The Käferberg Tunnel () is a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

in the

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

city of Zürich Zurich (; ) is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The urban area was home to 1.45 mi ...

. The tunnel runs under the Käferberg hill from the western approaches to

Zürich Hauptbahnhof Zürich Hauptbahnhof, often shortened to Zürich HB or just HB, and known in English as Zurich Main Station, is the largest railway station in Switzerland and one of the busiest in Europe. It is a major railway hub, with services to and from a ...

to a portal to the south of Oerlikon station. It is long and carries twin

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

() tracks electrified at 15 kV/16.7 Hz using

overhead catenary An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, Electric multiple unit, electric multiple units, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union ...

. Heading south from the southern portal of the tunnel, the railway first crosses the River Limmat and ''Hardturmstrasse'' on a concrete viaduct. Still on viaduct the line splits into two, with the right hand leg being a single-track viaduct that descends into Zürich Altstetten station. The left hand leg, still double track and on viaduct, runs into the upper level of Zürich Hardbrücke station, before continuing its descent into the Hauptbahnhof. The tunnel was opened in 1969. As built, only the Altstetten leg of the southern connecting lines existed, and the tunnel was only usable by freight and other trains that bypassed Hauptbahnhof station. In 1982, Hardbrücke station and its leg of the connecting lines opened, allowing the tunnel to be used by trains running between Hauptbahnhof and Oerlikon. Today the tunnel carries

Zürich S-Bahn The Zurich S-Bahn () system is a network of rail lines that has been incrementally expanded to cover the ZVV area, which comprises the entire canton of Zurich and portions of neighbouring cantons (Aargau, Glarus, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, ...

lines S5, S6, S7, S9, S15, S16 and S21, all of which operate via Hardbrücke. It also carries freight traffic, which runs via the Altstetten link. The Käferberg Tunnel is now one of three different routes from Oerlikon to Hauptbahnhof, each of which tunnels through the intermediate ridge and emerge from adjacent portals to the south of Oerlikon station. Like the Käferberg Tunnel, the Wipkingen Tunnel (opened in 1856) connects to the Hauptbahnhof's western approaches, whilst the Weinberg Tunnel (opened in 2014) accesses the Hauptbahnhof's lower level through platforms from the east.

References

External links

* Transport in Zurich Railway tunnels in Switzerland Tunnels completed in 1969 {{Switzerland-struct-stub