Hareskovbanen (English: ''the Hareskov line'') is one of six radial

S-train The S-Bahn is the name of hybrid urban- suburban rail systems serving a metropolitan region in German-speaking countries. Some of the larger S-Bahn systems provide service similar to rapid transit systems, while smaller ones often resemble co ...

lines in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. It connects the city center to a number of northwestern suburbs and the cities of Værløse and Farum, with the terminus placed in the latter.

History

The line was opened in 1906 as part of the private ''København-Slangerup Jernbane'' which went to

Slangerup Slangerup is a town in Frederikssund Municipality, about 30 km north-west of central Copenhagen, in the Capital Region of Denmark. The town of Slangerup The town was established by the Viking Slangir at the time of Harald Bluetooth. King Eri ...

, about two thirds from Farum to

Frederikssund Frederikssund () is a Danish town, seat of the Frederikssund Municipality, in the Region Hovedstaden with a population of 16,850 (1 January 2022).København L, close to present day

Nørrebro Nørrebro (, ) is one of the 10 official districts of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is northwest of the city centre, beyond the location of the old Northern Gate (''Nørreport''), which, until dismantled in 1856, was near the current Nørreport station ...

station on the S-train ring line - the station building of this station still stands. This was quite a bit from the city center, but the station was supposed to be temporary until the exact routing of the various new railways near Copenhagen that were in planning around the turn of the century had been finalized. For the first many years, a large part of the traffic consisted of leisure trips by the large working population of Nørrebro to the

Hareskoven Hareskoven, or Hareskovene (plural), is a forested area straddling the boundary between Furesø and Gladsaxe municipalities in the northwestern suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark. The core parts consists of Lille Hareskov and Store Hareskov, but Har ...

forest. Over the years, the economy of the private railway company declined, and in 1929 most of the private investors sold their shares to the municipalities along the line. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the railway was so run down that the state railways

DSB DSB may refer to: Science, technology and devices * DsbA, a bacterial member of the Dsb (disulfide bond) family of enzymes * Double strand break, a break in both DNA strands, part of DNA repair * in telecommunications, double-sideband transmission ...

had to take it over in 1948. A few years later, in 1954, the outer end of the line between Farum and Slangerup was abandoned as it was unprofitable. Plans to convert the line to S-trains had been discussed for decades, and in 1961 an act authorizing DSB to electrify the line. However, the act was not followed by sufficient allocations of public money, and it would take until 1977 until S-trains could begin running on the line. Originally the plan was to extend the line as an

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground (S ...

line directly from København L to the center of the city, but over the course of the 1960s it became clear that the funding environment would not support metro construction in the foreseeable future. Therefore, in the eventual S-train conversion the innermost few kilometers in the line were abandoned and replaced by a large S-curve that connected it to the existing S-train trunk at Svanemøllen. A new overpass and interchange with the ring line was built at

Ryparken Ryparken is an area in the northern part of Østerbro, Copenhagen. Close to the ethnic and diverse neighborhood of Nørrebro, yet still in the 2100 Østerbro zip code, Ryparken defies easy definition. The area is well connected both by buses and by ...

. København L was abandoned and the terminus of the diesel trains moved to Svanemøllen in early 1976, and a year and a half later the conversion to S-trains were complete. This was the longest single addition to the S-train network so far. This indirect approach means that the travel time between this radial and the city center is relatively high, which makes it less attractive relative to more direct buses. Several of the stations on the line are among the least patronized S-train stations.

Stations

Service patterns

The basic service is the all-stops service B between København H and Farum. In the rush hours on Monday through Friday it is supplemented by the limited-stop service Bx. Before 2007 the line was mainly served by service H (from 1972 to 1979 and again from 1993 to 2007 — then being the all-stop service on this line), and B (from 1979 to 1993).

Trivia

* The few hundred meters of track between the platforms at

Farum Farum is a town on the northeast of the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark, 20 km northwest of Copenhagen. The town has a population of 20,312 (1 January 2022).

and the bridge across Fiskebæk valley is the only remaining piece of single-tracked railway on the S-train network. {{Commons category, Hareskovbanen S-train (Copenhagen) lines