Tram Trains Are AMAZING | The Karlsruhe Model
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
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Where would you build a tram train system?
suburbs! perfect place for them, cheaper than a train but more consistent than busses and trams
@Lord Buddha the faccs speaker not every city has the place for trams nor would it make sense everywhere ...
@Lord Buddha the faccs speaker nope lol
West Berlin
In every game of Cities:Skylines.
I actually work as a student worker in the main workshop of the Karlsruhe Tram Company. So it was quite nice to see them here. :) My dad is also one of the drivers on the tram train.
Fantastic to hear! Huge respect for people who help transit systems operate!
Thanks for the heart :) I'm currently developing an app Wich allows the drives to submit issues easier than it currently is done which will improve the workshop management and reduce downtime on these trams. It's quite a lot of engineering that went into those trams
That is so cool
Tag Kollege. Bist du am Betriebshof West oder in der Gerwigstraße?
@@felixw19 Bin im Westen
This is sort of like a modern incarnation of the Interurban. Crazy that we used to have tons of systems like this in the US if you go back 90-100 years ago. These would be a great to see as functioning like "commuter rail" in more smaller cities of 100K - 300K or similarly as lines that connect between radial mainline routes, such as SEPTA's Norristown High Speed Line, which may be considered one of 2 remaining interurban lines in the US.
Yep it is, what would have happened if the lower ridership Interurbans had a modern incarnation!
@@RMTransit you should do a video on elektrichkas, basically interurbans but also often suburban trains very common in the USSR and post-Soviet countries. Would be nice to see something not from the West
This would have been so perfect for Victoria BC (which a similar regional population as Karlsruhe), but unfortunately the streetcar and interurban train networks were dismantled long ago. Could even have run tram-trains up-island to Duncan, Nanaimo, and Courtenay.
@@RMTransit This would have worked great if Rochester kept it’s Subway. Imagine these running in the original roadbed of the Erie Canal.
How is a 300k population city small though lol.
Omg, finally! I live in Karlsruhe and absolutely love this system. I can walk 100 meters to a tram stop and 45 minutes later I'll be in the Black Forest or various other cities without having to change once. It's also worth mentioning that in many years, Karlsruhe is designated as the most bicycle friendly city in Germany. Especially for students it's a great system because you can also rent bikes for free, which are widely available here.
It already is the most bicycle friendly city in Germany. We dethroned Münster 2 years ago
@@felixw19 Yeah, I fucked up the sentence a bit. Meant to say that in most of the annual ratings, we score first.
The map of the tunnel was a little vague. Did they take all the trams off Kaiser Straße? Guessing the T would be at Marktplatz?
@@chrisgabel8498 Yes, all the trams in Kaiserstraße are driving in the underground now! Marktplatz is only in the middle of the T.
Black Forest is a city?
One issue that is worth mentioning as well is the training required for the drivers, and the potential safety pitfalls. Trams and trains are two entirely different cans of worms from a regulation standpoint _(trains run under the AEG - the "general railroad law", following the regulations of the EBO - the "railroad construction and operation regulation", whereas trams run under the PBefG - the "passenger transportation law", which also applies to busses and the like, following the regulations of the BOStrab - the "construction and operation regulation for streetcars")._ That means different signalling systems, different protocols, and sometimes even entirely different operational concepts. Drivers need to be trained for both, not an easy feat. This became very apparent when I did my rail traffic controller apprenticeship and did practice in Kassel, where they have a similar concept.
Trams are the best public transport system.
I live in Switzerland where narrow gauge trams are common and despite being a car guy I still like to take the tram from time to time.
Here's some very big news your well done feature just missed, since they were announced today: A consorrtium of six tram-train operators in Germany and Austria, under the leadership of the Karlsruhe based operator VBK, just announced the order of up to 504 new tram-train compositions.
For Stadler Rail, the manufacturer, this is the biggest order ever received worth up to 4 billion Euros. The order includes maintenance for up to 32 years.
While the common order will bring costs down for the six operators located in Southern Germany and Austria, and while there will be some common features like the number of cars (3) and air conditioning, the Stadler citylink tram-train model selected will still be personlised by the individual operators.
For example the liveries will all be different of course, more suprisingly also the entry heights and number of doors. The operator AVG will include toilets and bike hooks into their version, the two Austrian operators in Linz and Salzburg will feature luggage racks.
I'm literally watching the video while sitting in the tram 4 to Waldstadt.
Also an interesting thing to note: I'm from Chemnitz (other city in Germany) and they essentially mimicked the "Karuher Modell"
The power supply issues and floor height are by no means the only technical differences between typical light rail and heavy rail vehicles. Both wheel profiles and crash resistance are significant issues to be overcome. Mixed operation of tram-trains and heavy rail trains- particularly freight trains, typically requires all vehicles using the line to be equipped with some form of automatic train protection system (for example the European Train Control System ETCS) to minimise the chance of the risk of collisions from vehicles passing red signals. This can significantly increase the cost of a Tram-train scheme, depending on which main line railways they are proposed to operate over.
I went to university there, graduating 27 years ago. That's when the discussion about building the city tunnel started. We have pretty long planning cycles in Germany.
I was in Karlsruhe for a layover a week ago and I found that the tram-trains not only share the rail corridor with mainline trains, but in many places, they share the actual tracks themselves. I found that to be pretty wild.
@@realadrieno Yeah, that's also the Case in Saarbrücken (another German City with a Tram-Train, 184.000 Inhabitants) where the Saarbahn (said Tram-Train) runs alongside Trains to Straßburg (RE19) from Brebach to Sarreguemines/Saargemünd. In the North, it shares a small Portion of it's Track in Lebach with the RB72.
