Only the lines U5 and U6 are partly above ground. The U5 comes over ground only at the last station, the U6 for the last six stations in the north.
Trains run every 10 minutes, in rush hours every 5 minutes. In the early morning and late evening trains run every 20 minutes.
There are 3 "line families". They share the tunnel in the city centre. Each family has a colour. It is used in the stations.
Almost every station has a platform in the middle. Only the stations "Olympia-Einkaufszentrum" (U1), "Richard-Strauss-Straße" (U4), "Neuperlach Süd" (U5), "Garching-Hochbrück" and "Nordfriedhof" (both U6) have platforms on the side.
At the stations "Innsbrucker Ring" (U2/U5) and "Scheidplatz" (U2/U3) there are four tracks with two platforms. To change trains you only have to go to the other side of the platforms. Two lines cross at these stations. The stations "Hauptbahnhof (Central Station)" (U1/U2) and "Münchner Freiheit" (U3/U6) have four tracks. At the "Hauptbahnhof" there are two more tracks on another level for the U4 and U5. Here two lines separate. The stations "Kolumbusplatz" (U1/U2), "Implerstraße" (U3/U6) and "Max-Weber-Platz" (U4/U5) have three platforms. Two for trains to the city and one for trains from the city. Two lines separate at these stations.
In 1980 the U1 started running with the U8 (now the U2). After the branch to Rotkreuzplatz was opened, it became a single line.
Today the U1 is 12.2 km long. It runs between Olympia-Einkaufszentrum and Wettersteinplatz. It shares track with U2 between Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) and Kolumbusplatz.
In 1980 it started together with the U1. First it was called U8. Today it is 24.4 km long. It runs between Feldmoching and Messestadt Ost. It shares track with U1 between Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) and Kolumbusplatz.
In 1972 this line was opened, because of the Olympic Games.
The line is 21.0 km long. It runs between Moosach and Fürstenried West. It shares track with the U6 between Münchner Freiheit and Implerstraße.
The U4 was named U9 at first. It opened together with the U5.
The line is the shortest in the network. It is 9.3 km long and has only 13 stations. It runs between Arabellapark to Westendstraße. Between Max-Weber-Platz and Westendstraße. In the evenings, it only operates between Lehel and Arabellapark.
The U5 was opened together with the U4.
The line is 15.4 km long. It runs between Laimer Platz and Neuperlach Süd.
U6 is the oldest and longest line. The first bit was built in 1938, but it was opened in 1971. It is 27.4 km long. It operates between Garching-Forschungszentrum and Klinikum Großhadern.
The line was opened in 2011. It runs beetween Westfriedhof and Neuperlach Zentrum only in rush hour.
The Munich U-Bahn uses three different kinds of trains. Altogether there are 550 trains, which can be used on any line.
Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss (born Munich June 11 1864; died Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, September 8 1949) was a German composer. He soon became very famous when he was a young man. His tone-poems were played by orchestras all over Europe. After 1900 he spent most of his time writing operas including "Salome". His opera "Der Rosenkavalier", written in 1910, is extremely popular. Strauss was the last great composer who wrote in a Romantic style. He liked the music of Wagner who was a great influence on his music, but he also liked Mozart and his work also shows the elegance and grace of Mozart’s music. Strauss was a very good conductor and often conducted his own music.
He is not related to the Austrian Johann Strauss family famous for their waltzes.
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler (born Kalischt (now Kalište), Bohemia, July 7 1860; died Vienna, May 18 1911) was a Czech-Austrian composer and conductor. He was one of the last great composers of the Romantic period. He wrote ten symphonies (he left the tenth symphony unfinished) and several collections of songs with orchestral accompaniment. He was very interested in German folk song and he found new ways to use folk song in large orchestral symphonies. His work "Das Lied von der Erde" ("The Song of the Earth") is one his greatest works, combining song with the sonata form of a symphony. He was also a great conductor and helped to make the Vienna Opera world famous.
Gustav Mahler was born on 7 July 1860 into a Jewish family. He was the second of 12 children and the first one of the six who were to survive childhood and grow up to adults. His father worked hard to build up his business. He owned a distillery and seven taverns in Iglau to where the family moved in the autumn of 1860. There he heard a lot of music: military music, folk music and different kinds of art music. He learned the piano and performed in public in 1870 and started to compose.
In 1875 he went to study at the Vienna Conservatory. After a while he gave up studying the piano and concentrated on composition and conducting. He was very interested in Wagner’s ideas about philosophy and politics, and he studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. He started to earn some money by teaching. His first important composition was a cantata called "Das klagende Lied".
Mahler’s first job as a conductor was at Bad Hall in Upper Austria. The small opera company there was not very good and the music they sang was just light operetta. Mahler soon found another job at Laibach (now called Ljubljana). They sang better music there, but he only stayed one year. His next job was in Olmütz (now called Olomouc). The standard of singing was not very good, but Mahler was very strict. Although the singers did not like him at first he helped them to become better. Then he got a job in Kassel, but he had to conduct a lot of operettas. He had an unhappy love affair with one of the singers. This inspired him to write a collection of orchestral songs "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" and he started his first symphony.
In 1885 he got a conducting job in Prague. For the first time he was able to conduct works for which he was to become famous: operas by Mozart, Wagner, and music by Beethoven. However, Mahler had arguments with the people he worked with and so he left Prague.
Mahler’s next job was in Leipzig. The orchestra of the Neues Stadttheater was larger and much better than any he had worked for until then. One of the conductors who worked there was Arthur Nikisch. He was very famous, and the young Mahler was often criticized because he was very different to Nikisch and the way he conducted. When Nikisch was ill Mahler conducted "Die Walküre" and "Siegfried". This helped him to show that he was a great conductor. He met the grandson of the composer Carl Maria von Weber who gave him sketches for an opera "Die Drei Pintos" which Weber had left unfinished. The sketches were very difficult to read, but Mahler completed the opera and performed it. He also worked at his own compositions and he met Richard Strauss who was to remain a close friend until his death.
In 1888 Mahler got a job at the Royal Opera in Budapest. Although it was a good theatre they were in financial problems. The Hungarians wanted Mahler to make it a Hungarian national opera using Hungarian singers as much as possible. However, there were not many good Hungarian singers. The opera company did not like German operas, preferring light opera and ballet. He did not have much time to compose because he was too busy with administrative jobs. So he left Budapest. By this time both his parents had died.