On 15/01/2012 21:29, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in
:

Weren't some S-Bahn carriages also taken from Berlin to Moscow as war
reparations, and put into revenue service there.

Yes, but some were handed back later.

I've seen that before. Was that the seal used for all of Berlin at one
point, perhaps before World War II?

Yes and even after until some point. There are slight variations, but
it's basically the same. The current yellow square is a new creation.

How did one pay the fare, via POP or through turnstiles installed at
stations?

No, turnstiles would imply that the entire system was enclosed like in
London or New York. That has never been the case. If memory serves, you
bought your ticket at vending machines (or earlier ticket booths at the
station entrance) and validated them before entering a train, really
the same as today. They were valid for interchange to buses, trams and
S- Bahn.


So, it was a POP system, or proof of payment.

One peculiar feature was the "Zahlbox"

http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ei:Zahlbox.JPG

How very advanced.

which was introduced in buses after conductors had been abolished
there. Passengers would insert a coin, or an unvalidated U-Bahn ticket
of the same value, and collect a bus ticket from the box. The box could
not check if the sum or voucher inserted was correct. Instead whatever a
person inserted would be visible through the glass window of the box
for everyone else in the vehicle to see, until four or five more tickets
had been sold. Passengers were expected to check on each other for
fraud.

They had transparent fare boxes in New York City, in which you could see
the exact amount being deposited, before they were replaced with
electronic ones. Bus drivers apparently would become adept at seeing how
much was deposited into the older boxes.

Tell me, did the signal and safety systems on the Berlin U-Bahn remain
the same throughout the city's division or did they grow apart during
those 28 years?