That being said, the Saarbahn would probably be an Example of a Tram-Train-Project that never really took off, as it came Years later than anticipated, cost more than thought at the Beginning and yet still only one of the two planned Lines was built. There are a lot of Expansion Plans floating around, the Fedaral State Saarland would like for a Connection to Forbach accross the Border as Tram and two Tram-Train-Lines running to Großrosseln and Überherrn, while the City of Saarbrücken has long been pushing for an Expansion of the Network to Saarland University, unsuccessfully, because the Company doesn't deem it easily doable.
I think you messed up your multiplication factor :) Toronto is only about 10 times larger than Karlsruhe based on citizens, or 3 times by area.
Also noteworthy that you call Karlsruhe a small city, but to us Germans it's already a big city. In Germany, the official definition for small cities (Kleinstadt) is 5k-20k citizens, medium city (Mittelstadt) is 20k-100k citizens, and large city (Großstadt) starting at 100k citizens. These definitions originally come from the International Statistical Institute.
Thank you for your content!
In transportation/city planning cities are usually measured by the entire urban area (generally includes main city and its suburbs) rather than just the municipality proper like you're taking about
The Szeged-Hódmezővásárhely (Hungary) tramtrain "solves" the platform height issue with 2 high (+55cm) and 2 low (+30cm) door. In the city all the doors are opening, the lower 2 on level and the 2 high a step above. On the outer section only the 2 high door opens on level.
Inside the train the floor has a ramp between the different floor heights.
Zürichs about to get the Tram Train experience too with the new Limmattalbahn being built. shares track with both a narrowgauge branchline and the city centre trams, and just liek Karlsruhe runs on combination wheels and 600V DC to 1200V AC
I think the budget and affordability of tram trains really is the main selling point of them. Sure, it doesn't provide as much efficiency than larger dedicated systems, but for every town/region that is in that in-between position and doesn't have the budget and demand to justify a full-blown subway network, that's a hell of a compromise to almost provide all advantages at a lower cost.
And I can say, it works. It's transforming so many routes that would require one or multiple stops into a direct trip, saving travel time, which is especially important if it's your commute.
I grew up close to the S4 approx. 20km from Karlsruhe and going to other cities and using public transport was so strange because there was tram and train which was basically the same for me 😄
In Newcastle (Australia) a tram-train approach may have been able to keep regional rail in the city centre. Maybe it still could, with the new city centre trams continuing on the existing SMR coal tracks to various Hunter Valley cities.
I'm not sure that the NSW government does trams very well.
Is Karlsruhe really so small from your point of view?
In Germany everything above 100 000 residents is considered a big city and usually also has got a tram network.
Where are the trams in Daly City lol
Get out a little more. There are cities with 20 million and more people, of course Karlsruhe is small in an international context. Even Berlin is.
Cries in Hamburg
I used to think that Karlsruhe is a big city. After moving there I feel like Karlsruhe is near the lower limit for that city feel. Smaller and you get towns. Cities range from small ones like Karlsruhe to medium ones like Berlin to big ones like London or Paris.
@@MTobias I feel like the lack of a real Metropolis in Germany means that the concept of city is underdeveloped in the german conciousness. There is no real "big city" no real national centre in Germany. Instead there are a bunch of smaller cities serving as the seat of various institutions and as regional centres. As a result those feel more like overgrown towns than cities. If there is no big 20 million citiy in your network of local/regional/national centres, it is difficult to judge it in relation to your frame of reference. If you are outside of Tokyo's gravity radius you don't feel its pull.
I grew up in Mulhouse, a bitter further South in the Rhine valley, and we've followed this model quite a bit :) we have three tram lines, one of which has half of its service as tram-trains all the way to the entry of a valley in the Vosges, and there are plans to make a second one, this projected one actually bringing rail service back to the biggest urban area in Alsace to have lost it! Gotta say, even though I don't live there any more, I was pretty pumped to see such a plan in the works!
Southern Ontario would benefit greatly from similar projects. I would actually love to see Ion upgraded to be able to operate like this, since it is already using a an active freight railroad ROW. The proposed line to Cambridge is necessary and should be a rail line, not a weird BRT they designed, but there is a lot of potential for extensions to Guelph, Elmira and potentially to New Hamburg, Paris, Woodstock, Brantford and even Stratford. This could also be a strategy to resurrect lost interurbans around the region, specifically on the Niagara Peninsula, around Windsor and in the Middlesex County. It is strange, but virtually all localities in Southern Ontario that would benefit from such a system I can think of have had a decent network of interurban lines up until the 1950s. If only we could bring them back...
It would be amazing and I’d support it for sure. Especially with high speeds.
@@RMTransit let's bring Ion to somewhat higher speeds first;)
In the German city Chemnitz they use two types of tram trains for connecting small cities like Aue, Stollberg and Mittweida to Chemnitz. One tram train, the Variobahn 6NGT-LDZ, is fully electric and uses 600 V DC within the city and 750 V DC outside the city. The tram train type no. 2 is the Citylink made by Vossloh. It also uses the 600 V DC within Chemnitz, but when they switch over to the rails of the Deutsche Bahn at Chemnitz main station they will use a combination of a diesel engine and a generator to power the electric motors. They can also use the 750 V DC, when they operate the line of the Variobahn.
I got 10 years there in Karlsruhe, originally from Mannheim.
We got only a tram train, with only meter and 750v power. But its a big circle ⭕️.
