1.
Dortmund
–
Dortmund is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the part of the state and is considered to be the administrative. Its population of 581,612 makes it the 8th largest city in Germany, moreover, Dortmund is the largest city by area and population in the Ruhr Area, an urban area with some 5.1 million inhabitants which is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany. Founded around 882, Dortmund became an Imperial Free City, throughout the 13th to 14th centuries, it was the chief city of the Rhine, Westphalia, the Netherlands Circle of the Hanseatic League. After the Thirty Years War the city was destroyed and decreased in significance until the onset of industrialization, the city then became one of Germanys most important coal, steel and beer centres. Thereby Dortmund was one of the most heavily bombed cities in Germany during World War II, the devastating bombing raids of the 12th March 1945 destroyed 98% of buildings in the inner city center. This bombing raids with more than 1,110 aircraft was a record to a target in World war II. The region has adapted since the collapse of its century long steel and coal industries and shifted to high technology biomedical technology, micro systems technology and also services. In 2009, Dortmund was classified as a Node city in the Innovation Cities Index published by 2thinknow and is the most sustainable city in Germany, the city is known as Westphalias green metropolis. Nearly half the territory consists of waterways, woodland, agriculture. This stands in a stark contrast with nearly a years of extensive coal mining. Dortmund is home to Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V, Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund, a successful club in German football. The first time Dortmund was mentioned in documents was around 882. as Throtmanni. After it was destroyed by a fire, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I had the town rebuilt in 1152 and it became an Imperial Free City. Throughout the 13th to 14th centuries, it was the city of the Rhine, Westphalia. After 1320, the city appeared in writing as Dorpmunde, in the years leading up to 1344, the English King even borrowed money from well-heeled Dortmund merchant families Berswordt and Klepping, offering the regal crown as security. In 1388, Count von Mark joined forces with Archbishop of Cologne, following a major siege lasting 18 months, peace negotiations took place and Dortmund emerged victorious. After Cologne was excluded after the Anglo-Hanseatic War, Dortmund was made capital of the Rhine-Westphalian, the 1661 earthquake made the Reinoldikirche collapse
2.
North Rhine-Westphalia
–
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with a population of approximately 18 million, and the fourth largest by area. Its capital is Düsseldorf, the most populous city is Cologne, four of Germanys ten largest cities—Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, and Essen—are located within the state, as well as the largest metropolitan area on the European continent, Rhine-Ruhr. North Rhine-Westphalia was formed in 1946 as a merger of the provinces of North Rhine and Westphalia, the state has been run by a coalition of the Social Democrats and Greens since 2010. The Ubii and some other Germanic tribes such as the Cugerni were later settled on the west side of the Rhine in the Roman province of Germania Inferior, North of the Sigambri and the Rhine region were the Bructeri. By the 8th century the Frankish dominion was established in western Germany. But at the time, to the north, Westphalia was being taken over by Saxons pushing south. The Merovingian and Carolingian Franks eventually built an empire which controlled first their Ripuarian kin, the Ottonian dynasty had both Saxon and Frankish ancestry. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split into small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes. Such struggles as the War of the Limburg Succession therefore continued to create military, Aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine bulked largely in German history. Prussia first set foot on the Rhine in 1609 by the occupation of the Duchy of Cleves and about a century later Upper Guelders and Moers also became Prussian. At the peace of Basel in 1795 the whole of the bank of the Rhine was resigned to France. In 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium, around 1 AD there were numerous incursions through Westphalia and perhaps even some permanent Roman or Romanized settlements. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest took place near Osnabrück and some of the Germanic tribes who fought at this came from the area of Westphalia. Charlemagne is thought to have spent considerable time in Paderborn and nearby parts and his Saxon Wars also partly took place in what is thought of as Westphalia today. Popular legends link his adversary Widukind to places near Detmold, Bielefeld, Lemgo, Osnabrück, Widukind was buried in Enger, which is also a subject of a legend. Along with Eastphalia and Engern, Westphalia was originally a district of the Duchy of Saxony, in 1180 Westphalia was elevated to the rank of a duchy by Emperor Barbarossa. The Duchy of Westphalia comprised only an area south of the Lippe River. Parts of Westphalia came under Brandenburg-Prussian control during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, signed in Münster and Osnabrück, ended the Thirty Years War
3.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
4.
