London Banter - View Single Post - Complete (almost) Shutdown of Berlin Train System

[email protected]

On 04/01/2012 21:41, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
"Paul wrote
in :

I am quite sure that Friedrichstraße was the only East Berlin
S-Bahn
station where one could buy S-Bahn tickets towards West Berlin in DM.
And only in the "non-socialist currency" area, i.e. the area which
acted as an exchange station for intra West Berlin traffic.

I saw them on the machine at Kopenick.

Until 1984 the DR treated the S-Bahn system basically as one, despite
the wall. Tickets from East to West Berlin were just another fare within
the system, "Preisstufe 10" ("fare level 10"). The network diagrams they
published showed the entire city and were the same on both sides. This
is the last one from 1983:

http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/Netz_1983_klein.gif

It's quite an interesting design too. While it pays reference to the
official party nomenclature ("Berlin" for East Berlin, "Westberlin"
without a hyphen - Lüko uses that in his posts -, the wall designated as
"international border", ghost stations not depicted etc.), it goes
against the party line to an extent. Otherwhise East German publications
would carefully avoid any hint of commonalities between East and West,
while this one not only shows both sides as one, but the design clearly
suggests to the viewer which lines were severed by the wall and ought to
be re-joined. Quite remarkable IMHO.

Likewhise the West Berlin BVG used to print U-Bahn maps showing the
entire system:

http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/Netz_1983BVG.jpg

In 1984 BVG took over the operation of the S-Bahn in West Berlin, since
then the diagrams in East and West have integrated U-Bahn and S-Bahn
into one map, but tended to show their halves of the city only:

http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/Netz_1984_klein.gif
http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/N...4BVG_klein.gif

The Western map still pays symbolic tribute to East Berlin, but the
fact that there's a transport network there is merely hinted.

The first diagram of U-Bahn and S-Bahn of the entire city was published
in december 1989:

http://www.wschwanke.de/tmp/berlin_198912_usbahn_B.jpg

Obviously based on the BVG diagram, the lines in the east had been
hastily added, without distinction what line belonged to what system
and with a lot of errors. Still this diagram was iconic, as it was the
first showing the entire city with both systems. We'd never seen that
before. The current diagram is evolved from that one.

"Wir sind ein Volk!"