Last week it was announced that Stadler Rail won a tender to deliver tram trains (called CityLink, previously Vossloh) to 6 networks, the biggest of which is Karlsruhe. Those six networks from Germany and Austria launched the tender together to get lower price per unit because of a higher number of trains. There still will be six differently customized designs.
The Karlsruhe-Modell is becoming popular :)
You should try to cover the Heidelberg/Mannheim area system!
Boston's green line is another great example of a tram train. Their new green line extension is going to be awesome!
My favourite tram system! Visited in 2009 and rode all the lines. Hope to visit (from Australia) again some time.
The light rail trams on route 96 and route 108 run on heavy rail lines in the suburbs of Albert Park, Middle Park and Port Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia.
I believe that has been the case since the 1980s.
The difference is that heavy trains no longer run on the train tracks.
The Karlsruhe tram-trains are misnamed by the general public so often. It goes by the names S-Bahn, Stadtbahn, tram, and I fear, with the completion of the city centre tunnel some will call it an U-Bahn aswell.
Yeah I recently heard someone in Durlach telling her child: "Look, there comes the U-Bahn" - Where the tunnel is not even close :D
@@r0x152 Sogar in einer "Auf Streife" Folge hat ein Polizist die Kölner Stadtbahn als S-Bahn bezeichnet.
Wort mentioning that the S2 is running only on tram tracks and is operated by VBK personel for the AVG.
I live in a medium sized French city that also has a tram train. There's a line that starts 3 minutes walking out from my home and brings me straight to the a series of villages up in the mountains where I can go for a walk in the forest, swim in a beautiful lake, enjoy traditional sites and architecture...
I boarded it today and it cost me exactly 3.00€ for a round-trip, with confortable seats and AC. What else can I ask from my city on a beautiful summer afternoon? I'm so grateful we have all this in Europe, and I'm sorry for North Americans that became enslaved to their car in the name of what they call "Freedom".
Hearing you pronounce Karlsruhe
was "exquisite agony" to quote Vincent Price
I think in one of the Dr Phibes movies LOL
It is pronounced /ˈkɑːrlzruːə/
the final e is not silent
It is if you speak in the local dialect
I´ve been living here for 4.5 years and have never heard a native pronounce the E at the end
There are more in Saarbrücken, Chemnitz and Kassel
In Kassel they have added tram trains to their normal tram system which can enter the mainline at the central station. They wanted to also operate on unelectrified mainline, so Alstom put an additional diesel engine in a few of those RegioTrams. A tram with a diesel engine. That is just cursed. But it works.
Kassel has some very clerver use of it with a super fast line between the 2 main stations, cutting down on traffic in the city center.
This seems like exactly what Halifax NS needs
Hiroshima has a system along this concept, they run ordinary railcar originally but transformed to curb-access trams so the the line can join the existing network
by the way... another benfit is they now can place better/cheaper orders for new cars since there are others citites using the same system
In Melbourne, Australia they are not Tram Trains but are called Light Rail. The Biggest and most extensive Rail Network in the World.
It's not like we don't have enough corridors - there's plenty of highway space that could be repurposed for all kinds of rail.
I believe in the Vienna, Austria area, the Badner Bahn does the same, where it travels in the city, but then onto the rail and into the neighboring city Baden. Would love to see more of those, they seem very flexible for commuters
Did you just say "pershpective" in 4:24? I love it. Nice German accent. 😉
I would build an tram train system around the dutch city of Utrecht. Lots of smaller towns around the city and the bussiest trainstation in the netherlands next to the city center
An observation: You do pronounce Karlsruhe like a local: Karlsruh (without the e at the end and a long ooo sound for the uh) instead of Karlsruhe (with the h and e sound).
The future of the System in Karlsruhe is divers:
A lot of only-AC-Lines will be discontinued in a few years or or it has already happened:
The diagonal-Line S9 und the east-Part of the S5 had to make way their service in 2019 for the new heavy-rail-line RB17. This was necessary to operate more direct Trains in the Stuttgart Region and for more capacity.
To the End of 2022 the S4 Sprinters and Express-Trains to Heilbronn will be discontinued too. A new regional-express line is being set up here.
And the Lines S71 and S81, witch operates via the Rhine-Valley Line, will be converted in a Regional-Train too. These lines did not go into the city centre anyway and the Tram-Trains can only operate on 100 km/h. The new Trains can run on 160 km/h witch will save Slots on the heavy crowded mainline.
In addition, operating costs will decrease, as standard vehicles can now be used and rail services can be competitively awarded. For the next 12 years, Deutsche Bahn will operate the lines with Alstom vehicles.
But new tram-train lines will be developed too. A new network will be crated in the South of Stuttgart (Regio-Stadtbahn Neckar Alb). There is much to suggest that this network will then also be added to the Karlsruhe network. For example, the same vehicles will be used.
Technically the Ion LRT in Kitchener-Waterloo is technically a Tram-Train; it uses the Waterloo spur which is a live and operational freight branch line.
You HAVE TO Cover Stuttgarts beautiful undergound Stations of the U-Bahn...
Do a video on Vancouver's "trams" the electric trolley busses. They are basically Trams that run on electricity but are much faster than trams
They aren't trams
Ich bin echt enttäuscht, dass die Kommentarspalte dieses Videos noch nicht zum deutschen Staatsgebiet erklärt wurde... ...das haben wir selbst bei einem Video von LTT(14 Millionen Abonnenten) hinbekommen
There is a place in the outskirts of Oslo (Between Jar and Bekkestua), where the tram goes on the subway-tracks. Really cool when you pass by a platform at the height of your heads :D
South East Wales is building a team train system
Very cool Video 👌👍 greetings from Pfinztal, which is connected to Karlsruhe with the S5 😂
Amazing video as usual. I love your unusual videos like this. There r so many transit channels now all have the same contents on Shinkansen, CALHSR, Toei Subway and so on but so few about Tram Trains and literally none so detailed about Tram Trains other than this.
