The 15-car bimodal light rail fleet that is sharing inter-city tracks of the German and
French Railways, as well as the tramway tracks of Saarbruecken, has just started to
provide cross-border service between France and Germany.
The 18-kilometer line, built at a cost of $315 million, cuts transit time drastically
in the metro region of the German state capital because commuters no longer have to
transfer between rail and tram.
The low floor Bombardier rail cars operate on existing inter-city national rail lines
with 15 kV AC current and switch to 750 volt DC when passing onto the tracks of the
municipal light rail system. The seamless, transferless system will increase ridership and
revenues while cutting commuter time, as was the case with the Karlsruhe model that began
the track sharing trend in Europe several years ago.
The low floor Bombardier cars operate between Sarreguemines, France, and Saarbruecken,
Germany, 34 times a day, traveling on 12 km of German inter-city track, one km of French
national railway track, and five km of city municipal tramway tracks inside the German
state capital. Each of the train sets has a capacity of 243 passengers and comes equipped
with retracting steps and automatic ramps to accommodate the different platform heights of
the inter-city and tramway stops.
As soon as the track sharing light rail vehicles started operating, conventional
inter-city rail services were terminated.
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