Bissingen . As of 2013 , AVG quotes the size of the part of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn system that is not operated by DB as 262.4 kilometres (163.0 mi), with 12 lines serving 190 stations. The Karlsruhe Stadtbahn includes thirteen lines, in four different forms: Occasional limited service trains take a different route via Ettlinger Tor (instead of Marktplatz) Occasional limited service trains take

1288-578: The Karlsruhe model or tram-train , has been adapted by other European cities. A new section in tunnel through central Karlsruhe was completed in December 2021. The Karlsruhe Stadtbahn is operated in co-operation by Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (Alb valley transport corporation, AVG), Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe transport authority, VBK) and Deutsche Bahn (DB). The two urban transport operators, VBK and AVG, operate most services, while DB

1380-659: The Alb Valley Railway ( Albtalbahn ) by the city of Karlsruhe, the establishment of AVG and the integration of the Alb Valley Railway cross-country line into the Karlsruhe tram system between 1957 and 1966 formed the foundation for the later Stadtbahn network. The Alb Valley Railway was connected to the tram system and electrified as a tramway, so that modified trams could run through between the southern outskirts and Karlsruhe city centre. The success of

1472-652: The Badner Bahn , operates a classic interurban passenger service, in addition to some freight services. Some interurban lines survive today a local railways in Upper Austria are such as the Linzer Lokalbahn , Lokalbahn Vöcklamarkt–Attersee and Lokalbahn Lambach–Vorchdorf-Eggenberg . While others operate as extension of as local city tramways such as the Traunseebahn which is now connected to

1564-621: The Eutingen im Gäu–Schiltach railway line towards Eutingen im Gäu and Stuttgart . Some Stadtbahn trips (from Karlsruhe continuing to Eutingen in Gäu and vice versa) also operate from platform 2. Services on the Eutingen im Gäu–Schiltach railway line towards Hausach and Offenburg mainly use track 3. There are various parking facilities and a bus station at the station. Karlsruhe Stadtbahn [REDACTED] The Karlsruhe Stadtbahn

1656-518: The Gmunden Tramway . Today, two surviving interurban networks descending from the vicinal tramways exist in Belgium. The famous Belgian Coast Tram , built in 1885, traverses the entire Belgian coastline and, at a length of 68 kilometres (42 mi), which is the longest tram line in the world. The Charleroi Metro is a never fully completed pre-metro network upgraded and developed from

1748-518: The Hardt Railway . Other examples include: Milan operates one remaining interurban tramway to Limbiate with another interurban route to Carate Brianza / Giussano suspended since 2011. These two lines were once part of large network of interurbans surrounding Milan that were gradually closed in the 1970s. In Japan, the vast majority of the major sixteen private railways have roots as interurban electric railway lines that were inspired by

1840-758: The Japan Railways Group along highly congested corridors is a hallmark of suburban railway operations in Japan. For example, on the Osaka to Kobe corridor, JR West competes intensely with both Hankyu Kobe Line and Hanshin Main Line trains in terms of speed, convenience and comfort. However, a number of urban lines in Japan did close as late as the 2000s, with networks in Kitakyushu and Gifu being shut down. Between Vienna and Baden bei Wien

1932-667: The Japanese National Railways network at the time. The (former JNR) Hanwa Line was a wartime acquisition from Nankai, operating 'Super Express' trains on the line at an average speed of 81.6 kilometres per hour (50.7 mph), a national record at the time. The old Sendai station terminus of the Miyagi Electric Railway (the predecessor of the JR Senseki Line ) was situated in a short single-track underground tunnel built in 1925; this

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2024-1023: The Long Beach Line in Long Beach and Los Angeles, California (this was the last remaining part of the Pacific Electric system). The Long Beach Line was cut in 1961, the North Shore Line in 1963; the Philadelphia Suburban's route 103 and the NYS&;W in New Jersey both ended passenger service in 1966. Today, only the South Shore Line, Norristown High Speed Line (SEPTA Route 100), and SEPTA Routes 101/102 remain. Some former interurban lines retained freight service for up to several decades after

2116-841: The Meitetsu opened their first interurban lines in 1912, what today form parts of the Meitetsu Inuyama Line and Tsushima Line . In 1913, the first section of what will become the Keiō Line opened connecting Chōfu to just outside Shinjuku with street running on what is today the Kōshū Kaidō or National Route 20 . Kyushu Electric Railroad, predecessor to Nishitetsu opened its first interurban line in 1914 serving Kitakyushu and surrounding areas, taking heavy inspiration from Hanshin Electric Railway . The fortunes of

