Helsinki Metro
The Helsinki Metro is a rapid transit system serving the Helsinki capital region, Finland. It is the only metro system in Finland as well as the world's northernmost metro system. It was opened to the general public on 2 August 1982 after 27 years of planning. It is operated by Helsinki City Transport and Metropolitan Area Transport Ltd for Helsinki Regional Transport Authority and carries 92.6 million passengers per year.
The Helsinki Metro is a system separate from the main railway network in Finland, forming the core of public transport in Helsinki along with the Helsinki commuter rail, the Helsinki light rail and trunk bus lines in the capital region.
The system consists of 2 lines, serving a total of 30 stations, of which 21 are underground and 9 overground. It has a total length of. It is the predominant rail link between the suburbs of East Helsinki and the western suburbs in the city of Espoo and downtown Helsinki.
The line passes under Helsinki Central Station, allowing passengers to transfer to and from the Helsinki commuter rail network, including trains on the Ring Rail Line to Helsinki Airport.
The metro system originally consisted of a single line from Rautatientori metro station to Itäkeskus metro station. It has since been expanded with a fork on the eastern end, with one end going to Mellunmäki metro station in the north and the other going to Vuosaari metro station in the east, as well as an extension to Ruoholahti metro station in the west end. The Länsimetro extension, opened on 18 November 2017, further expanded the system westwards via Lauttasaari metro station into the neighbouring city of Espoo to the Tapiola metro station and the Matinkylä metro station. On 3 December 2022 the line was further expanded to the west all the way to Kivenlahti metro station.
The two lines on the system mostly share the same track. Line M1 travels between Kivenlahti and Vuosaari while line M2 travels between Tapiola and Mellunmäki. In addition, in the morning line M1B travels between Itäkeskus and Vuosaari and line M2B travels between Itäkeskus and Mellunmäki, while in the evening line M2A travels between Kivenlahti and Mellunmäki.
History
1955–67: Light rail plan
The initial motion for building a metropolitan railway system in Helsinki was made in September 1955, though during the five decades beforehand, the idea of a tunneled urban railway for Helsinki had surfaced several times. A suburban traffic committee was formed under the leadership of , and in late 1955, the committee set to work on the issue of whether or not there was truly a need for a tunneled public transport system in Helsinki. After nearly four years of work, the committee presented its findings to the city council.The committee estimated that the population of Helsinki would grow rapidly, so the capacity of the street network would not be enough for the growing amount of private car traffic and public traffic. The committee proposed moving public transport underground, which would free the overground street network for private car traffic and keep both the direct costs and the indirect costs of public transport in bounds.
The findings of the committee were clear: Helsinki needed a metro system built on separate right-of-way. This was the first time the term "metro" was used to describe the planned system. At the time the committee did not yet elaborate on what kind of vehicles should be used on the metro: trams, heavier rail vehicles, buses or trolleybuses were all alternatives.
The city council's reaction to the committee's presentation was largely apathetic, with several council members stating to the press that they did not understand anything about Castrén's presentation.
Despite the lacklustre reception, Castrén's committee was asked to continue its work, now as the metro committee, although very little funding was provided. In March 1963 the committee led by Reino Castrén and Gunnar Strenius presented its proposal for the Helsinki Metro system. On a technical level this proposal was very different from the system that was finally realised. In the 1963 proposal the metro was planned as a light rail system, running in tunnels a maximum of below the surface, and with stations placed at shorter intervals. The Castrén Committee proposed for the system to be built in five phases, with the first complete by 1969 and the final by 2000, by which time the system would have a total length of reaching well into neighbouring municipalities, with 108 stations. This was rejected after lengthy discussions as too extensive. In 1964 the city commissioned experts from Hamburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen to evaluate the metro proposal. Their opinions were unanimous: a metro was needed and the first sections should be built by 1970.
Although no official decision to build a system along the lines proposed by Castrén was ever made, several provisions for a light rail metro system were made during the 1950s–1960s, including separate lanes on the Kulosaari and Naurissaari bridges, and space for a metro station in the 1964 extension of Munkkivuori shopping center. The RM 1, HM V and RM 3 trams built for the Helsinki tram system in the late 1950s were also equipped to be usable on the possible light rail metro lines.
The first line was agreed to go from Kamppi to Puotila and detailed planning started in 1965 when a metro planning committee was assigned to plan the metro network. By 1966 the planning had already cost 4.67 million markka while the budget of the city of Helsinki had reserved 475 million markka for the period from 1968 to 1977 despite no decision of actually building the metro yet being made.
