The underground station "Rathaus" in the city centre of Cologne, seen on 9 December 2012. It is the northernmost stop of the new underground line through the city, and the only one as yet in service, as only the section from here to the main station is used so far. By now only line 5 serves this station. This picture shows the western platform, looking northwards, towards the main station. The platforms are usually located inside the single-tracked tunnel tubes on this new line, thus only the staircases and connections had to be built by the cut-and-cover method (the tubes were drilled by tunnel boring machines). While the right side of the tube has an additional sheeting, the blue painted lining segments are visible on the left. As this station is the terminal stop at this time, only one track is used, the other platform is closed by temporary walls.

Digital photo by Christoph Schmitz (christoph.schmitz2@post.rwth-aachen.de)