A FANTASTIC subway network! | Berlin U-Bahn & S-Bahn

welcome back to rm transit one of my favorite cities i've ever visited is berlin and more than any other city i've talked about unexplained i think berlin's transit is underappreciated with a subway network with nearly 200 stops and a suburban rail network that adds more than 150 more berlin is teaming with high quality transit and that's not even getting into the impressive tram network or further express rail regional services that wind through the historic and futuristic structures and infrastructure that carry the city's transit there are certain cities anyone who wants to learn about transit should have a good grasp on and berlin is one of them along with others like tokyo london and new york so in this video we're going to take a look across the yuban and espon networks in berlin and we're going to see what makes berlin just so special [Music] if you're not already consider supporting the channel on patreon or via youtube memberships to help me bring the world more explanations of our greatest transit networks i've got to start off today's video with my usual disclaimers what i can and can't cover today's video will go over the yuban and espon as i mentioned earlier though berlin does have an extensive tram network as well especially in its eastern areas at some point i'll have to do a paris metro and rer explained and the berlin trams explained oh and a huge thank you to sasha from photo tour berlin for all of the fun facts that only a local would know with that out of the way let's get a feel for berlin this is berlin and this is the esbond ring you don't need to know too much about it besides that it's a good way of defining the city center versus other areas of the city here is berlin's rather infamous berlin brandenburg airport which sat complete but not in operation for years within berlin proper we have the help on hof the central station as well as the stop bond an elevated rail viaduct that winds through the city cutting it in two here is the german parliament and the brandenburg gate and here's alexanderplatz likely berlin's most popular public space in the shadow of the iconic tv tower now from here on out i'm going to describe the u-bond the s-bahn and the interesting and unique features of the berlin rail system that stand out to me let's get into it the u-bond network consists of a total of nine lines with 175 stations and has a rather unique layout that has some lines in fairly orderly directions and some sneaking all over the place first the east-west lines u1 as it's known has 13 stations over roughly 9 kilometers of track running roughly east west through the city south of the center u3 is going to be next up because much of it is actually interlined with u1 though this is the only substantial track sharing on the yubon network u3 has a total of 24 stations over 19 kilometers of track running alongside u1 from the east until the u3 diverges to the southwest at wittenberg platz from where it continues deep into the suburbs and rural areas as it turns out there is even a food producing farm served by the u3 which is quite unusual u5 is the next major east-west line in the city it starts at berlin help on off at its western end before continuing east through the center of the city the line diverges to the south of a major zoo east of the espon ring before turning back northeast and traveling into the suburbs above ground as the east german government who built this portion of the line did not have tons of money to spend u5 has a total of 26 stops on 22 kilometers of track as it turns out u5 received the last major expansion on the yubon network in the form of new tracks connecting from alexanderplatz to this station at the brandenburg gate which was the eastern terminus of a short three-stop u-55 line which connected to the central station u5 was also the first fully accessible line on the yuban network and is completely disconnected from the rest of the system next the north south lines u4 is the shortest line on the yubon network running approximately north-south in the southwestern quadrant of the city with just five stops on about two and a half kilometers of track opened back in the early 20th century and never modified since u4 is entirely underground u6 starts northwest of the city and turns south after entering the esbond ring to run almost directly through the center before continuing back across the ring into the suburbs south of the city u8 also starts northwest of the city and operates parallel to u6 but to its east particularly in the city's center where the line diverges even further east to pass through alexanderplatz the line also terminates further north than u6 and is completely underground u-9 like u6 and u8 operates north-south but in a more general north east to southwest direction the line starts at an interchange point with u8 and continues southwest before turning south roughly after crossing the espan ring the line was constructed during the city's division with a fair amount of redundancy and this makes less sense with this city reunified finally the lines which cannot decide if they are north south or east-west u2 starts west of the city and continues east-southeast until it arrives south of the center where it then turns north to cut through before turning east and then north again to pass through alexanderplatz and continue north of the city u7 is the last line in the network and is also the longest the line starts west of berlin turns south to cross into the espan ring at its western end then following the ring south and then east through the city before exiting the ring at its southeast side and continuing south u7 is entirely underground the u-bond has a number of interchange points owing to its grid and all over the place lines these include almost every other station on u1 nolendorf plots and alexanderplatz in particular now you're probably curious where the u-bahn network is going next and i have good news and bad news the good news is that there are plans for expansion the bad news is that they are extremely slow moving probably in part because berlin's existing network still has a lot of capacity and headways are often relatively low for a subway system much like some of the other older metro networks we've talked about like london and new york the berlin