Trams are really amazing and awesome being far more inexpensive than Metro or a heavy rail and yet being much more flexible than buses. Unfortunately the existing Trams in Kolkata is being destroyed by our local politicians for selling off the expensive tram depot lands which naturally have a very high value being in the centre of the city. Would love if you would ever make a video on that issue.
Oh and that Tokyo Subway - Commuter - Yokohama Subway is you were referring to is the Minatomirai Line
What a lucky city
Also an interesting but larger city is my hometown of Leipzig, Germany. Its tram network is nearly twice the size of the network of Karlsruhe and it has a very good S-Train-Network (thanks to the city tunnel). You can really live in one of the villages like Böhlen or Naunhof around Leipzig and it still takes less than 30 minutes to get into the city centre. And currently they are expanding both networks (tram and S-Train). But i guess it doesn't have something special that stands out like the Karlsruhe Model.
i guess that metros should be built with mainline track, loading gauge and electrification, when possible, otherwise there should be metro and regional routes, where the metro works like a shortened, local, frequent version, and can be compatible with underground lines
11:41 Can anyone tell me where that video is? I simply cannot find it I’m gonna cry😢 @RMTransit
It would be cool to do a video with an overview of the different existing tram trains. I know of systems in Saarbrücken, Kassel, Nordhausen, Chemnitz, Zwickau and several in France (T4 and T11 in Paris area and some more) for example.
do you have or could you make a vid on Trams vs buses? plus how they compare to subways and heavy rail?
So can u eventually make a video of the RNV Tram Trains? Just if ur interested?!?
Can you do a train video of trains to waken in Germany for the waken heavy metal festival
Sounds like an upgraded form of light rail to me.
Light rail isn’t very well defined
@@RMTransit oh yeah.... i did your series discussing the classification of modes..... it's quite a mess
To me tram train networks look like they could serve cities that are at most 1,000,000 which means I would build them in most US cities.
It maybe helps you...
Fuku-toshin (of Tokyo) 副都心 /ふく-としん/ /foo(or hoo)-coo-toh-shin/, and means sub-centrer of city.
HELP, PLEASE: We are living in Karlsruhe and enjoyed your video about our Stadtbahn (Straßenbahn) very much. Since English is not our mother tongue: At about 2.56 into the movie you said: "... things get downright ....... when you look at the Stadtbahn". Now we here are arguing if you said "spicy" or "spacy" and what is meant by that. Thanks and keep up the very interesting videos.
it sounds like spicy to me, he probably meant it as "things get interesting"
@@LuisMan123 Hi, thank you for your reply. Being German I didn't know that spic(e)y could mean "interesting". I knew the word only in connection with food. Even my wife who grew up in Canada wasn't familiar with that meaning of the word. Thank you again
@@ManfredMeder Ich spreche auch deutsch, habe das aber bisher nur in so einem Kontext gehört also bitte mit einem "grain of salt" nehmen 🙃
This is great, but the difference between the trams and the S-Bahn could be made much clearer. Myself and my girlfriend (!who is German, so it’s not because my German is not so great) managed to get confused between the 1 and the S1, which operated from the same stop, and ended up in the arse end of nowhere.
"The Karlsruhe S-Bahn is unique that it uses Trams which can run on both tram tracks and standard rail"
Stuttgarter Ubahn: am I a joke to you
Stuttgarter U-Bahn trains can't run on standard rail.
have you ever seen a Stadtbahn train in the Hbf? They can't go there, in Karlsruhe they can, the Karlsruhe trains could even drive into Stuttgart Hbf
The City of Chemnitz in Saxonia, Germany, has a similiar system, and Chemnitz is even smaller than Karlsruhe!
300.000 people city in Europe is not that small… I guess because of high city density which makes services easier to provide.
Ever heard of the German port city of Kiel?
In the 1970’s the city council paved over the existing tram network in favor of the future: the Personal motor vehicle (cars).
A big 4 lane stroad now stretches through the city and ever since Y2K people want the tram back, ironically it’s always said to be too expensive and would “not be able to serve the city sufficiently” tram trains might be able to solve both problems with one strike: of course it’s gonna be expensive to Bild up Tracks that have been removed, but in many places in the city, the tracks were just paved over and you can even see remnants of the old wires hanging around here and there. Kiel has the potential to become the next Karlsruhe and also pretty fast, but sadly there is no political will. The council rather wants to replace the “Great” overpasses all across the city, and bulldoze lots of community gardens to build a shitty furniture store, right next to IKEA.
But yeah Tram trains would serve Kiel pretty well. You could build connections to Eckernförde, Laboe, Preets and maybe Bordesholm.
300 000 people is not a small city for german standarts... Its the third largest city in Baden-Württemberg right after Stuttgart and Mannheim.
Nice video. I love Trams and they fascinating me everytime. Mybe you could help me with a question thats bother me since I moved to the city. I live in Bochum and I have the feeling that metro and tram are melt together. We have a huge metro that are under the city and goes in every important direction. But when you travel further away from the center the metro gets above ground, like the U35 and follow the Universitätsstraße. Or some Lines goes from underground to above ground and travel directly on the streets. How can someone call it an U-Bahn, when its clearly not underground. It's very wierd when I first travel with it.
