The Spaghetti Bowl of Railways in the Rhine-Ruhr

Germany's Rhine-Ruhr region is one of the world's most interesting urban areas. Let's take a look at its unique mix of trams, U-Bahns, hanging monorails, and trains!

Special thanks to Neal and Laura as well as all the footage contributors for their help with this video!

Map Data © OpenStreetMap contributors

[RMTransit]

And check out The Tim Traveller's videos on the hanging monorails of the Rhine-Ruhr region:

[LS-Moto]

I think its extremely important to show people in America and Canada these globally unknown cities and their transportation. Because if we talk about Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam or London, Americans and Canadians will counter that with New York and Toronto. But with cities like Bochum and such, we are talking about medium sized cities, the size of Windsor, fake London, and countless of places in the US of the same size. Your average medium sized north American city, more than qualifies for a tram or subway network.

[rogersexton]

Except for one omission, this is an absolutely superb video. The omission is Gelsenkirchen, population 265, 000, much bigger than Molheim! It should have featured in both Stadtbahn and S-Bahn discussions.

[schuller]

What is even more impressive are the RE trains that connect city centers and major points along all the NRW. You can arrange a trip to any major city in the region and be home the same day.

[juppjames]

One important thing to mention about the Rhine-Ruhr area is coal mining: The ground in some areas dropped more than 20 meters, in an uneven way, making any infrastructure build underground VERY problematic. For example, the river Emscher was converted into an overground sewer, because an underground system could easily break and in this case the sewage would pollute the groundwater, the main source of drinking water here. It takes about 15-20 years before the ground has settled after coal mining ends, so only since very recently the new sewage tunnel with 3 pumping stations finished, and renaturalisation of the Emscher started.

Building tunnels comes with extra challenges here, because not all mining operations (especially the ones close to the surface) were mapped, which makes it very difficult to plan underground routes for public transit. Some of the old shafts are actually filled with a special concrete, just to prevent the surface from breaking and leaving nothing than a big hole.

[tDASH]

Finally, the first transit system I ever simped for got its own RM Transit video.

[roadrunner]

I do have Nebula, but I don't like that the RRX is in an exclusive video there. That isn't extra information, it's absolutely essential to understand the region.
This is like game developers cutting out gameplay from the core game to sell it as a DLC rather than creating additional gameplay.

[matienlaciudad]

As an Essen resident I just want to add that the city got rid of the high-floor trams last year after the arrival of the new HF4s. However some are still being used on the 107 as that line has a weird service pattern. It usually terminates at Essen Hbf but it's "extended" all the way to Bredeney in the south during weekdays and even not at all times. It's during this extended service that the old trams come back to life. (The project to convert all double track gauge stations to also doble platform height was completed last year as well)

[KarolaTea]

The clear distinction made between Stadtbahn and Tram is quite interesting. Never noticed anyone living here think about them seperately, I think the words are used interchangably, alongside U-Bahn.
Great video, thank you!

[aaronsmith]

This is the rail system the North of England needs, especially Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds or Sheffield. The whole region is similarly spread out with many smaller towns and cities too and a large population but is let down by unreliable underinvested in services and is full of bottlenecks especially around Manchester. Many suburban areas and radial routes are poorly served too. Germany has its problems too but at least it kept its rail infrastructure.

[cmdlp]

There is so much more to the region, there are some other new projects like the Citybahn in Essen or a new S-Bahn route in Duisburg. Also not everything in this region evolves positively, unfortunately a section of a tram line in Mühlheim was closed very recently, in a completely irrational way. Also some of the maps were not up to date, here this tram line still exists. Also the line S9 has two branches in the north, one to Haltern am See and the other new branch to Recklinghausen Hbf little to the south, where there also ends an S2 branch. This new S9 branch connected the city of Herten to the rail network, that previously was the largest city in Germany without a rail connection. Also there are new X-Bus rapid transit lines in the nothern part of the region, connecting smaller cities without a rail connection. There are also many ideas and future plans for new lines or extensions, like a tram-train line between Bochum and Essen. There are many of these ideas but unfortunately those ideas do not get much attention.

This region has so many interesting aspects, one video is too short for everything, especially considering its history of coal mining and its current rise as a tech hub with multiple large universities.