1967–69: Heavy rail plan
In late 1967, Reino Castrén departed Helsinki for Calcutta, where he had been invited as an expert in public transport. Prior to his departure Castrén indicated he planned to return to Helsinki in six months and continue his work as leader of the metro committee.For the duration of Castrén's absence, was appointed as the leader of the committee. However, by the time Castrén returned, Valtanen's position had been made permanent. Following his appointment Valtanen informed the other members of the committee that the plans made under Castrén's leadership were outdated, and now the metro would be planned as a heavy rail system in deep tunnels mined into bedrock. Following two more years of planning, the Valtanen-led committee's proposal for an initial metro line from Kamppi to Puotila in the east of the city was approved after hours of debate in the city council on the early morning hours of 8 May 1969. The initial section was to be opened for service in 1977.
In 1968 the mayor of Helsinki Teuvo Aura and the director of the VR Group Esko Rekola agreed that VR would take care of traffic to the north and west, and Helsinki City Transit would handle traffic on its own track to the east. In connection to this, the idea of a tight network of several light rail lines was abandoned and a decision was made to build two lines conforming to the railway track standard: one line from Haukilahti in Espoo to Puotinharju and another line, the so-called U-Metro line from Haaga via Erottaja and the Helsinki Market Square to Maunula, which would use the same track width as the main railway network in Finland.
1969–82: Construction
The decision to start construction of the metro was delayed because of votes held by the city council of Helsinki. The Left Alliance and some of the council members from the Swedish People's Party of Finland, as well as the liberals, supported construction of the metro, but the National Coalition Party opposed the project for the entirety of its design. Finally, on 7 May 1969 the city council made a decision to start the first phase of construction, and the decision was approved on 12 May. The idea was to have the construction of the line completed by the year 1977.Construction of a testing track from the depot in Roihupelto to Herttoniemi was begun in 1969 and finished in 1971. The first prototype train, units M1 and M2, arrived from the Valmet factory in Tampere on 10 November 1971, with further four units arriving the following year. Car M1 burned in the metro depot in 1973.
Excavating the metro tunnels under central Helsinki had begun in June 1971. Most of the tunneling work had been completed by 1976, excluding the Kluuvi bruise, a wedge of clay and pieces of rock in the bedrock, discovered during the excavation process. To build a tunnel through the bruise an unusual solution was developed: the bruise was turned into a giant freezer, with pipes filled with Freon 22 pushed through the clay. The frozen clay was then carefully blasted away, with cast iron tubes installed to create a durable tunnel. Construction of the first stations, Kulosaari and Hakaniemi begun in 1974. The Kulosaari station was the first to be completed, in 1976, but construction of the other stations took longer. As the case with many underground structures in Helsinki, the underground metro stations were designed to also serve as bomb shelters.
When the construction of the metro started, the companies Valmet and Strömberg started developing a series of metro trains suitable for the Helsinki Metro together with other companies. Strömberg made an extensive definition of the technics used for the rolling stock and also made a specific research contract with the metro. As a result, three double-carriage trains were made for test use from 1971 and 1972, and these trains were used for test drives on the test track built between the current depot and the Siilitie metro station. These tests showed numerous problems, for example too little power when driving at a slow speed. The test trains used DC motors. After the tests, a new series of trains was designed in 1974, of which the three first prototype units were built in 1977. A VR Class Dv12 locomotive hauled the first carriage pair of the new test trains from the Valmet aeroplane factory in Tampere to Helsinki on Monday 20 June 1977. The new train series was named M100 and it was equipped with induction motors controlled by a variable-frequency drive. The motor control device built for the Helsinki Metro, named SAMI also became popular elsewhere, and it was used in Finland for example in the control system for the fuel switching device at the Loviisa nuclear power plant.
The first test trains were originally designed as automatic trains that did not need a driver. Already at that time, the Helsinki Metro had been planned as an automatic metro system, and test drives with automatic metro trains were started on 5 April 1974. This plan for automatic metro trains was later abandoned and replaced with a return to completely manually controlled trains and a conventional railway track signal system. One of the test trains caught fire at the depot in 1973, which led to many improvements in the fire safety of the trains, such as abandoning cushions on the seats. These test trains were never used for actual passenger traffic, and the last of them were scrapped in 1988.
The metro carriages were designed by the interior architect Antti Nurmesniemi and the industrial designer Börje Rajalin.