Technically the system in Bochum is also a stadtbahn, as well as most of the other U-Bahn systems like Frankfurt or Stuttgart or Cologne. Even in Karlsruhe, the underground stations are marked with an "U" even though it has nothing to do with a real U-Bahn.
When it comes to a real U-Bahn (or a real metro) the "U" stands in german not just for "Untergrund" (underground), but also for "Unabhängig" (independent) which means a real U-Bahn has no street crossings or points were the U-Bahn system and other railway systems come together. Sometimes the U-Bahn lines are even independent from each other and each line can be seen as its own system. In Germany, we have only 4 of these real U-Bahn systems: Berlin, Hamburg, Nuremerg and Munich. All the other systems that are labeled as "U-Bahn" are some kind of Stadtbahn (I think the U5 Line in Frankfurt can also be seen as real metro line). So you see that it doesn't really matter if a U-Bahn operates fully underground or not. In fact, every metro systems has somewhere parts that are overground.
@@Black_Forest_Julez The U35 in Bochum is almost independent. Considering that it is a separate line in Bochum (all other lines are meter gauge and low platform), it is very close to an U-Bahn. Other Lines like the U18 in Essen/Mülheim and the U46 in Dortmund are fully independent and the U46 is even fully underground.
Small city - 300.000 habitants . Clearly a very non European perception.
"Small city": it is #22 in Germany. Is this small?
Calling Karlsruhe a "small city" is so weird to me. For German standards I would call it a normal sized one (if not a relatively big one)
For me Karlsruhe is a small "big city". Eine kleine Großstadt.
@@EnbyFranziskaNagel Yeah something like that. Soweit ich weiß gilt man ab 100.000 Einwohner in DE als Großstadt
Me living in a town with 12.500 people: what do you mean small?!
@@AlexLP0 Yeah, I think it has to do with how you count the population. In germany its really just the city, but in other countries its always called the "metro area" which spans alot larger. Karlsruhe+Landkreis would be 750.000 peaople and 1million people would live inside the stadtbahn network.
Even despite its size, Karlsruhe never really feels like a Großstadt to me really. Which, beside the relatively low building heights in the center and lack of small alleys, I actually attribute to being relatively car free compared to other German cities.
It is worth mentioning, that the Karlsruhe Model is called the Chemnitz Model in the East of Germany, so this city might also be worth a look. The main advantage of the Karlsruhe Model is that it makes living in towns and villages around Karlsruhe much more comfortable, which in return reduces housing prices in the center (a bit). You can live in a village with a tram station and your children can easily drive into the city for shopping or to party on their own, I would even go so far and say that the number of students who still live at home somewhere in the region is a bit higher in the universities of Karlsruhe because of this. This system decreases the difference between the city and the surrounding province, and this solves a lot of the problems that many cities have today.
I wonder if the heavy-rail-and-bike combination could also make living in towns and villages around many other cities more comfortable without the street running part. Tram-trains seem like a good way to focus on one seat rides but when there is a need for transfers, there might as well be transfers between trams and trains or buses and trains.
But how useful could freight tram-trains be?
Karlsruhe started the real tram train system on national railway tracks with dual electrical system in 1992, while having an overland tram (Albtalbahn) which was legally run as a train, but technically as a tram, since 1958-1961. - Chemnitz has copied this system in 2014.
1:54 did you know that the Universities of both Karlsruhe and Waterloo offer degrees in traffic planning? And that the two work together with a exchange program?
Did not but that's very cool!
@@RMTransit I got my Bachelors degree in transport planning in Karlsruhe and the meetup/exchange happens yearly for the students who are in their 6th semester at the time. Unfortunately my 6th semester was during 2020, so for me this was cancelled because of Corona.
Kassel, a city that's similar in size to Karlsruhe, also has tram trains in addition to its regular city wide tram network. They also use diesel/electric trams for sections of railway that don't have any overhead power. There's also a small tunnel under the Hauptbahnhof that links the tram network with the mainline railway.
Und die Kasselner Jugend wacht morgens im Siff-Suff auf und fühlt sich wie Sophie Scholl 😂
Chemnitz is another city in Germany that has started running trams on regional rail lines
Both Kassel and Chemnitz use the so-called Chemnitzer Modell, where trams run on railways lines using diesel propulsion. Also diesel trains (technically DEMUs like the Stadler RegioShuttle) can also run on the tram lines through this model. Hence the Chemnitz central station has integrated platforms for both trams and trains, besides a tram-only stop on the other end of the Hbf.
It's interesting that to a north American guy Karlsruhe is a small city, I am German and I think it is pretty big. I think it is no surprise, but a necessity for a city the size of Karlsruhe to at least have a decent tram network and I am a bit ashamed for my hometown of Kiel (~250.000) to not have a tram network.
Hey, nice that I am not the only who is ashamed of his hometown Kiel haha. Removing the tram tracks a few decades ago was just such a stupid decision...
However, we hopefully will get a new little tram system in the next decade (and no brt bruh). The kn articles regarding this are pretty much the only ones I am excited for xD
I feel it was totally unnecessary to call it a "small" city, sure it is small compared to New York, but New York is not a normal sized city, it is a Megalopolis.
As a person from Croatia, I don't agree. Karlsruhe is somewhere between "medium" and "small" sized cities. Germany alone has 20 cities larger than Karlsruhe. To me, a city needs to be about a million before being called "large".
But they have nice busses
@@2712animefreak But Germany only has four cities larger than one million (and the kind of megacity in the ruhr valley). officially all cities larger than 100.000 are called "großstadt" in germany.