2208-552: The Midwestern United States . The 1880s saw the first successful deployments of electric traction in streetcar systems. Most of these built on the pioneering work of Frank J. Sprague , who developed an improved method for mounting an electric traction motor and using a trolley pole for pickup. Sprague's work led to widespread acceptance of electric traction for streetcar operations and end of horse-drawn trams. The late nineteenth-century United States witnessed

2300-585: The tram and rail regulations , lengthy negotiations with DB were required (well before rail reform legally permitted access by other rail operators to Germany’s rail infrastructure) before it was agreed that the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn could share the Karlsruhe–Bretten line. In 1992, Stadtbahn operations between Karlsruhe and Bretten-Gölshausen started on the Kraichgau Railway (then line B, now S4). The tram and rail networks were linked by building

2392-611: The 1950s. Outside of the US, other countries built large networks of high-speed electric tramways that survive today. Notable systems exist in the Low Countries , Poland and Japan , where populations are densely packed around large conurbations such as the Randstad , Upper Silesia , Greater Tokyo Area and Keihanshin . Switzerland, particularly, has a large network of mountain narrow-gauge interurban lines. In addition, since

2484-589: The 1970s, the remaining interurban tramways have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in the form of the Sneltram , a modern light rail system that uses high floor, metro-style vehicles and could interoperate into metro networks. Various other interurbans in Europe were folded into local municipal tramway or light rail systems. Switzerland retained many of its interurban lines which now operate as tramways, local railways, S-Bahn, or tram-trains. Milan's vast interurban network

2576-514: The 34 cm (13 in) high platforms. The single-system Stadtbahn vehicles are to be replaced by low-floor vehicles by 2016 in preparation for the opening of the Stadtbahn tunnel being built in central Karlsruhe. The tender for these vehicles is being prepared. There are currently a few stops in Karlsruhe city with platforms providing level access to two-system vehicles (such as those used on lines S 4 and S 5). The Stadtbahn tunnel will have platforms that are up to 80 m (260 ft) long with

2668-411: The Alb Valley Railway encouraged the Karlsruhe planners in the 1960s to connect the northern surrounding outskirts by a modern tram/stadbahn system as well. For this it negotiated with Deutsche Bundesbahn to use the Hardt Railway (Karlsruhe-Neureut- Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen ), sharing with the local goods traffic, and reached an agreement at the end of the 1970s. After building a connecting line between

2760-476: The Alb Valley and Hardt Railway and by building new tram lines, this was not true of the eastern suburbs. Therefore, shared operations over the existing railway lines was considered, although they were electrified, at least in sections, with the 15 kV system of the main-line railway. After development of a Stadtbahn vehicle, with the electrical systems of both trams and railways, that could be operated under both

2852-483: The Karlsruhe type have been used since 1983 (such as class GT6-80C). The fleet includes 60 single-current vehicles for the direct current services only and operate on lines S1, S11 and S2. This type was derived from the Stadtbahnwagen B . 40 vehicles are 38 m (125 ft)-long 8-axle cars, while the remaining 20 6-axle cars are 28 m (92 ft)-long. An 8-axle two-system car of the design GT8-100C/2S

Freudenstadt Hauptbahnhof - Misplaced Pages Continue

2944-611: The Netherlands a line from The Hague to Delft. Which opened as horse-tramway in 1866. Nowadays the line operates as Line 1 of The Hague Tramway . Line E, run by Randstadrail , was an interurban line connecting Rotterdam to The Hague and in the past also to Scheveningen. It now interoperates with the Rotterdam Metro . A large interurban network called the Silesian Interurbans still exists today connecting

3036-581: The Netherlands in earnest with the founding of the Tramweg Stichting (Tramway Foundation). Many systems, such as the Hague tramway and the Rotterdam tramway , included long interurban extensions which were operated with larger, higher-speed cars. In close parallel to North America, many systems were abandoned from the 1950s after tram companies switched to buses. Instigated by the oil crisis in

3128-450: The S9 had been taken over by this line, leaving it with only few trains a day operated as S34. Also during this time, S71 and S81 lost most of its trains to DB, leaving S71 with five trains a day and S81 with only two trains per day, one per direction. The following table shows the regular transport services on the individual Stadbahn lines as of December 2022. There are some deviations from