Flexity Classic
–
The Flexity Classic is a model of light-rail tram manufactured by Bombardier. Flexity Classic runs on standard gauge 1,435 mm as well as metre gauge 1,000 mm in Essen,1,450 mm in Dresden and 1,458 mm in Leipzig. It is used by a number of German cities, Norrköping and Stockholm, Sweden, in Kraków and Gdańsk, Flexity Classics were chosen to replace heritage trams used on the Glenelg tramline in Adelaide, Australia, as they are a proven design and have low maintenance requirements. The Flexity Classic’s closest competitors are Alstom’s Citadis, the Combino and Avanto from Siemens, in 2006, TransAdelaide now Public Transport Services as part of DTEI began to replace the H Type cars operating on their Glenelg tramway with a fleet of eleven Flexity Classic trams. The first of the new Flexitys was delivered to the Glengowrie depot in November 2005, delivery continued in small batches through 2006, with new trams operating the Glenelg line side-by-side with the H Type in the interim. They have a low floor throughout, except over the bogies. TransAdelaide continues to operate the Flexitys with roving conductors, although these are not now needed for operation of the cars. Unlike the H Type, Flexitys cannot be coupled into two-car sets at busy times, the internal layout is designed to accommodate wheelchairs and large numbers of standing passengers. The relative lack of seating, together with other minor teething problems, resulted in some adverse comments from commuters, the original unit 103 was destroyed during shipping. It is now held in storage at Transadelaides Glengowrie depot storage for spare parts, Bombardier subsequently delivered a replacement 103, and this was the final tram currently to be delivered. 4 more units 112 to 115 are on order and will enter service in a few years. The Flexity Classic XXL model was developed for the Dresden Transport Authority by the German factory Bombardier Transportation in Bautzen and it is 45 m long, runs on twelve axles and has a capacity of 260 passengers with 153 seats. The Flexity Classic XXL has, because of Dresdens altitude differences of 100 metres, the tram has been in service since 2003 and serves tram lines with a high peak load of passengers. The exterior is designed for the Dresden Transport Authority, which owns 43 trams. The Flexity Classic XXL is also in service in Leipzig, Germany with the Leipzig Transport Authority, although the exterior design is customized, the tram offers the same capacity. It has been in service since 2005, the LVB first ordered 12 trams of this type, then exercised an option for another 12 trams in September 2005 and a third batch of 9 was delivered in late 2011/early 2012
5.
Track gauge
–
In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
6.
Standard gauge
–
The standard gauge is a widely used railway track gauge. Approximately 55% of the lines in the world are this gauge, all high-speed rail lines, except those in Russia, Uzbekistan, and Finland, are standard gauge. The distance between the edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States. It is also called the UIC gauge or UIC track gauge, as railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge to be used. The result was the adoption throughout a large part of the world of a gauge of 1435 mm. In North East England, some lines in colliery areas were 4 ft 8 in. All these lines had been widened to standard gauge by 1846, parts of the United States, mainly in the Northeast, adopted the same gauge, because some early trains were purchased from Britain. However, until well into the half of the 19th century, Britain. The American gauges converged as the advantages of equipment interchange became increasingly apparent, notably, all the 5 ft broad gauge track in the South was converted to standard gauge over the course of two days beginning on 31 May 1886. See Track gauge in the United States, snopes categorized this legend as false, but commented that. It is perhaps more fairly labelled as True, but for trivial, the historical tendency to place the wheels of horse-drawn vehicles approximately 5 feet apart probably derives from the width needed to fit a carthorse in between the shafts. Others were 4 ft 4 in or 4 ft 7 1⁄2 in, the English railway pioneer George Stephenson spent much of his early engineering career working for the coal mines of County Durham. He favoured 4 ft 8 in for wagonways in Northumberland and Durham, the Hetton and Springwell wagonways also used this gauge. Stephensons Stockton and Darlington railway was primarily to transport coal from mines near Shildon to the port at Stockton-on-Tees. The initial gauge of 4 ft 8 in was set to accommodate the existing gauge of hundreds of horse-drawn chaldron wagons that were already in use on the wagonways in the mines. The railway used this gauge for 15 years before a change was made to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in gauge, George Stephenson used the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in gauge for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, authorised in 1826 and opened 30 September 1830. The success of this led to Stephenson and his son Robert being employed to engineer several other larger railway projects. Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, authorised 1824 and opened 1825, used 4 ft 6 in, Dundee and Newtyle Railway, authorised 1829 and opened 1831, used 4 ft 6 1⁄2 in
7.