And also to consider is that the size is really just the city - not mentioning the suburbs. Counting Karlsruhes suburbs in, the population of the total area is around 750.000 - with the Stadtbahn network extending the suburbs and even reaching about 1million people.
Have you heard of the Saarbahn? It's a similar system in the Saarbrücken area. Its coolest aspect (IMHO) is that it runs into neighbouring France! So you can board a tram in Saarbrücken, Germany, and get off a train in Sarreguemines, France, and it's a one-seat trip.
There is a similar system in Basel, but it goes to three countries: to Weil am Rhein in Germany, and Saint-Louis in France. No line operates through all three countries, though.
The tram from Strasbourg, France also has a line that crosses the border to Kehl, Germany
@@2712animefreak Basel also has interurban lines, however these are meter-gauge so any connection with mainline trains is impossible. The services to France and Germany are run as "simple" trams however, just like the Strasbourg tram (which has standard gauge btw) in Kehl, Germany. The Saarbahn operates as a train in France as has been said
@@thespacearchitect but it's only a classic tram, not a tram-train
Love the Saarbahn! Just wish that it had more than one line. A tram line that hugs the Saar river from Saurregemines to Merzig or Trier would be amazing.
It’s really cool to someone outside of Germany talk about my hometown. I think it’s quite an oversight that many people associate transit concepts only with very large cities. Because the majority of people doesn’t live in those. We only have 4 cities in Germany with more then 1mio inhabitants, Karlsruhe is somewhere around rank 20 in German cities, there are quite a few that could implement similar systems, while the systems of Munich or Berlin are just much too expensive for most. So talking about systems for midsized cities is actually very interesting in my opinion, because it affects way more people then those in the few metropolis.
Growing up with this system being the norm, I often wonder why so few cities of comparable size have something like this. I think you got the benefits and prerequisites of the system quite well. It’s certainly not a perfect situation for large cities, but I think it’s one of the best solutions for midsize cities I know. I really like people have been starting to take notice of what we have here. It’s just really convenient and I can do pretty much any trip with max 1 transfer, which is quite nice.
I live in Bruchsal, which is a smaller town close to Karlsruhe, and my mother's family has lived in the area for a long time. That is why I want to tell a little story about why the tram system in Karlsruhe is so great to have.
When my mum was out of school in 1958 and was training for a job, she had to go to Karlsruhe once a week in the late afternoon for specific classes (that's part of vocational training here in Germany). The classes ended at nine pm and she and the others from Bruchsal had to hurry to the train station afterwards to catch the train home, because there was only one train an hour and if they missed it (because the teacher had spoken too long, for instance), they had to wait for one hour.
When I was a kid, we were often taking the train to Karlsruhe once a year with our class for a trip through the Karlsruhe Zoo (which, incidentally, is just across the street from the main train station). At that time, the regular frequency of trains was still one hour, so our teachers (and usually one or two parents) had to herd us across the street, into the station, to the rails, and up the right stairs in time to catch the train or we'd be stuck there for an hour (with the kids going everywhere, stressing the adults out completely).
When I went to uni in Karlsruhe, the tram system was already implemented. At that time, trams were every 20 minutes, which is a much better rate than one hour. I could switch trains in the morning in Durlach (another town that's basically part of Karlsruhe) and get off right at the uni (there's two viable stops, depending on where on the premises you need to be).
Now, there's a tram to Karlsruhe from Bruchsal and back about every ten minutes. It's so easy to get there without having to worry about missing 'that' specific train. So I missed that one? Not a problem, the next one will be here in ten minutes, it might even already wait at a platform and I can go in and take a seat and wait in peace. Not to mention that the prices aren't too high and thus it's also a viable way to get to Karlsruhe just for a shopping trip or to meet with friends or to go to the theatre or do something else in your spare time.
I love the trams.
However, Karlsruhe now also has a tram tunnel. Having both a tram tunnel and tram trains raises the question of why not just have a train tunnel and interchanges with buses and trams and also keep or reinstate the parallel bus services.
EDIT: If your mother went to Karlsruhe in the late afternoon, why didn't she spend the night there?
@@Myrtone regarding your edit: 1 Hotels are expensive and vocational training is paid but not that much and she probably also would have to get to work at the next morning in the original town.
@@betaich So does that mean the frequency is important because of how precious time is? I would like to think that a ten minute frequency should not mean waiting at a stop or station for ten minutes if you know when to turn up at your stop or station.
Norway's biggest city is barely 600,000 people but still has a pretty good bus, tram AND subway service. There is always /some/ kind of stop nearby to get you where you want. And it's easier than driving through the city center.
oslos urban area population is 1.1 million, karlsruhes is 300k. Thats a huge difference
Nice video, now I'm taking the S2 to the public indoor swimming pool. Cheerio.
The cities of Chemnitz (Saxonia) and Kassel (Hessia) also mafe their own (type of) tram-train networks. It should be mentioned both cities are even smaller then Karlsruhe with up to 244k/204k residence.
Zwickau as well, somewhat different by using normal trains converted to be able to run on tram track, but Zwickau is at 87k
@@MrMakabar Yeah right, forgot that one 👍
You forgot Saarbrücken, Heilbronn, Bad Wildbad and Nordhausen
Yeah it’s quite impressive! Especially how many of these networks connect
@@ericofantastico Interesting. I didn't know about the Saarbrücken Service 👍🙂.