3220-409: The US during their heyday. While most interurbans in Japan have been upgraded beyond recognition to high-capacity urban railways, a handful have remained relatively untouched, with street running and using 'lighter-rail' stock. To this day they retain a distinct character similar to classic American interurbans. These include: The only surviving interurban line is also the oldest regional tramway in

3312-739: The US. But instead of demolishing their trackage in the 1930s, many Japanese interurbans companies upgraded their networks to heavy rail standards, becoming today's large private railways. To this day, private railway companies in Japan operate as highly influential business empires with diverse business interests, encompassing department stores, property developments and even tourist resorts. Many Japanese private railway companies compete with each other for passengers, operate department stores at their city termini, develop suburban properties adjacent to stations they own, and run special tourist attractions with admission included in package deals with rail tickets; similar to operations of large interurban companies in

3404-517: The United States, particularly in the states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, Utah, and California. In 1900, 2,107 miles (3,391 km) of interurban track existed, but by 1916, this had increased to 15,580 miles (25,070 km), a seven-fold expansion. At one point in time beginning in 1901, it was possible to travel from Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin , to Little Falls, New York , exclusively by interurban. During this expansion, in

3496-523: The border of the neighbouring City of Mississauga , unlike other Toronto radial lines which were all abandoned outside of the 1960s boundary of the City of Toronto . In Germany various networks have continued to operate. Karlsruhe revitalized the interurban concept into the Karlsruhe model by renovating two local railways Alb Valley Railway , which already had interoperability with local tram trackage, and

3588-666: The bottleneck in deliveries at the end of 2009 three Flexity Link sets were borrowed from the Saarbahn . In the two-area system served by the GT8-100D/2S-M Flexity Swift vehicles, 55 cm (22 in) high platforms were built to provide step-free entrances. These were mostly built on the newer line (especially the Murg Valley, Enz Valley, the line to Odenheim and the Kraichgau line to Eppingen) while

3680-519: The country's railway infrastructure and cater to the post-war baby boom. The companies continued their policies of improvement they had followed before the war; lines were reconstructed to allow higher speeds, mainline-sized trains were adopted, street-running sections were rebuilt to elevated or underground rights-of-way, and link lines to growing metro systems were built to allow for through operations. Many of these private railway companies started to adopt standards for full-blown heavy rail lines similar to

3772-414: The countryside to link adjacent towns together and sometimes by the acquisition of a nearby interurban system. Following initial construction, there was a large amount of consolidation of lines. Other interurban lines effectively became light rail systems with no street running whatsoever, or they became primarily freight-hauling railroads because of a progressive loss of their initial passenger service over

Freudenstadt Hauptbahnhof - Misplaced Pages Continue

3864-629: The dense vicinal tramway network around the city. Similar to the United States, in Canada most passenger interurbans were removed by the 1950s. One example of continuous passenger service still exists today, the Toronto Transit Commission 501 Queen streetcar line. The western segment of the 501 Streetcar operates largely on what was the T&;YRR Port Credit Radial Line, a radial line that remains intact through Etobicoke and up to

3956-492: The discontinuance of passenger service. Most were converted to diesel operation, although the Sacramento Northern Railway retained electric freight until 1965. After World War II , many interurbans in other countries were also cut back. In Belgium, as intercity transport shifted to cars and buses; the large sections of the vicinal tramways were gradually shut down by the 1980s. At their peak in 1945,

4048-668: The district council in the Karlsruhe district initiated a new standardised assessment for an extension of the S2 from Stutensee-Spöck to the north-western district. Interurban The interurban (or radial railway in Canada) is a type of electric railway , with tram -like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms used outside it. They were very prevalent in many parts of

4140-517: The early 1900s with some assistance from Thomas Edison . By the 1930s a vast network of interurbans, the Società Trazione Elettrica Lombarda , connected Milan with surrounding towns. In the first half of the 20th century, an extensive tramway network covered Northern England , centered on South Lancashire and West Yorkshire . At that time, it was possible to travel entirely by tram from Liverpool Pier Head to

4232-453: The early 21st century many tram-train lines are being built, especially in France and Germany but also elsewhere in the world. These can be regarded as interurbans since they run on the streets, like trams, when in cities, while out of them they either share existing railway lines or use lines that were abandoned by the railway companies. The term "interurban" was coined by Charles L. Henry ,

