The DR Class 270 was an electric multiple unit of 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-, Ring ...

. It was designed for the

Deutsche Reichsbahn (East Germany) The Deutsche Reichsbahn or DR ''(German Reich Railways)'' was the operating name of state owned railways in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and after German reunification until 1 January 1994. In 1949, occupied Germany's railw ...

and was intended to be the replacement for the ageing fleet of S-Bahn units in East Berlin. Test runs were started in 1987 and the first batch was delivered in 1990. After German reunification, Class 270 units were reclassified as DBAG Class 485. A second batch was cancelled in favour of a new design, the

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 ...

History

In 1980, S-Berlin trains were still composed of pre-World War II Class 475, 476 and 477 vehicles. Both the West Berlin and East Berlin S-Bahn operators were looking into options to replace their ageing fleets. In East Germany the

LEW Hennigsdorf The rail vehicle factory in Hennigsdorf, Germany, was founded in 1910 by AEG. Locomotive production began in 1913, and in the 1930s absorbed the work of the August Borsig locomotive factory, being renamed the Borsig Lokomotiv Werke GmbH until 19 ...

locomotive works were tasked with construction of new class of vehicle, which was presented at the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1980. However, it took until 1987 until an initial batch of eight cars were built for test running on the S-Bahn network. These entered regular passenger service in 1988. Originally, it had been planned to build 300 units of this class to completely replace the older fleet. In 1992, deliveries were cancelled after only a 170 unit run. In 1993, one of the two car sets and side cars were being used for the Duo S-Bahn (S19) for a trial from the LEW Hennigsdorf. Their train roller-blinds were changed to electronic displays, to allow the route to be reformatted into S-Bahn Berlin numbers. The S-Bahn, now unified, was planning a new fleet of trains (to be known as

). A mock-up was presented in 1993 and the first production vehicles entered service in 1996. As it was planned for the new Class 481 to replace all the older fleet, Class 485 units were withdrawn as from 2003, with 50 trains being scrapped in 2007/2008. Due to technical problems on the Class 481, a number of Class 485 were however reactivated in 2009 - since 2012 a fleet of 80 Class 485 units have been in service. Currently the Berlin S-Bahn network is updating its train safety system, the ZBS train control being based on Eurobalises. It is intended for Class 485 to undergo a series of updates in the near future, in order for trains to remain in service until at least 2023, instead of withdrawing them in 2017, as had been originally intended.

Deployment

Trains made up of DBAG Class 485 units have been deployed on the following lines and still can be regularly seen working : *S46: Königs Wusterhausen – Westend *S47: Spindlersfeld – Hermannstraße *S8: Zeuthen – Birkenwerder *S85: Grünau – Pankow

References

External links

* Berlin S-Bahn Electric multiple units of Germany Train-related introductions in 1987 {{Berlin-SBahn-stub 750 V DC multiple units