The Ringbahn (
German for circle railway) is a long
circle route
A circle route (also circumference, loop, ring route, ring line or orbital line) is a public transport route following a path approximating a circle or at least a closed curve.
The expression "circle route" may refer in particular to:
* a rout ...
around Berlin's inner city area, on the
Berlin S-Bahn network. Its course is made up of a double-tracked
S-Bahn ring and a parallel freight ring. The S-Bahn lines
S41 and S42 provide a closed-loop continuous service without termini. Lines S45, S46 and S47 use a section of the southern and western ring, while lines S8 and S85 use sections of the eastern ring. The combined number of passengers is about 400,000 passengers a day. Due to its distinctive shape, the line is often referred to as the ''Hundekopf'' (Dog's Head).
The Ringbahn is bisected by an east–west railway thoroughfare called the
Stadtbahn (city railway), which crosses the Ringbahn from
Westkreuz (Western Crossing) to
Ostkreuz (Eastern Crossing), forming a Südring (Southern Ring) and a Nordring (Northern Ring). The north-south S-Bahn link (with the
North-South S-Bahn-tunnel as its central point) divides the Ringbahn into a ''Westring'' (Western Ring) and an ''Ostring'' (Eastern Ring), crossing at
Gesundbrunnen station
Berlin Gesundbrunnen station (german: Bahnhof Berlin Gesundbrunnen) is a railway station in Berlin, Germany. It is situated in the Gesundbrunnen district, part of the central Mitte borough, as an interconnection point between the northern ''Ring ...
in the north and both
Schöneberg station and
Südkreuz in the south. These four sections served as tariff zones of the suburban fare structure before
World War II. Over time, these four rings ceased to exist with the removal of interchanges. Only at Westkreuz does an original such track remain, used only for utility purposes. At Ostkreuz, a newly-designed bypass provides access to southern branches without having to enter the station. Gesundbrunnen is not a typical crossing, but rather has parallel tracks that allowed trains to run south towards Südkreuz once the North-South S-Bahn-Tunnel was opened.
The approximately area encompassed by the Ringbahn comprises the "Berlin A" zone in the
Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg's fare structure. The Ringbahn also serves as the border for Berlin's
low-emission zone, established on 1 January 2008.
History
Background
In 1851, the ''Königliche Bahnhofs-Verbindungsbahn'' (Royal Station Connection Railway) was completed between the termini of some railroads terminating in Berlin: initially the
Stettiner Bahnhof
Berlin Nordbahnhof (until 1950 Stettiner Bahnhof) is a railway station in the Mitte (locality), Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. It is served by the Berlin S-Bahn and local bus and tram lines.
History First station
In 1842, the ''Stettiner Bah ...
and the
Anhalter Bahnhof
The Anhalter Bahnhof is a former railway terminus in Berlin, Germany, approximately southeast of Potsdamer Platz. Once one of Berlin's most important railway stations, it was severely damaged in World War II, and finally closed for traffic in 19 ...
, but later to include the
Schlesischer Bahnhof.
It was laid in the streets, which disrupted traffic as well as local residents. Thus, in order to reduce disruption of traffic, trains ran at night, as the train bell had to be rung constantly.
Plans were soon developed to build a ring line primarily for freight, running outside the then city limits. Funding for construction was possible only after the victory in the
war with Austria of 1866. The
Lower Silesia-March Railway Company">f BrandenburgRailway Company was commissioned to construct and manage the line: construction began in 1867 and was completed in 1877.
Route
The first section opened on 17 July 1871 from Moabit through
Gesundbrunnen, Central-Viehhof (now
Storkower Straße), Stralau-Rummelsburg (now
Ostkreuz), Rixdorf (now
Neukölln
Neukölln () is one of the twelve boroughs of Berlin. It is located in the southeastern part from the city centre towards Berlin Schönefeld Airport. It was part of the former American sector under the Four-Power occupation of the city. It featu ...
) and Schöneberg (later Kolonnenstraße, at the side where there is the new
Julius-Leber-Brücke) to
Potsdamer station (and, from 1891 onward, to a separate annex, Potsdamer ring station). From there, trains returned in the opposite direction. The line crossed the
Anhalt Railway
Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of
and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making ...
(and later the Royal Prussian Military Railway) on bridges.