4324-765: The east at 339 miles (546 km) and had provided Pittsburgh-area coal country towns with hourly transportation since 1888. By the 1960s only five remaining interurban lines served commuters in three major metropolitan areas: the North Shore Line and the South Shore Line in Chicago, the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway in northern New Jersey, and

4416-399: The electrification of the line with the tramway’s 750 V DC system did not cause technical problems. Apart from the Stadtbahn line Hochstetten–Karlsruhe–Alb Valley (formerly line A, since 1994 lines S1/S11), a further Stadtbahn line, S2 ( Stutensee - Karlsruhe - Rheinstetten ), was built in stages between 1989 and 2006, extending an existing city tram line. This line connects the northeast with

4508-473: The end of the ramps. A new stop was built for tram line 3 in Grashofstrasse at Mühlburger Tor as the line branches off there; the new stop is not used by Stadtbahn trains. The Herrenstraße stop in the pedestrian zone was closed without replacement. The tunnel shortened the travel time for the Stadtbahn through the pedestrian zone and improved the stability of the timetable. In addition, the platforms of

4600-571: The following extensions: A tunnel has been built in central Karlsruhe, for Stadtbahn lines S 1 / S 11, S 2, S 4 / S 41 and S 5 / S 51 / S 52 and various tram lines. It was opened in December 2021. The tunnel runs under Durlacher Allee and Kaiserstraße with a junction under Marktplatz connecting to a tunnel under Ettlinger Straße. The tunnel ramps were built in the area of the former stops of Mühlburger Tor, Gottesauer Platz and Augartenstraße. New stations were built to replace these stops above ground at

4692-503: The forecourt of Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof ( Hauptbahnhof ) there is a four-track station for trams and Stadtbahn DC-powered trains. Here there are platforms on both sides of the tracks. In the future, the heights of the platforms on the right hand side will remain at 34 cm (13 in) (the height of platform for trams) and on the left they will be lifted to 55 cm (22 in). This will make possible level access to all modern trains. Weather protection will also be improved as part of

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4784-407: The former Mittelbadische Eisenbahnen ). An extension of line S2 from Spöck to central Bruchsal and from there towards Waghäusel was also pursued until 2012. However, the standardised assessment did not show a cost-benefit ratio worth funding for any of the options examined, so the project was not pursued any further. After the evaluation criteria and the procedure were changed on 1 July 2022,

4876-456: The green and white S-Bahn symbol used in other German suburban rail systems and the symbol is only used at stops and stations outside the inner-city tram-operation area. The idea to link tram and railway lines with one another in order to be able to offer an attractive transport system for town and outskirts was developed in Karlsruhe and implemented gradually in the 1980s and 1990s, with the system commencing operation in 1992. This idea, known as

4968-557: The industry in the US and Canada declined during World War I , particularly into the early 1920s. In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Electric Railways Commission to investigate the financial problems of the industry. The commission submitted its final report to the President in 1920. The commission's report focused on financial management problems and external economic pressures on

5060-522: The industry, and recommended against introducing public financing for the interurban industry. One of the commission's consultants, however, published an independent report stating that private ownership of electric railways had been a failure, and only public ownership would keep the interurbans in business. Many interurbans had been hastily constructed without realistic projections of income and expenses. They were initially financed by issuing stock and selling bonds. The sale of these financial instruments

5152-656: The interurban whose private tax paying tracks could never compete with the highways that a generous government provided for the motorist." William D. Middleton , in the opening of his 1961 book The Interurban Era , wrote: "Evolved from the urban streetcar, the Interurban appeared shortly before the dawn of the 20th century, grew to a vast network of over 18,000 miles in two decades of excellent growth, and then all but vanished after barely three decades of usefulness." Interurban business increased during World War II due to fuel oil rationing and large wartime employment. When

5244-497: The interurbans were the fifth-largest industry in the United States. In Belgium , a sprawling, nation-wide system of narrow-gauge vicinal tramways have been built by the NMVB / SNCV to provide transport to smaller towns across the country; the first section opened in 1885. These lines were either electrically operated or run with diesel tramcars, included numerous street-running sections, and inter-operated with local tram networks in

5336-448: The larger cities. Similar to Belgium, Netherlands constructed a large network of interurbans in the early 1900s called streektramlijnen . In Silesia, today Poland, an extensive interurban system was constructed, starting in 1894 with a narrow-gauge line connecting Gliwice with Piekary Śląskie through Zabrze , Chebzie , Chorzów and Bytom , another connected Katowice and Siemianowice . After four years, in 1898, Kramer & Co.