Hungary just opened its first Tram Train and it runs from Szeged to Hódmezővásárhely. It uses dual mode vehicles that run on overhead catenary wires while within city limits and runs on diesel while running in between the cities. Szeged has an even smaller population than Karlsruhe at about 160,000 and Hódmezővásárhely at a mere 44,000. It has since been quite the success.
Very interesting that it runs as diesel dual mode
@@RMTransit Yes. Szeged has a robust tram network with a handful of lines throughout the city. Buses that used to traverse the route got stuck in traffic and the railway line that connects the two cities is single tracked and unnelectrified. Thus, this was the solution.
Lets not get carried away by how succesful it is, see after there is a fare. Currently it is operating in "election mode". The connection through the Serbian border with Szabadka would make it even more attractive, with another 150k population center.
@@lukacsnemeth1652 That would be interesting. An international tram-train. However, I think an extension to Makó is more likely though. I think in order for your proposition to be realized some political bridges need to be repaired by the countries haha
@@DanTheCaptain Well for Mako, which is barely 30k population a literal bridge needs to be built, not a political one. Also, the Szabadka extension is not a proposal, tracks are being laid right now.
One of the lines is so long that the tram trains need more than 2 hours for one direction. Toilets are installed on board of these trains. They are rolling through the Murg valley. I used this line for a hiking tour along a long- distance trail called "Murgleiter": As I returned by tram train every evening to the same hotel, no heavy luggage had to be carried. The landscape in the Black Forest mountains is breathtaking, the train service absolutely reliable and free of extra cost for tourists (tourist have to pay a small daily tax but are entitled to free transport on short-distance trains and busses). It was a wonderful experience of nature, culture and railway technology. At this single-track line, signals and switches are operated so quickly that at a crossing, the waiting train starts to accelerate even before the oncoming train has stopped at the platform! Also intresting: an inclination of 5 % beteeen Baiersbronn and Freudenstadt, which requires rolling stock equipped for safe operation on this section.
From Tullastraße to Bondorf (b Herrenberg) Trams actually drive 3 hours
Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Karlsruhe und Duisburg?
In Duisburg ist die Stadtbahn Sch... und in Karlsruhe ist die Sch... in der Stadtbahn
Womit das Niveau dort angelangt wäre, wo auch die Karlsruher Stadtbahn nun verkehrt - unterirdisch.
Don´t forget the S4 which interconnects with the Stadtbahn Heilbronn. From Albtalbahnhof to Öhringen it takes 2h45min.
have you ever heard of the kusttram? it’s a 67 kilometer tram line running along (pretty much) the entirety of the Belgian coast
I hope he does an episode on it.
Oh that sounds interesting I should check it out.
Does It Go until Dunkerque ?
@@fredericbouh4955 no gets pretty close though
@@fredericbouh4955 Sadly enough, it doesn't. It's one of those excellent domestic lines that could easily go international/crossborder but doesn't. Completely stupid, as it would connect France to Belgium and also offer a direct access to the port of Dunkirk (with crossings to Dover) to thousands of Belgians living along the coast.
Yes, Karlsruhe proper has a population of around 300.000. However, the metropolitan region is home to more than a million people.
New Jersey's Riverline Light Rail (from Camden to Trenton) is very similar, but uses diesel rolling stock. Speaking of that, you should do a video on New Jersey Transit, because it is uniquely run at the State level.
Indeed, but it’s just a single line, I think what makes Karlsruhe so impressive is the network! I may well do a video on NJ so stay tuned!
Darn. You beat me to it.
In what world is a 300k res City small? Every city with +100k residents is in Germany a Großstadt (Large/Major City)
We have metro-train in athens. Trains from athens line 3 can thru run to the AC power suburban railway to go to the airport. The services're run by the metro, but the rails and station are owned by ose
Yep, it was really cool to see when I was there - probably a future video
But the ticket price is sadly quite high. 😕
I basically squealed with exitement when I saw the video title and thumbnail, because I had never expected (but sometimes wished for) an RMTransit video on my hometown and it's transit system considering you usually talk about much bigger cities.
Some additions:
The speciality in dual-mode trains isn't only the electrification (750V Dc vs 15kV AC), but also in the wheel design, as tram tracks and switches are designed differently than the ones from mainline railroads, because the tram versions need to be able to be recessed in the street.
So the wheels have a special profile which allows them to work on both.
Also, in germany there's two different sets of laws/rules on how to operate trains (the EBO ) and trams (the BOStrab), and since these tram-trains are both, they have to fulfill both requirements, the drivers have to be trained to be both tram drivers and train operators, and there's certain points in the system on which legally, the tram turns into a train (or vice versa) because it changes from operating according to the BOStrab to operating according to the EBO.
And the change in power sytem doesn't necessary allign with the change between EBO and BOStrab, to make things even more confusing.
It's a fascinating and complex system, but really easy to use, as none of the above-mentioned stuff is of relevance to passengers. I just find it interresting ;D
Me neither! I am totally blown away that RMTransit did a video on my hometown and the wonderful tramtrain system :) the comic GT8/100 is soooo nice!
But it's mainly the Dual Mode thing, which made the Karlsruhe Model an innovation. Tramtrains by law have been build before for example around Cologne but it required the lines to be DC electrified and the switches to be build with special parts.
In Nordhausen (40000 Inhabitants), Germany there is also a Tram Train in operation. The interesting thing about it is that it operates on narrow-gauge railway, connecting to the HSB network, the largest operated narrow gauge railway network in Germany. As far as I know it is the only of its kind world wide
The cursed diesel trams
@@chickenpommes19 It's a tram train based on Siemens Combino trams with a BMW engine for the ride on the tracks of HSB. Very nice small company. I had been there ones.