With the opening of the section from Schöneberg through the still-independent city of
Charlottenburg (now
Westend station) to Moabit on 15 November 1877, the ring was complete for freight and long-distance trains, while the suburban trains running on the Ringbahn would still visit and reverse at Potsdamer station in the
city center, turning north from the ring, running parallel to the
Berlin–Potsdam–Magdeburg Railway. This section from the actual ring into the Potsdamer ring station became known as the ''Südringspitzkehre'' (''Southern ring
switchback
Switchback may refer to:
Transportation
* A hairpin turn on a road
* A horseshoe curve
* A zigzagging pedestrian or cycling ramp
* A roller coaster, or a roller coaster-like road
* A zig zag (railway)
* The Switchback, a former railway line in ...
or
hairpin turn
A hairpin turn (also hairpin bend or hairpin corner) is a bend in a road with a very acute inner angle, making it necessary for an oncoming vehicle to turn about 180° to continue on the road. It is named for its resemblance to a bent metal hai ...
''), reflecting the need for trains to reverse there to continue their trip around the ring. Passengers could change at the ''Kolonnenstraße'' station across the platform to continue to ride on the Ringbahn without going all the way to the Potsdamer Ringbahnhof.
From 1 January 1872 onwards, freight was carried on the line to freight yards separate from the passenger stations. The line was electrified in 1926. In 1930, ring line operation was combined with the
Stadtbahn and suburban services as the
Berlin S-Bahn.
Since the trains were pulled by steam locomotives, they had to be refilled with water and coal and serviced at relatively short intervals; this was possible by reversing at Potsdamer Bahnhof. Even after electrification, the management of the railway company wanted to spare the passengers the need to change at the ''Papestraße'' or
Schöneberg stations to a properly provisioned train traveling from the suburbs to downtown Berlin. Originally, there were not even the necessary rails for continuing on the Ringbahn between Schöneberg and Papestraße stations.
The ''Reichsbahn'' planned to replace the level crossings between the Ringbahn and ''Südringspitzkehre'' with over- and underpasses together with the building of the north-south S-Bahn line in the late 1930s, but this was omitted as one of many planned changes after the proclamation of Hitler's ''Welthauptstadt Germania'' on 30 January 1937.
In
World War II, the Potsdamer and
Anhalter stations were heavily bombed; the ''Südringspitzkehre'' was closed in 1944 and was never reopened.
The Berlin Wall division
From 1944 until the construction of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
in 1961, S-Bahn trains ran over the direct line between Papestraße (now
Südkreuz) and Schöneberg opened in 1933, making a complete circle. With the building of the Wall, the line was broken in two places:
*In
West Berlin a separate line on a three-quarter ring ran between Gesundbrunnen and
Sonnenallee or
Köllnische Heide.
*In
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
the remaining section ran between
Schönhauser Allee and
Treptower Park, on the suburban lines to
Bernau and
Königs Wusterhausen or
Schönefeld Airport.
The building of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
in 1961 prevented continuous operation, after which passenger numbers on the West Berlin side, between Gesundbrunnen and Sonnenallee, declined. This was caused partly by a politically motivated call for a boycott, because revenue from the West Berlin S-Bahn, which was operated by East German railways, supported the
East German government. The East Berlin section, from Schönhauser Allee to Treptower Park, remained in operation as it formed part of a major north-south tangent.
After the
1980 S-Bahn strike, service on the western part of the ring was suspended for about 13 years.
On 9 January 1984, a treaty between
East Germany and the
West Berlin Senate came into force and turned over responsibility for operation of the S-Bahn in West Berlin to the West Berlin transport authority
BVG. It was initially planned to restore the section between Westend and
Sonnenallee.
Reunification
After
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
in 1990, plans were changed, so that in 1993 the south ring was reopened to the junction with the
line towards Baumschulenweg with a connection to the
Goerlitz line. The reconstruction of the connection between Sonnenallee and Treptow Park required large-scale renovation that was not feasible in the short term. The western part of the ring line was put back into operation in stages:
*17 December 1993: Between
Baumschulenweg
Baumschulenweg () is a German locality (''Ortsteil'') within the Berlin borough (''Bezirk'') of Treptow-Köpenick. Until 2001 it was part of the former borough of Treptow. Its name means road (''weg'') of the plant nurseries (''Baumschulen''). It ...
, Neukölln and Westend
*15 April 1997: Between Westend and
Jungfernheide
*19 December 1997: Between Neukölln and Treptower Park
*19 December 1999: Between Jungfernheide and
Westhafen
*17 September 2001: Between Schönhauser Allee and Gesundbrunnen, over the old border, and the part of the section from Bornholmer Straße to Schönhauser Allee is closed for reconstruction work.
More than 12 years after the fall of the Wall, the last gap of the S-Bahn between Westhafen,
Wedding and Gesundbrunnen, was fully restored on 16 June 2002. Promotional material for the reopening referred this as the "Wedding Day," an allusion to the English word "wedding." Services operated under the "screw concept," as trains entered the ring from the south at Neukölln and circled around it one and the half times, at the time the trip around the ring could not be achieved in less than 63 minutes.