Considering that the VRR contains multiple transport companies, each might get its own attention, especially locally to the main cities: DSW21, Bogestra, Ruhrbahn, DVG, Rheinbahn

[tja]

one must admit that in essen the trains got stuck in car traffic too.
essen is an insanely built car-centric hell.

[failuretolaunch]

The general area is such a good idea of how interconnected cities can work. I mean so much to love about the region.

[CharlsonS]

Its important to consider that the Stadtbahn (U-Bahn in Rhine Ruhr context) was planned in addition to the S-Bahn. It was supposed to cover the routes that were not and cannot be served by the S-Bahn. Some of these lines are the north extension of the U35, the northern tunnel of Essen all the way to Gelsenkirchen Buer, and the formerly planned U-Bahn between Bochum and Gelsenkirchen all the way to GE Buer as well, with Gelsenkirchen having a massive currently underused tunnel partially built. These are some of the lines that really should be completed at one point because they provide crucial connections within the region.

[jack]

Perhaps the current DB reliabilty/puntuality issues might have warranted a mention. I was in the Ruhr area earlier in the year on a cultual/city break. Visiting opera, theatre, spas etc in several centres (Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg this time) has always been a breeze in the past via local and regional transport. This time I don't think there was a single S-Bahn trip over three days that didn't involve delays, changed platforms etc. Such a shame because the system is so good.

[thElemnt]

8:14 Fun fact: Because the station for the low-floor route at Heinrich-Heine-Alle was planed with island-style-platforms. The new trams now need to have doors on both sides. While the trams on all the other low-floor routes have only doors on the right side.
Still, we are lucky that they thought of the additional platforms in the first place.

[mrrobotnica]

Düsseldorf is a hugely underrated city. Amazing city for transit nerds.

[marcusoppong]

11:47 / 15:05
It's a very easy-to-miss detail because you'd never think of it just like that but the cool thing about the S1 - and other S-Bahn routes and RE services in the region in general - is that no matter the day, the trains on this line run 24/7 - or, technically 23/7, I guess. There's a small gap at 2-3 AM for *starting* trains but if it's still en route, trains still run during that time - even Berlin doesn't have 24/7 daily service for S-Bahn routes. While you mentioned the overlaps not really being a big thing because we can use regional rail lines (RB/RE services) to compensate these gaps, you can take them without any surcharge or separate ticket too if you got one for the S-Bahn.

[ZeldaFreak]

I'm from Düsseldorf and the Stadtbahn service is interesting in the history. Düsseldorf had trams for a long time and even out of the city, connecting the cities Krefeld, Duisburg and Neuss. With Duisburg and Krefeld, they had dining cars. Some years ago, the last service stopped, because it was not worth it anymore.

With Neuss, the line is short. Neuss banned the Stadtbahn out of the city. Back in the days, the tram was a round trip line. It entered from the north, went to the main station, went through the city center and then left the city on the east. The line got split but both went through the city and both ending at the other end of the city center. The Stadtbahn line now ends near the tram line at the main station (the Stadtbahn south, the tram north). Neuss even had its own tram line but like a lot of cities, got rid of them. Neuss even might want to get rid of the tram entirely in the city center. The center is car free and the tram line is just one track. When the city has some events in the center, the tram line stops short, where the Stadtbahn used to terminate.

Also there are expansions planned. Its mentioned in the video the line connecting the arena and the airport but that is one step. Still not everything is final, but it looks like the line will start in Neuss at the shopping center, connecting the tram line, drive parallel to the city center, connect to the Stadtbahn in Neuss, drive on the border and connect another branch of the Stadtbahn (the one going to Krefeld) and eliminating a big detour, continue north to the arena, the airport with both stops (terminal and main railroad station) and then connecting to the city Ratingen.
This line is the biggest plan and the one that would improve the network. Neuss, Meerbusch and the left rhine part of the city Düsseldorf do get faster connections between each other and to the Düsseldorf arena and airport. Just the first step would connect the arena to the airport and the railroad network at a different point. This is interesting for sport events. With European football, the fans do get separated. They usually stop the fans at the airport and run a bus shuttle service to the arena but obviously this is messy. They did this even for the Euro. There is a direct connection from Duisburg to the arena during some events but this line is long.