Was it in Nordhausen or Chemnitz where RegioShuttles sometimes stop on tram stops?
@@studiosnch this is Chemnitz.
@@studiosnch No it is Zwickau
by German standards anything beyond 100k inhabitants is rated as large city, with Karlsruhe having a rather decent size and population; However in an international context that's rather a scale of small to medium sized city indeed.
There are so many local approaches to efficient public transit; In the city I grew up all local public transit is carried out by buses - 100% bus service, no tram, no tram train, no subway, no commuter rail. But they want to rebuild a tram system; Although I like trams it just doesn't make sense in that city due to the size of the streets, lack of space and busy services. Some through-going bus stops (no hubs) are served by more than 20 different bus lines right now
Ne Karlsruhe ist auch klein. Eine Stadt ist eine echte Großstadt, wenn sie im Song "Berlin City Girl Extended Version" mitgesungen wird.
The definition which counts as large city (or Großstadt) wasn't made by Germany, infact it was defined by the International Statistical Institute in 1887. So this standard applies worldwide.
No, that is by global standards.
It was defined 1887 by the International Statistical Institute and is used in almost all countries around the world. And as I assume everyone knows is very outdated.
Most people however in there everyday language don't use this definition. Most Germans I know also don't use it.
More important than it's absolute size probably is the fact that it's the 2nd (e: possibly very narrowly 3rd) largest city in BaWü and the largest in the Baden part (politically relevant for the state government), and that it's well suited near a whole bunch of other cities of various sizes (and of industrial/commercial relevance). Plus, through the S3, the network is effectively connected to another network connecting a bunch of other cities in the region, so you got some level of synergy there as well.
Basically a unique situation that required a unique solution and they found one that seems to work quite well.
Dublin (1 million pop) was able to build two tram lines and overcome significant space, street, archaeological, and engineering challenges. It's possible
From personal experience I can say that Karlsude trams are awesome. Actually, the city is medium size for the region, not small, and a regional transportation hub.
Another interesting Tram Train system is the so-called "Badener Bahn", which connects Vienna to Baden (Lower Austria) and stops in many smaller towns along the way. In the Lower Austria part it essentially works as an LRT and once in Vienna it uses the same tracks and stops as the city's trams!
Currently in the works is the tram line between the swiss City of Lausanne and the town of Renens, which are part of the same urban area. In a second phase it will evolve into a true tram train, as it will extend further into the country side. I am really looking forward to it!
A very old tram-train, but with only DC power I think.
A tram train eh? That sounds like it would solve the problem of what to do with the Mascouche line between where it will meet up with the REM de l'Est and the main REM line when the REM de l'Est inevitably gets expanded to Mascouche, or to Terrebonne with the Laval branch of the REM main line going to Mascouche.
It’s an interesting consideration but as always the combination with conventional freight is the difficult part
@@RMTransit While true, I think the corridor is large enough they could probably just build a new line if that's an issue, either at ground level or above it.
Wow, I was really close to this girl online from Karlsruhe a few years ago. This was a pretty big project back then. She would send me random pictures and videos of construction sites knowing how interested I was in transit and infrastructure in general.
She's probably on wattpad, writing a story about getting stalked by her teacher while trainspotting with the boys.
@@seanwedlock3947 There is a wattpad story of a female trainspotter from Karlsruhe, I'm not making that up
@@offichannelnurnberg5894 Link or it never happened
@@felixw19 Now that's sad. I even have the link here, but comments with links get deleted automatically, I tried several times already. I will post the link in the next comment so you can see this comment and don't think i'm ignorant. Sorry blame Reece if you want to blame anyone, his stupid spam filter deleted my comment already I posted it like a minute ago!
@@offichannelnurnberg5894 So maybe you could tell me what phrase to Google. Or paste in the link and put spaces where the dots would go
Karlsruhe used to have an old railway station of 1843 closer to the center, which became too small and had a lot of level crossings, so it was decided to build a new station further south, opened 1913 (still in operation today). This means however that a lot of commuters have to change into trams and for some relations changing at the central station is not convenient. The Albtalbahn has already been an old private railway converted to a DC-electrified interurban tram, which made Karlsruhe a convenient spot to try out the first multi-system tram-trains.
The city of Zwickau also has Tram Trains. But in reverse. Trains made for heavy rail have been equipped with turning signals, brake lights and other fancy stuff needed for a tram.
Thing here is that the trains wich turn into a tram are diesel powered and do not stop on most of the tram stops
Again, in New Jersey we have the state{read provence) Riverside Line runs on steets in Camden and other cities/towns but on mainline freight lines between. Those are high volt AC (50,000v) and if expansion plans took place a 3rd rail 750v DC, and so diesel not electric powers trams,
Another region to look at is The Hague/Rotterdam/Zoetermeer in The Netherlands.
HTM tram lines 3 and 4 run as trams within Den Haag (with a city centre tunnel and viaduct). Then they get interlined with the Rotterdam Metro Line E with dual-height platform stations. Then they run as a train out to Zoetermeer on a repurposed rail line. Within Zoetermeer the trams have a completely grade-separated right-of-way.
It's a very interesting system.
To add to that, The rotterdam metro has a section considered "sneltram", which is somewhere in between tram and metro. It's been significantly criticised and has caused the first casualties on the rotterdam metro, but allows for cool metro stock that uses both third rail and overhead in sections, making the metro able to take over old rail lines to the hague and more recently to the beach at Hoek van Holland. With relatively 'little' effort (yet still many delays)