5428-608: The line was legally defined as a tramway and included street running at the two ends, but was based on American interurbans and operated with large tramcars on mostly private right-of-way. In the same year, the Keihin Express Railway , or Keikyu, completed a section of what is today part of the Keikyū Main Line between Shinagawa , Tokyo and Kanagawa , Yokohama . This line competes with mainline Japanese National Railways on this busy corridor. Predecessors of

5520-593: The long Cincinnati & Lake Erie Railroad (C&LE), and in Indiana with the very widespread Indiana Railroad . Both had limited success up to 1937–1938 and primarily earned growing revenues from freight rather than passengers. The 130-mile (210 km) long Sacramento Northern Railway stopped carrying passengers in 1940 but continued hauling freight into the 1960s by using heavy electric locomotives. Oliver Jensen, author of American Heritage History of Railroads in America , commented that "...the automobile doomed

5612-532: The mileage of vicinal tramways reached 4,811 kilometres (2,989 mi) and exceeded the length of the national railway network. Sprawling tram networks in the Netherlands extended to neighbouring cities. The vast majority of these lines were not electrified and operated with steam and sometimes petrol or diesel tramcars. Many did not survive the 1920s and 30s for the same reasons American interurbans went bust, but those that did were put back into service during

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5704-674: The mountain spa resort of Hakone. Many private lines were nationalised during the Second World War. The handful that remained in the hands of JNR after the end of the war – including the Hanwa Line, Senseki Line and the Iida Line  – remain outliers on the national JR network, with short station distances, (in the case of the Iida Line) lower-grade infrastructure, and independent termini (such as Aobadori Station and

5796-574: The national rail network, and, like JR commuter routes, are operated as 'metro-style' commuter railways with mainline-sized vehicles and metro-like frequencies of very few minutes. In 1957, the Odakyu Electric Railway introduced the Odakyu 3000 series SE , the first in a line of luxurious tourist Limited Express trains named ' Romancecars '. These units set a narrow-gauge speed record of 145 kilometres per hour (90 mph) on its runs to

5888-695: The older routes have been only been sporadically raised to this height. The Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn on the other hand, uses 76 cm (30 in) high platforms for accessibility on the Durlach–Bruchsal section, but only at Durlach and Bruchsal stations. These stations have been equipped with the conversion to S-Bahn operations with platforms of heights of both 55 and 76 cm (22 and 30 in). The older two-system and all single-system high-floor Stadtbahn vehicles do not offer barrier-free entry. These trains run on line S 2, but alternate with low-floor vehicles of class GT6-70D/N or GT8-70D/N which are also operated on most urban tram lines and provide accessible entrance at

5980-488: The original narrow gauge network was converted to standard, which allowed a connection with the new system in Sosnowiec. By 1931, 47,5% of the narrow-gauge network was reconstructed, with 20 kilometres (12 mi) of new standard-gauge track built. A large network of interurbans started developing around Milan in the late 1800s; they were originally drawn by horses and later powered as steam trams. These initial interurban lines were gradually upgraded with electric traction in

6072-422: The political resistance of local politicians. A separate network, the Stadtbahn Heilbronn , was built in the Heilbronn area to link with line S4. Few lines have been opened so far to the area west of the Rhine, the Vorderpfalz (eastern Palatinate ). This area has a lower population density, has closer connections to Mannheim and Ludwigshafen and the railways connecting it to Karlsruhe are not electrified. On

6164-511: The possibility of extending them into the countryside to reach new markets, even linking to other towns. The first interurban to emerge in the United States was the Newark and Granville Street Railway in Ohio, which opened in 1889. It was not a major success, but others followed. The development of the automobile was then in its infancy, and to many investors interurbans appeared to be the future of local transportation. From 1900 to 1916, large networks of interurban lines were constructed across

6256-455: The rail business altogether ran afoul of state commissions which required that trains remain running "for the public good", even at a loss. Many financially weak interurbans did not survive the prosperous 1920s, and most others went bankrupt during the Great Depression . A few struggling lines tried combining to form much larger systems in an attempt to gain operating efficiency and a broader customer base. This occurred in Ohio in year 1930 with