Since 28 May 2006, circular service has been operated as lines S41 (clockwise) and S42 (anticlockwise). Trains take around 60 minutes, running every five minutes in peak hours and every ten minutes between the peaks, and in the evenings, using the greatly accelerated 481/482 series trains. Some sections of the ring are used by other lines. On the southern ring from the Görlitz line in the southeast, line
S47 terminates at
Hermannstraße,
S46 at Westend and
S45 at
Berlin Südkreuz station, with some terminating at
Bundesplatz
The Bundesplatz (literally: the "Federal Square") is the Government Plaza in Bern, ''de facto'' the capital city of Switzerland. It is situated in the Old City of Bern, the medieval city center of Bern. It is part of the Innere Neustadt which ...
. On the eastern section of the ring, lines
S8,
S85 and
S9 operate between Schönhauser Allee and Treptower Park.
Services
Under what is called the "mushroom concept," the long-distance lines on the northern part of the ring for regional or long-distance services were rebuilt and electrified. On the ring line, regional and mainline services stop at Gesundbrunnen and regional services stop at Jungfernheide.
The majority of the former ring line freight yards have been closed down or dismantled. Part of the former freight inner ring between Neukölln and Tempelhof is still used for freight, with a depot at Berlin-Moabit. The freight line is closed in the vicinity of Südkreuz and Ostkreuz.
Branches and connection curves
S-Bahn
Branches from the ring line are:
*from Gesundbrunnen and Schönhauser Allee via Bornholmer Straße to Pankow and Schönholz (operating)
*from Treptower Park and Neukölln to Baumschulenweg (operating)
*from Jungfernheide via Wernerwerk to Gartenfeld (Siemens Railway, out of service and partially dismantled)
*from Jungfernheide via Siemensstadt-Fürstenbrunn to Spandau (S-Bahn tracks removed)
There are connecting curves between the ring line and the Stadtbahn at Ostkreuz and Westkreuz.
*The south ring curve at Ostkreuz was completely rebuilt between 28 August 2009 and 10 December 2017.
*The north ring curve at Ostkreuz was closed on 28 May 2006 and dismantled.
*A connection between Charlottenburg and Messe Nord/ICC (north ring curve) was used until 1944; after destruction in World War II it was not rebuilt.
*The connecting curve between Charlottenburg and Halensee (south ring curve) was rebuilt in the early 1990s with only one track. Currently, it is used for service traffic and on weekdays by two line S46 services daily.
The Südringspitzkehre spur to Potsdamer Bahnhof was closed in 1944 due to war damage and never rebuilt. Its reconstruction is being considered in the planning options for line
S21.
Mainline
The following long-distance and freight curves connect with the ring line:
*from Berlin-Moabit, for freight from the west, formerly connecting the
Hamburger Bahnhof and
Lehrter Bahnhof, still used for freight.
*in Wedding/Westhafen since 2006, connecting to the
North-South mainline from both directions towards
Hauptbahnhof
*in Gesundbrunnen/Schönhauser Allee, connecting from both directions to the
Stettin Railway and the northeast
*in Frankfurter Allee/Ostkreuz, from both directions to the
Berlin Frankfurter Allee–Berlin-Rummelsburg line to
Berlin-Lichtenberg station and Rummelsburg
classification yard
*in the Treptow Park area, from the north to the
Görlitz line (out of service)
*in Neukölln, from the west to the Görlitz line
*in Hermannstraße, from the east to the
Neukölln–Mittenwald line
*in Tempelhof/Südkreuz, a freight rail from the east to Berlin-Marienfelde (out of service)
*in Südkreuz/Schöneberg, a freight rail towards
Zehlendorf (out of service)
*in Westkreuz/Halensee, from both directions to the
Wetzlar line
*in Westend/Jungfernheide, from both directions to
Spandau
See also
*
Berlin outer ring
*
Circle line (London Underground)
*
Koltsevaya Line
*
Yamanote Line
*
City Circle Line
*
Circle MRT Line
The Circle MRT Line (CCL) is a medium-capacity Mass Rapid Transit line in Singapore operated by SMRT Corporation. It runs in a currently incomplete loop from Dhoby Ghaut station in the city area of Singapore to HarbourFront station in the so ...
*
Seoul Subway Line 2
Notes
References
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External links
Pictures of the Ringbahn
{{Public transport in Berlin
Ringbahn
Railway loop lines
Ringbahn
Ringbahn
Standard gauge railways in Germany
Buildings and structures in Neukölln
Railway lines opened in 1871
1871 establishments in Germany