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 and the
Anhalter Bahnhof, 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 Berlin–Wrocław railway|Lower Silesia-March [of Brandenburg] Railway 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) 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 (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 or hairpin turn), 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 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 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 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 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, 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 a 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. On the eastern section of the ring, lines
S8,
S85 and
S9 operate between Schönhauser Allee and Treptower Park. ==Services==