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Thursday, 26 June 2008 |
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An underground railroad system (Tunnelbana, or T-Bana for short), begun in 1930 but actively
developed only after 1945, links the center of Stockholm with its various suburbs. The T-Bana
stations are a kind of city-wide art exhibition: the tunnels blasted out of the rock were left in
their natural state, painted in bright colors and skillfully lit.
The Stockholm Metro, or Stockholms tunnelbana, is the metro system in Stockholm, Sweden.
The system has three main lines and one hundred stations, 47 of which are subterranean
and 53 are aboveground (surface and elevated) stations. The first part of the metro was
opened in 1950, when an underground light rail line opened in 1933 was converted to metro
standard. This line ran south from Slussen station. Over the following years, this line was
expanded to three lines going south from the inner city. In 1952 a line from the inner city to
the western suburbs was opened. In 1957 the two line were connected via the central station
and old town. This system consisting of three lines now forms the Green line. The Red line
was opened in 1964 with two lines going from northeast to southwest. The final system, the
Blue line, was opened in 1975 with two lines going northwest from the city center. The latest
addition to the Green Line was carried out in 1994. Stockholm's metro is well known for its
decoration of the stations; it has been called the longest art gallery in the world. This not fully
true since some other metros, most notably Moscow has more stations with art. Several of the
stations (especially on the Blue line) are left with the bedrock exposed, crude and unfinished,
or as part of the decorations. At the Rissne station, an informative wall fresque about the history
of Earth's civilizations runs along both sides of the platform.              |
