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Our destination in Oberhausen was a big mall/amusement park/stadium complex called "CentrO".

You can see a quite-private-right-of-way example of public transportation construction there, where buses...

... and trams use a partly elevated carriageway ("ÖPNV-Trasse") or whatever it's called. On the picture, an MGT6D from Oberhausen.

We first took a bus to Strerkrade Bahnhof via that private carriageway, then boarded a tram there and travelled over to Mülheim with it.

One of the MGT6D cars of Mülheim, in the city center.

An M6D passing by...

... the unused normal-gauge tracks, which was used by Duisburg trams, until the Stadtbahn tunnel was opened. The meter-gauge tracks are still used, even if only by depot rides.

The stub track to the right used to be the terminus of the Duisburg service.

Another picture on the surface...

... and then we descend into the deep. Well, not so deep, anyway, only until the Stadtbahn/tram station. Besides the Duisburg Stadtbahn, tram line 102 of Mülheim also stops here.

Most of the vehicles on route 102 were M6D-NF cars with an added low-floor middle piece.

A GT10NC-DU car from Duisburg on the normal-gauge tracks, only a few meters away from where they leave the tunnel. This type was also converted from a 8-axle car using a new low-floor middle part.

And another GT10NC-DU.
After this we went back to the Mülheim central station and boarded the Essen U18 Stadtbahn service.

The section where this service goes back to Essen (in the middle of a highway) was the pilot project for the "Stadtbahn Rhein-Ruhr" system. Unfortunately it's in a rather bad state, so the trains cannot utilize their maximum speed.

Photographing around the Berliner Platz station...

After a few photos without a tripod in the Stadtbahn station we decided to try some more trams before going back to the central station, where've we left our luggage. We though the tram runs on the surface, but we were wrong: the tram stop was located even deeper underground.

After a bit of tramming, we were back at the Hauptbahnhof station with that nice blue effect.

One last photo of the illumination, and then we turned onto duller things like getting our luggages back, buying something to eat, and travelling with the S-Bahn to our quarters, which was located on top of a hill, so we were again through when we got up there. Why are these "Jugendherberge" facilites always located up somewhere so you have to climb with a 19-ton-backpack on you? :-)

The last chapter: Düsseldorf and Cologne