Also the Stadtbahn service had some mockery. When they build the first part of the tunnel, it was the fastest one, because when you entered it, you left it fast. It was very short. Then in recent years they made headlines, because the new train, was to wide and during test runs hitted the station in Duisburg. In Duisburg the tram and Stadtbahn stations are behind another on the same track and the station has a different gap. For example in Essen they run them side by side but in Duisburg just behind each other.

As mentioned in the video, running a long line is not really a good idea. For the U79 running to Duisburg, one trip takes 75 minutes. From mainstation to mainstation 57 minutes. With the fast train between 15 and 20 minutes and even the S-Bahn is with 30 minutes faster. During normal operation the people don't use it for the full length. It only gets interesting when there is no regular service. The railnetwork and the tram and Stadtbahn service are run by different companies and the neat part, they don't share the same union. Recently it happend that both unions were on strike on the same day but this was a historic event. But still a Stadtbahn line for the full length doesn't make much sense.
The Stadtbahn is a big hybrid. At one point its a subway, in some a tram and with the rural parts it could be a train but here it doesn't fall into the law. There are trams that are a hybrid and switches between both laws. The laws dictate stuff like how the trains need to drive and what rules to follow. For example the trams in Germany drive on sight and the signals are most of the time just white lights with bars, so cars don't look at the wrong traffic lights. In Düsseldorf in the subway, they do use colored lights and even a saftey system like the railroad, where they drive in block sections but they still don't fall into the law.

But one last note: who thinks that sound all nice, its a pain. Delays, bad communication and so on. I do commute daily and getting the correct information is a gamble. I started using 2 data sources for my connection and when they where conflicting, I use a 3rd source. Its fun when this doesn't give the same information as one of the 2 previous data sources. Then its a gamble and you hope for a 4th information on the station. When you get unlucky, this is also wrong or you don't get any. You may even get relayed to a 5th source on the internet and that might not even be correct as well.

This sounds like I'm joking? No I'm dead serious. Just a few weeks ago I had this. I arrived at the station and got into the train. This was not listed in my apps, it didn't drove, on the outside it was listed to not enter but people didn't left the train and the doors where unlocked. I took the gamble and entered. From that platform it normally drives in the direction I want. Inside nothing happend. The apps just showed trains appearing and disappearing. On the platform it was listed that people where on the tracks and the service is halted. The website confirmed that and no mention of replacements. The estimated time shown showed me that its a gamble. The train ride would be around 5 minutes. The alternate route would be 30 minutes, when I got everything right away. The eta was 60 minutes. The bus comes all 20 minutes and there where a lot of people.
Inside the train we got one information and that was the one he got from the website (I'm not joking). Outside I saw someone with a megaphone but we couldn't hear him and not everyone left the station, so I didn't worried. If it would be worse, we would get the information, right? Wrong. After 2 hours I gave up and I saw on the website, a replacement service was setup and the eta just got longer. The guy with the megaphone just said that service is stopped.
I waited 15 minutes for a bus. The first one was full and I needed my nicotine. No replacement bus came within these 15 minutes. The bus I took would be the alternate route but I needed an alternate to my alternate, because to the first one he didn't drove. The alternate to the alternate was longer, because I'm not that familiar with that route but I left early, connecting to my first alternate at a different point. I was 2 and 3/4 hours later at home.
As it turned out the next day, nobody was on the tracks. Someone was on a bridge above the tracks and the whole section was blocked off 8 hours. Thats why the bus did a detour, because it would have driven on that bridge. Obviously this is a delicate topic but more information would be key. "Person on track" could mean anything. It could be just some people seen on the track and the police needs to arrest them. It could be that they hit someone and they need to clean up. With both you can give a eta based on experience. When someone dares to jump, you can't give an eta. It could be minutes or hours.
Also a note. A few days later, we got the same information "person on track". A coworker who leaves work an hour earlier and drives in the opposite direction, gave me the information. I looked and saw an alternate route drives and when everything on time, is not slower but I don't have much wiggle room. At some point the service was continued and the S-Bahn where I was in, got pulled to the side to let the delayed trains out. I was so nice on time and just a bit further and we would have been out of the way anyways.

[user]

I guess what wasn't mentioned in the video is the extensive regionaltrain service which is available in the region often being there instead of s bahn trains