6348-478: The rebuilding, with the provision of roofs over individual platforms. For many years, a connection from Baden Airpark , the regional airport of Karlsruhe / Baden-Baden has been discussed. Initial planning focused on a route running via central Rastatt , Iffezheim and Hügelsheim , but there has been political opposition to this route in Rastatt. In recent years a route from Baden-Baden station to Baden-Airpark has been discussed along with continued discussion of

6440-423: The regions where they operated, particularly in Ohio and Indiana, "...they almost destroyed the local passenger service of the steam railroad." To show how exceptionally busy the interurbans radiating from Indianapolis were in 1926, the immense Indianapolis Traction Terminal (nine roof covered tracks and loading platforms) scheduled 500 trains in and out daily and moved 7 million passengers that year. At their peak

6532-562: The repair costs. The rise of private automobile traffic in the middle 1920s aggravated such trends. As the interurban companies struggled financially, they faced rising competition from cars and trucks on newly paved streets and highways, while municipalities sought to alleviate traffic congestion by removing interurbans from city streets. Some companies exited the passenger business altogether to focus on freight, while others sought to buttress their finances by selling surplus electricity in local communities. Several interurbans that attempted to exit

6624-676: The route between Pforzheim and Bietigheim-Bissingen was taken over by Abellio (now SWEG Bahn Stuttgart ), ending the operation between Pforzheim and Bietigheim-Bissingen. The section between Pforzheim and Wörth Badepark runs mostly unchanged, with only changes in arrival and departure times. In December 2022, the S9—by then renamed to S34 because line S9 of the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn had been extended to Karlsruhe, causing confusion–ceased operation, being fully replaced by regional trains running as line MEX17c. Already, in 2019, most services of

6716-407: The southwest suburbs. This line included single-track sections in the main streets of the local centres of Blankenloch, Forchheim and Mörsch. This route through the centres was preferred to a route on the edge of these localities or in a tunnel because it was seen as promoting development. While the development of the lines to the nearby northern and southern municipalities could be achieved by use of

6808-413: The station's tunnel have pedestals that are about 15 metres (49 ft) long with a height of 55 cm (22 in) above the rail so that the first two doors of Stadtbahn trains have step-less entry. This made possible stepless entrance on lines S 4 / S 41 and S 5 / S 51 / S 52 in Karlsruhe for the first time, reflecting a trend that has long been standard elsewhere. The platforms cannot consistently have

6900-532: The structure shown on weekends and late evenings/at night. Every 30 minutes (off-peak) Karlsruhe attempted to create a network of street and interurban tram lines for the development of the surrounding countryside, modelled on the Oberrheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft . However, by the middle of the twentieth century there had been little lasting achievement due to the difficult economic times in between. The acquisition of

6992-656: The town was launched. After World War I and the Silesian Uprisings, in 1922 the region (and the tram network) was divided between newly independent Poland and Germany, and international services appeared (the last one ran until 1937). In 1928 further standard gauge systems were established in Sosnowiec, Będzin and Dąbrowa Górnicza (the so-called Dabrowa Coal Basin - a region adjoining the Upper Silesian Coal Basin). Between 1928 and 1936 most of

7084-461: The trains retain a red livery based on the Pacific Electric's 'Red Cars', true to the company's interurban roots. The Keiō Line did not fully remove the street running section on the Kōshū Kaidō outside of Shinjuku Station until the 1960s, replacing it with an underground section. Similar to passenger railway conditions in early 1900s America, intense competition still exists today between private railways and mainline railways operated by

7176-560: The tram network and the railway line in 1979 the tram service shared the railway line for 2 km (1.2 mi) to Neureut, where the few remaining goods trains left the line. In 1986 and 1989 the Stadbahn was extended north to Leopoldshafen and Linkenheim-Hochstetten and to the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe , again sharing existing railway tracks. Since the remaining goods traffic was hauled by diesel locomotives,

7268-407: The upper level of Tennōji Station ). Today, trackage of the major sixteen private railways , in many places originally designed as American-style interurban railways, has been upgraded beyond recognition into high capacity urban heavy railways. Private railway companies that started out as interurbans such as Tokyu , Seibu , Odakyu , Hankyu and Tobu ; rail transportation now tends to form only

