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Bielefeld has 320,000 inhabitants and lies in the east of the German land of North-Rhine - Westphalia, half way between Hanover and Dortmund.

The Bielefeld Stadtbahn is a system similar to those operating in Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt or Hanover, i.e. a network combining metro/subway and tram features. When construction of Stadtbahn tunnel sections started in the early 1970's in the near Rhine-Ruhr area (Dortmund, Essen, Bochum, etc.), Bielefeld built its first underground station Beckhausstraße, which opened on 21 Sept. 1971. After that further expansion of the underground network came to a halt due to financial problems. It was finally resumed in the mid-1980's when the north-south tunnel through the city centre was excavated. It opened on 28 April 1991 and included 4 underground stations, Jahnplatz and Hauptbahnhof (central railway station), which are used by all lines, and Wittekindstraße and Nordpark, which are only served by Line 3 trains heading for Babenhausen Süd. Hauptbahnhof was built as a major junction with four tracks, 3 of them on the upper -2 level, and one for Line 1 and Line 2 southbound trains on the lower -3 level.

The last tunnel section for Line 4 from Rathaus to the Universität, with two underground stations Siegfriedplatz and Rudolf-Oetker-Halle, finally opened on 2 April 2000 after some delays. The surface extension to Lohmannshof opened on 29 Sept. 2002.

The Stadtbahn network has a total length of 35 km and uses 1000 mm gauge, there are 59 stops. All seven underground stations have high platforms, surface stops have either high or low platforms, therefore trains are equipped with unfoldable steps. There is a fleet of 80 Stadtbahn cars.

21 Sept. 1971 - Beckhausstraße underground station (Line 2)
28 April 1991 - Rathaus ramp - Jahnplatz - Nordpark - ramp (Line 1-2-3)
2 April 2000 - Hauptbahnhof - Rudolf-Oetker-Halle - ramp (Line 4)

The Bielefeld Stadtbahn operates 5:00 - 24:00, every 10 minutes during daytime and every 30 minutes in the evening.

- FARES (Zone 1 BI, 2007, in Euro)

Single - 2.00 € (Short trip - 1.30)
4-Trips - 6.40 €
9-Uhr-Tagesticket (Day Pass after 9:00, all day on weekends) - 4.50 €
7-Day Pass - 16.00 €

Ch. Groneck, P. Lohkemper, R. Schwandl: RHEIN-RUHR STADTBAHN ALBUM 2: Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Bochum, Dortmund + Special Bielefeld. - Spring 2006, Robert Schwandl Verlag, ISBN 3936573 085

Schwandl, Robert: Schnellbahnen in Deutschland / Metros in Germany. U-Bahn - Stadtbahn - S-Bahn. - April 2007, Berlin, ISBN 978 3 836573 18 3 - Anything you need to know about German metro and light rail systems, with detailed maps and hundreds of colour photos; 192 pages; Text German and English - More details

MoBiel - Stadtwerke Bielefeld (Tram Operator)

Der Sechser (regional tariff system)

Straßenbahnfreunde Bielefeld

Dierk Nüchtern's Straßenbahn site

The Bielefeld Stadtbahn - An English site by Sebastian Neumann