Light rail
–
Light rail, light rail transit or fast tram is urban public transport using rolling stock similar to a tramway, but operating at a higher capacity, and often on an exclusive right-of-way. A few light rail networks tend to have closer to rapid transit or even commuter rail. Other light rail networks are tram-like in nature and partially operate on streets, Light rail systems are found throughout the world, on all inhabited continents. They have been popular in recent years due to their lower capital costs. The term light rail was coined in 1972 by the U. S, Urban Mass Transportation Administration to describe new streetcar transformations that were taking place in Europe and the United States. In Germany the term Stadtbahn was used to describe the concept, and many in UMTA wanted to adopt the direct translation, however, UMTA finally adopted the term light rail instead. Light in this context is used in the sense of intended for light loads and fast movement, the infrastructure investment is also usually lighter than would be found for a heavy rail system. The Transportation Research Board defined light rail in 1977 as a mode of urban transportation utilizing predominantly reserved, electrically propelled rail vehicles operate singly or in trains. LRT provides a range of passenger capabilities and performance characteristics at moderate costs. Light rail is a generic international English phrase for these types of rail systems, the use of the generic term light rail avoids some serious incompatibilities between British and American English. The word trolley is used as a synonym for streetcar in the United States. A further difference arose because, while Britain abandoned all of its trams except Blackpool after World War II, when these cities upgraded to new technology, they called it light rail to differentiate it from their existing streetcars since some continued to operate both the old and new systems. Conventional rail technologies including high-speed, freight, commuter/regional, and metro/subway/elevated urban transit systems are considered heavy rail, people movers and personal rapid transit are even lighter, at least in terms of capacity. Monorail is a technology that has been more successful in specialized services than in a commuter transit role. Due to varying definitions, it is hard to distinguish between what is called light rail, and other forms of urban and commuter rail, a system described as light rail in one city may be considered to be a streetcar or tram system in another. Conversely, some lines that are called light rail are in very similar to rapid transit, in recent years. Some light rail systems, such as Sprinter, bear little similarity to urban rail, in the United States, light rail has become a catch-all term to describe a wide variety of passenger rail systems. There is a significant difference in cost between these different classes of light rail transit, tram-like systems are often less expensive than metro-like systems by a factor of two or more
8.
Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn
–
It does not include the independent Cologne Stadtbahn and Bonn Stadtbahn systems. At the beginning of the 1960s, road traffic in the Rhine-Ruhr area increased like in other German metropolitan areas, existing trams were regarded as obstacles for car-oriented cities. Therefore, these trams should be relocated to underground sections below city centers if they were not replaced by bus lines, Düsseldorf and Hattingen joined in 1972, since then, the cooperation has been called Stadtbahngesellschaft Rhein-Ruhr. Witten joined in 1981, Recklinghausen left in 1982, original Stadtbahn plans proposed upgrading up to 300 kilometers of tram lines step by step. Most of these lines were planned in north-south direction and would have branched off of a main line that would have run more or less east-west. Due to financial constraints and the downturn of the economy in the region, as a result, there are isolated standard gauge Stadtbahn lines inside of metre gauge tram systems – one example would be the U35 line in Bochum. All Stadtbahn lines have been electrified with overhead catenary and are powered with direct current like former trams, however, most of Rhine-Ruhr tram lines still use metre gauge. Combined Stadtbahn and tram tracks use three-rail tracks or even four-rail tracks, since the start of Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn, existing tram routes were integrated and partly developed as pilot routes. Most of todays Stadtbahn lines were developed out of former tram lines, by 2011, the only full independent lines in the Rhine-Ruhr area are the Dortmund H-Bahn, Düsseldorf SkyTrain and Wuppertal Schwebebahn hanging and suspended monorails. The very ambitious plans have not paid enough attention to financial restrictions. So, the schedule for opening the planned sections has been delayed with some routes even cancelled. The next step to transform Stadtbahn routes to metro standards is not anymore foreseen, to use of constructed sections, existing tram lines have been operated further on the new alignments including temporary use of tram gauges and low-floor platforms. Some stations even contain both low-floor and high-floor platforms in case of mixed tram and Stadtbahn operation, for the Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn, new standardised Stadtbahn trains named Stadtbahnwagen B were developed. However, Stadtbahn companies ordered them with different lengths, layout of doors etc, tram lines still use former rolling stock and new low-floor trams where Stadtbahn projects were stopped or severely delayed. In Bochum the B80D-wagen are currently being replaced by the new high-floor Variotram on the U35, Bochum Stadtbahn Dortmund Stadtbahn Düsseldorf Stadtbahn Essen, Public Transport Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr Urbanrail
9.
Westfalenhallen
–
Westfalenhallen are three multi-purpose venues located in Dortmund, Germany. The original building was opened in 1925, but was destroyed during World War II, new halls were built, the Große Westfalenhalle opened in 1952. The capacity of the arena is 16,500, the Kleine Westfalenhalle served also for balls, exhibitions and concerts, such as the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, until the Opernhaus Dortmund was opened in 1966. The Bundesliga was founded at the Westfalenhallen in 1962, the venue played host to the 1964,1980 and 2004 World Figure Skating Championships, as well as the 1955,1983 and 1993 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships tournaments. In 1981, the venue was one of four locations worldwide of the legendary The Wall Tour, by Pink Floyd, along with Los Angeles, Uniondale. In 1988, Prince broadcast a performance from his Lovesexy World Tour live via satellite across Europe, iron Maiden recorded Death on the Road, a live CD/DVD, at the venue on November 24,2003. Madonna played one concert in the arena at her Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990, Westfalenhallen is officially a terminus station of the Dortmund Stadtbahn line U45 and U46, part of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr. Practically, it is not a station, The trains of the line U46 continue as U45 to the central station. In case of matches of Borussia Dortmund or other events at Signal Iduna Park
