S-Bahn

S-Bahn is a public city centre and suburban rapid transit system within the public transport and commuter rail networks of urban areas in Austria, Germany, German-speaking Switzerland, Northern Italy, Denmark, and the Czech Republic. The Copenhagen S-tog (English: S-trains) refers to trains rather than tracks, but is otherwise the same.

The S-Bahn serves city centre traffic as well as suburbs and nearby towns. A common characteristic is high efficiency and a synchronised timetable that allows for more dense rail traffic on the railway lines. This is achieved by electric locomotives and train doors at platform level and by the complete use of separate tracks. In the city centres the tracks are almost always either underground or elevated.

Name and some history

The name is an abbreviation for the German "Stadtschnellbahn" (meaning "city rapid railway") and was introduced in December 1930 in Berlin. The label was introduced along with the reconstruction of the suburban commuter train tracks— the first section to be electrified was a section of the Berlin–Szczecin railway from Berlin Nordbahnhof to Bernau bei Berlin station in 1924, leading to the formation of the Berlin S-Bahn.