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- dvigar (195.93.21.*) (2010-07-15 21:02:45.44185)
Because they could
Actually, it was the fashion to dig UBahn tunnels, but eventually the cities decided it was too expensive to continue, unless you were building a proper Metro. - Erich (*.217.186.pool.telefonica.de) (2010-07-16 00:56:28.088723)
And also one of the reasons was this 70s thing that one cars should have the priority, you know...and also they always desperatly wanted to be a big city with real underground...
Oh, these were fantastic trams and huge beasts for a DÜWAG... It was taken at Rudolfplatz, though, same location as your earlier photo (http://www.phototrans.eu/14,296532,2.html). Trams still run overground there (compare http://www.flickr.com/photos/kawilson/978192317/, you can see the stop), but this exact location is only served by westbound trams now. The line along the Ringe that the points in the foreground lead to has been underground since 1987, though.
- dvigar (195.93.21.*) (2010-07-17 20:46:29.886991)
Thatks for the information, Stefan - I was only in Koln a short time, and it was many years ago
Well, anything in Cologne is behind the cathedral when you come out of the railway station.
Oh, and to answer JP's original question: Cologne originally started putting trams underground (the north-south tunnel via the railway station and Neumarkt) because it was missing a central north-south line and connections to the railway station after the war and the streets above were considered too narrow for modern trams. There is some justification in this even by today's less car-friendly standards as a lot of streets in central Cologne are quite narrow indeed. Consider also that Cologne already operated 2.50m wide trams in the 1950s. Later tunnels were then mostly caused by trying to free up space for cars above ground, although the second north-south tunnel that's being built right now (and which unhappily became rather infamous last year when part of it collapsed) is very similar to the first one in that there is a need for such a line but no room for it above ground.
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