New York's Ghost Stations Don't Even Come Close
Unlike normal travelers, when I went to Berlin, Germany and started traveling on the incredibly nice and clean S-Bahn and U-Bahn trains, the first question that popped into my head was, "Wow, I wonder how the metro ran when the city was divided?" My travel companion seemed not to share my entusiasm in finding the answer to my question, but I later discovered the answer from a friend whose tour guide had explained it.
As UrbanRail.net explains:
After the war, the U-Bahn and S-Bahn kept running from one side of Berlin to the other until the Wall was built in 1961. Today's U2 was split into two lines, U1 was cut off at Schlesisches Tor and U6 and U8 began travelling through East Berlin skipping all stations on GDR territory (ghost stations). An exception was Friedrichstraße (U6) which was a border crossing for pedestrians and a transfer point to the S-Bahn.
Two entire lines, the U6 and U8, skipped many of their stations because they were technically in another country. According to the guide (although this is uncorroborated), many of the train cars had blacked out windows to prevent passengers traveling through the ghost stations from seeing out and some even had armed guards to prevent escape through these stations. Oddly, however, mass transit did much better in Communist East Berlin than it did in West Berlin. East Berlin built an extensive streetcar/tram network and greatly expanded the S-Bahn network.
Today, much of the planned work to extend the U-Bahn and S-Bahn system has been delayed due to lack of available funds.
Post Author:
amg | 12:54 PM |
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