The BVG Class 480 is an electric multiple unit for the

Berlin S-Bahn The Berlin S-Bahn () is a rapid transit railway system in and around Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It has been in operation under this name since December 1930, having been previously called the special tariff area ''Berliner Stadt-, Ri ...

. It was originally meant to replace the aging S-Bahn rail cars in

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

, but after the reunification of the city, the remaining orders were cancelled and replaced by new orders for

DBAG Class 481 The DBAG Class 481/482 is an electric multiple unit train for the Berlin S-Bahn. The class 481 was designed to replace the aging rail cars after the German reunification in 1990. The first mock-up models were presented in 1993 with the first roll ...

cars in 1993.

History

Class 480 cars were ordered by BVG because the Class 475 trains, which had been taken over from Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) when BVG took control of the S-Bahn in West Berlin in 1984, were inadequate for use in West Berlin and were outdated. Both ends of a four-unit Class 480 train has a driving cab, allowing the flexibility of having two multiple units together. Four prototypes were delivered in 1986. Additional trains were ordered in order to cope with the five additional routes reopened after re-unification in 1989, which increased the West Berlin's S-Bahn to . As a result of in incident in the Nord-Süd Tunnel in August 2004, in which the last vehicle in a train was destroyed by fire, class 480 trains were removed from routes S1, S2 and S25, Bringing Class 481 trains into the service on these routes ahead of plan. These trains were redeployed to other lines such as S41, S42, S45 and S8. S85 also decided to use these trains.

Deployment of trains

These trains were deployed and commonly been seen at various lines: *S41: Ring (clockwise) *S42: Ring (counter-clockwise) *S45: Flughafen Schönefeld - Berlin-Südkreuz *S46: Königs Wusterhausen – Westend *S47: Spindlersfeld – Hermannstraße *S8: Zeuthen – Birkenwerder *S85: Grünau – Pankow {{German EMUs Electric multiple units of Germany Berlin S-Bahn Train-related introductions in 1986 750 V DC multiple units Siemens multiple units