7360-478: The urban areas of the Upper Silesia . It is one of the largest interurban networks in Europe. In Łódź region, an interurban tram system connects Łódź, Pabianice, Zgierz and Konstantynów Łódzki, and formerly also Ozorków, Lutomiersk, Aleksandrów Łódzki, Rzgów and Tuszyn. Only three continuously operating passenger interurbans in the US remain with most being abandoned by the 1950s. The South Shore Line

7452-605: The village of Summit, outside Rochdale , a distance of 52 miles (84 km), and with a short 7 miles (11 km) bus journey across the Pennines, to connect to another tram network that linked Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds. The first interurban railway in Japan is the Hanshin Electric Railway , built to compete with mainline steam trains on the Osaka to Kobe corridor and completed in 1905. As laws of that time did not allow parallel railways to be built,

7544-537: The war ended in 1945, riders went back to their automobiles, and most of these lines were finally abandoned. Several systems struggled into the 1950s, including the Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad (passenger service ended 1950), Lehigh Valley Transit Company (1951), West Penn Railways (1952), and the Illinois Terminal Railroad (1958). The West Penn was the largest interurban to operate in

7636-628: The war years, or at least the remaining parts not yet demolished. One of the largest systems, nicknamed the Blue Tram , was run by the Noord-Zuid-Hollandsche Stoomtramweg-Maatschappij and survived until 1961. Another, the RTM ( Rotterdamse Tramweg Maatschappij ), which ran in the river delta south-west of Rotterdam , survived until early January 1966. Its demise sparked the rail-related heritage movement in

7728-454: The world before the Second World War and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution, when most roads between towns, many town streets were unpaved, and transportation and haulage

7820-507: The years. In 1905, the United States Census Bureau defined an interurban as "a street railway having more than half its trackage outside municipal limits." It drew a distinction between "interurban" and "suburban" railroads. A suburban system was oriented toward a city center in a single urban area and served commuter traffic . A regular railroad moved riders from one city center to another city center and also moved

7912-532: Was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, between towns and countryside. In 1915, 15,500 miles (24,900 km) of interurban railways were operating in the United States and, for a few years, interurban railways, including the numerous manufacturers of cars and equipment, were the fifth-largest industry in the country. But due to preference given to automobiles, by 1930, most interurbans in North America had stopped operating. A few survived into

8004-461: Was chosen to start electrification on Katowice Rynek (Kattowitz, Ring) - Zawodzie line, after which Schikora & Wolff completed electrification of four additional lines. In 1912, the first short 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge line was built in Katowice . In 1913, a separate standard gauge system connecting Bytom with suburbs and villages west of

8096-487: Was common. Receivership was a common fate when the interurban company could not pay its payroll and other debts, so state courts took over and allowed continued operation while suspending the company's obligation to pay interest on its bonds. In addition, the interurban honeymoon period with the municipalities of 1895–1910 was over. The large and heavy interurbans, some weighing as much as 65 tons, caused damage to city streets which led to endless disputes over who should bear

8188-468: Was developed for services running under a mixture of DC and AC lines from the DC vehicles, and 36 examples were supplied between 1991 and 1995. As technology advanced the follow-up design GT8-100D/2S-M was developed in 1997 and 85 vehicles were delivered up to 2005, carrying the numbers 837–922. In the autumn of 2009, 30 new two-car Flexity Swift sets were ordered, with an option for a further 45 sets. To bridge

8280-425: Was often local with salesmen going door to door aggressively pushing this new and exciting "it can't fail" form of transportation. But many of those interurbans did fail, and often quickly. They had poor cash flow from the outset and struggled to raise essential further capital. Interurbans were very vulnerable to acts of nature damaging track and bridges, particularly in the Midwestern United States where flooding

8372-648: Was progressively closed in the 1970s but parts of it were reused as the outer parts of the Milan Metro . Development of Japanese interurbans strayed from their American counterparts from the 1920s. The second boom of interurbans occurred as late as the 1920s and 1930s in Japan, with predecessors of the extensive Kintetsu Railway , Hankyu , Nankai Electric Railway and Odakyu Electric Railway networks starting life during this period. These interurbans, built with straighter tracks, electrified at 1500V and operated using larger cars, were built to even higher standards than

8464-621: Was the first stretch of underground railway in all of Asia, predating the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line by two years. Meanwhile, existing interurbans like the Hanshin Electric Railway started to rebuild their street-running lines into grade-separated exclusive rights-of-way. After the war, interurbans and other private railway companies received large investments and were allowed to compete not only with mainline trains but also with each other, in order to rejuvenate

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