u-bond is not currently expanding in any significant way there are some minor proposals which exist but they mainly consist of short low-cost extensions such as taking the u1 to the major east cross station and continuing u3 south to the s-bahn larger plans do exist such as creating a branch of u6 to serve the redeveloped lands currently taken up by the now decommissioned tagle airport but these are not currently being developed there's also some discussion of extending u7 to berlin brandenburg even if it's probably not necessary now you may have noticed that some lines and services feel a bit odd like the u-55 line which exists which was just floating without any other connections but this is because berlin has a second high quality network in the form of the s-bond which we'll talk about after a brief message from today's sponsor surfshark on this channel we often like to take our audience around the world covering public transit systems on all of the different continents when you're ready to actually physically travel the world and maybe head over to berlin to ride the u-bond bring along surfsharkvpn so you can stay safe on the internet while you roam with more than 200 servers in 65 countries surfshark can encrypt your online activity and protect you against anyone that might be snooping on you no matter where your wandering spirit takes you and if you're feeling homesick connect back to your country and enjoy your home comforts anywhere as of right now though maybe some of you aren't comfortable traveling just yet so why not use surf shark to journey around the world virtually and get access to geo-restricted content with a click of a button right now surf shark is offering our viewers an incredible deal so why not check it out before you drop hundreds or even thousands on a plane ticket and connect to servers on the other side of the world right now get surf shark vpn at surf shark dot deal slash rm transit and enter promo code rm transit for 83 off and three extra months for free now back to our regular content now the first thing to get out of the way is that the s-bahn is not really a metro it's an s-bahn and so it ends up looking quite different in some ways and similar in others for example the s-pawn is mostly above ground travels further distances between stations and has great crossings but at the same time it uses high quality metro like trains third rail power and has fairly high frequencies from a topology point of view while the u-bond like most metros is primarily based around discrete lines the s-bond being larger in scope has numerous suburban lines serving several core sections of track in and around the city center we'll highlight those first before discussing individual services i already discussed two of these sections of track which are the s-bond ring better known as the ring bond which i discussed in my loop lines video the ring bond basically always has at least four tracks with two generally given to the s-pawn and the others used for other services there are numerous flyovers and fly enders which connect it to lines which cross it and which allow the s-bond tracks to move from one side of the corridor to the other as needed next is the stat bond which is a mostly four-track elevated corridor which passes through the center of berlin east west connecting with the ring bond at cross stations on both sides as with the ring bond two tracks on the stock bond are dedicated to s-bond services with various other services operating on the other tracks on both the statbon and ringbond there are many esbond stations and far fewer for regular trains which operate on these second set of tracks such as regional express intercity and eurocity services the final major piece of infrastructure is the north-south tunnel which serves north-south s-bond services there's a second tunnel which runs through berlin help on hof that serves longer distance services the tunnel intersects the stop bond at friedrich strassa and diverges at the southern end to cross the ring bond in two different locations at the north end of the espan tunnel the connecting tracks to the s-bahn lines to the north do not simply cross the ring bond but run parallel for a section and then turn north looking at the services to the city's north the s25 service operates from the community of henning's north south to the ring bond and then over to the espan tunnel which it runs through the service continues south through the southern cross station but no not that southern cross and then diverges west onto a branch the s-26 starts east of the s-25 before merging with it and continuing along with it for the rest of the route self-detelto and i might note this southern branch like a fair amount of the outer esbond network is partially single tracked but the line still manages all-day 10-minute headway service showing that with a schedule you can do a lot even with single track stay tuned for a video on a country that knows a lot about that in the future the s2 starts at bernal to the northeast of the city before traveling southwest to meet the s25 and s26 whose names are as such because they are variants of the s2 route this is a common typology once south of the city the s2 diverges from the s25 and s26 to head south south east the s1 route operates along the same tracks as the s26 north of the city but extends roughly 20 kilometers further north to the south of the city the s-1 diverges onto the western branch of the espan tunnel tracks intersecting the ring bond west of the south cross station the line then continues to the city's southwest the routes to the city's east include the s3 s5 s7 and s75 s7 and s75 are arguably the most central esbond branches traveling north from the east cross station to serve close-in suburbs both lions cross into the central areas of berlin via the stat bond though s75 turns back at warshower strassa s7 continues across the city through the west cross station and then southwest through an almost 10 kilometer section of track through dense forest before shooting out the other side and running along with the s1 for a short period before terminating at pot stem help and hoff line s5 starts roughly 35 kilometers northeast of berlin and travels into the city mostly independently only joining the s7 and s75 a few stations east of the east cross station and then