DESCRIPTION
Zwickau has changed its economical role in the last years, developing the tertiary sector, partly replacing its traditional heavy industries; in this district there are many siderurgic and textile activities and, at the former Trabant car factory (currently overtaken by Volkswagen).
Zwickau current transit system manteins some of the typical DDR features, combining a large local standard guage railway network (operated by DMU diesel trains) and a metric gauge tram network. The tram system opened in 1894 and it was renewed and partly upgraded in last years of DDR and after the German unification, trying to integrate it with the suburban railways (brought into the city perimeter thanks to the re-use of some of the eleder dismissed tracks converging in the city centre).
The tram section that connects the railway station (Hautbahnhof) to Zwickau Zentrum (Stadthalee-Zentrum, belonging to tram Line 3) has some very peculiar features, such as the adoption of a 3-rails track in order to compatibilize its usage both by the metric gauge tram and by the standard gauge diesel trains; the last part of this section is single track, because of its narrowness.
The current tram network is articulated in 4 tram lines (Line 3: Eckersbach-Neuplanitz; Line 4:Polbitz-Stadtisches Klinikum; Line 5: Hauptbahnhof-Stadtisches Klinikum; Line 7:Polbitz-Hauptbahnhof) and it is integrated by Zwickau Zentrum-Zwickau Hbf.-Klingenthal regional railway, which shares about 1.3 km of tram tracks with Line 3 (tram-train operations, in track sharing).