Munich's S-Bahn moves 800,000 people a day through a single tunnel built for 250,000. The fix is the second trunk line: €3.85 billion, a seven-kilometer tunnel 40 meters down, three stations — and express airport trains. The TBMs are boring now.
The Munich S-Bahn — 434 km, 150 stations, ~1,000 trains a day — funnels nearly every line through one two-track tunnel from Hauptbahnhof to Ostbahnhof. At peak, a train passes every two minutes in each direction; there is no slack, no bypass, and small disruptions cascade city-wide. The network carries over 800,000 riders a day on a core designed for 250,000.
The second trunk line runs Laim to Leuchtenbergring with a 7-km tunnel (two tubes, ~14 km total) and just three stations — Hauptbahnhof, Marienhof (behind the town hall), Ostbahnhof — enabling express S-Bahn services. TBM work began at Ostbahnhof in October 2025, with full boring underway through 2026.
Express services are the prize: proposed lines like S23X would link the airport to the city with fewer stops and shorter times, and the bypass gives the network its first-ever rerouting option during disruptions. The Hauptbahnhof itself — 450,000+ travelers daily, Europe's largest future public-transport hub — is being rebuilt around the new tunnels.
On the U-Bahn side, the U9 (€3.5 billion, 10.5 km) is in advanced planning: a bypass relieving the Sendlinger Tor/Odeonsplatz bottlenecks by up to 44%, directly linking the Hauptbahnhof to the Allianz Arena, and adding a second station for Oktoberfest crowds. Exploration drilling ran through autumn 2025; the 2030s are the realistic build window. Extensions of the U5 (to Pasing/Freiham) and U6 (to Martinsried) are under construction meanwhile.
Munich's Hauptbahnhof anchors Germany's southern long-distance grid: ICEs to Berlin (4h), Hamburg, Cologne; Railjets to Vienna (4h) and Salzburg; EuroCities to Zurich; Nightjets to Rome, Milan, Vienna, Budapest. Nuremberg is 1 hour; Stuttgart 2h15.
For travelers the practical fact: nearly everything in Bavaria — Neuschwanstein, the lakes, Salzburg, even Innsbruck — is a direct regional or EC train from this station, and Bayern-Ticket day passes make the whole state a day-trip economy.
Two rail truths for Munich. First: the S-Bahn trunk is chronically fragile right now — when planning an airport run, use the S8 (it's more reliable than the S1 at peak) and add 15 minutes of buffer; a trunk-line closure during your stay is not bad luck, it's a statistical possibility. Second: the Hauptbahnhof district is where convenience outweighs charm — for a first visit, stay in the Altstadt or Maxvorstadt and treat the station as infrastructure, not a neighborhood. For Oktoberfest, the U4/U5 to Theresienwiese is the move; the festival gate is two minutes from the platform.
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