A Stadtbahn ( ; German for "city railway"; plural Stadtbahnen) is a tramway or light railway that includes segments built to rapid transit standards, usually as part of a process of conversion to a metro railway, mainly by the building of tunnels in the central city area.
Stadtbahnen were mostly implemented in the 1960s and 1970s with the long-term goal of establishing a full-scale metro system, but by the 1980s virtually all cities had abandoned these plans due to the excessive costs associated with converting the tramways. Most Stadtbahn systems are now a mixture of tramway-like operations in suburban and peripheral areas and a more metro-like mode of operation in city centres, with underground stations.
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