Update: New readers from the Gulliver blog at The Economist, welcome! And thanks for linking. You might find e.g. posts on train control in alpine tunnels or Dutch bicycle highways interesting, too.
King Carl XVI Gustaf opens the Citytunneln (photo: hildgrim)
The Malmö urban railway tunnel Citytunneln was officially opened a week ago (half a year earlier than scheduled) and is in regular operation since yesterday, the first day of the new annual European timetable. This has been the biggest civil engineering project in Sweden recently, but the benefits are also substantial in travel time and especially capacity and directness.
 Subsurface tunnel construction in central Malmö in September 2007 (photo: Petter Duvander) |
 New underground platforms at Malmö Central station (photo: Karl Baron) |
If you look at the map below, you can see that the new tunnel will connect the new underground platforms of the existing Malmö Central station to the Öresund bridge leading to Copenhagen through two new stations. Travel time between Malmö Central and Copenhagen will only be reduced by three minutes to 33 minutes, not much for all this money, but in fact – despite the name – the city centre is more where Triangeln station is, from where now Copenhagen is 30 minutes (the airport is even less) on a direct train. This also means that other Swedish cities, like Göteborg, are now directly connected to central Malmö.
Hyllie station, on the other hand, is a new development area with two skyscrapers and many more other buildings planned.
Layout of new infrastructure built in the Citytunneln project (source: Rjaber)
This new link virtually makes Malmö and Copenhagen a single conurbation, now that commuting from one city to another is even easier. Copenhagen airport is also extremely well connected to central Malmö and the new development area at Hyllie. Finally, as through trains do not have to reverse at Malmö Central anymore, the capacity of the railway system is increased, which can lead to more reliable timetables to railway passengers – who have been growing in numbers steadily in the last decade here.
 Triangeln station (photo: Karl Baron) |
 Hyllie station is a new development area (source: citytunneln.nl) |
The idea of an urban rail tunnel is not unique to Malmö, or Sweden (as the other two major Swedish cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg are also building or planning, respectively, such a tunnel). See the follow-up post for a general description on urban rail tunnels and more Malmö photos.
Even more photos on Skyscrapercity.
Nice post on the project! It looks beautiful and what an improvement to regional transportation. It was still under construction when I visited in September.
Thanks, Andy! Unfortunately I only passed through last summer on a Copenhagen-Gothenburg train.
How are the Wien Hbf works (and the new green mayor)?
I use the Oresund link from Copenhagen to Kalmar 3/4 times a year to visit family.
Imagine my surprise (confusion) when I arrived (5 hours late) in Malmo on 20/12, on the wrong train, to find a place I didn’t recognise. Fortunately the signing is very clear and I was able to catch the X2000 to Alvesta. The local rail staff were really helpful and honoured my ticket, due to the rather long flight delays, due to adverse weather conditions.
This is a project to be proud of. Could I suggest that in future you shout louder about such enterprises then your “invandrer” passengers will know what to expect.
Congratulations on a project well done.
@Philip good to hear some customer satisfaction
Thanks for the first-hand info. daniel
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