continuing to run all the way to the west cross station where it returns back east s3 starts roughly 25 kilometers east southeast of the station and travels the whole distance to the east cross station by itself before crossing the stot bond and continuing west of the city past the massive station at the olympic stadium which features many platforms for special event services before terminating at spandau also the western terminus of u7 another major series of services to mention are those to the southeast of the ring the longest of these is s46 which travels northwest from roughly 30 kilometers out of berlin and then turns west approaching the ring bond to enter on the southern side of the ring and travel around it all the way west beyond west cross to west end station the s8 starts slightly northwest of s46 and runs along with it until diverging north to enter the ring on the eastern side and run around it until exiting the ring at its north alongside s2 which it runs together with until blankenberg where it splits off to the west serving some rural and low density areas before meeting with the s1 and running parallel to it for two stops s85 operates entirely as a shortened version of the s8 the s47 is the shortest line on the s-pawn system traveling from another close and suburban area east of the southeastern trunk onto the southern side of the ring bond to meet u8 at its southern terminus the last two services i've yet to talk about are the s9 and s45 both start at a new station at berlin brandenbrook airport before continuing west and then northeast to the southeastern trunk the s45 follows s46 but terminates at the south cross station s9 travels to the stop bond via the ring bond and tracks which allow it to bypass the east cross station before traveling all the way to spandau with the s3 oh and i've left the best for last the s41 and s42 ring services the s41 travels clockwise around the ring bond while the s42 operates counter-clockwise better yet the travel time between the major stations to the north south east and west is a consistent 15 minutes each major respawn interchanges include west cross schoenberg south cross and east cross station which is one of my favorite stations in the world from a functional perspective with an immense number of services passing through it and a major renovation and reconstruction project which ran late into the 2010s well major interchange points between the s-bahn and u-bond include potsdamer platts brandenburger tour friedrich strassa the zoo station the halponhof alexander platz janowitsbrook warshauer strassa schunhauser alle gessenbernin vetting besthoffen young fern haida heidelberger plots bundesplatz innsbrucker platz templehof hermann strassa noi cullen and frankfurter la now thanks to the fact that the s-bond ring and cross city roots all have several overlapping surfaces these all have metro-like frequency all day long even if frequencies often fall off to 10 or 20 minutes further into the suburbs which still isn't bad as you can see berlin's rail networks are immensely well connected which seriously helps their usefulness and the number of viable trips which can be made on public transport now like the yuban network the s-bahn is not seeing much expansion these days and that's probably to some degree because it's already quite extensive that said a second north-south tunnel is being constructed for the system which is being built in two stages the first nearly complete stage connects the northern ring bond in both directions to the helpenhof parallel to the mainline rail tunnel phase two of the project envisions an extension south to potsdamer plus which already has room for additional tunnel connection which could allow the two southern branches of the existing north-south esbond tunnel to connect to the two northern branches the second phase has not sorted construction yet in addition to this plans over the next decade or so call for the reactivation of a portion of the semen spawn as well as mostly short extensions to the south south west west northwest and north [Music] now let's look at the trains that move people through berlin something which stands out to me are the incredibly progressive modern designs used on the system with large windows also rather uniquely berlin has tended to order the same train designs over longer periods of time often decades with newer models being referred to as belonging to newer series you'll also notice many train designs feature printing on the windows often of the branded bird gate this is to discourage graffiti much like many systems the berlin u-bahn is divided into two parts with a narrow train division and a wide train division that said all trains in berlin are fairly narrow and run on standard gauge tracks the narrow division consists of the u1 u2 u3 and u4 which were the earliest lines constructed on the system the narrow trains are 2.3 meters wide and use a top contact third rail with 750 volt dc power models on the narrow lines include the a3 model some sets dating all the way back to the 1960s these have three doors per side and were mostly manufactured by companies absorbed into siemens and alstom there is also the g model which features two doors per car per side and features incredibly short roughly 10 meter long cars manufactured by a company which was rolled into ad trans and later bombardier and then later alstom the g model trains came in married pairs some g-model trains were actually sent to north korea for use on the pyongyang metro and some even ended up being used to pull mainline freight trains the hk model was manufactured by bombardier despite the cars being shorter than those used on the chicago l or scarborough rt and skytrain they still feature three doors on each side of each car it's also worth noting the large windows present on the car doors the hk series come in fully interconnected four car sets the last model is the ik model which has been manufactured by stadler over the last number of years these trains look even more modern than the hk and also come in four car interconnected sets the ik also feature a more modern interior with digital wayfinding and like all the narrow models on the u-bond use longitudinal seating the wide train lines on the u-bahn are u5 through u9 though the wide trains are only 2.65 meters wide which would still be seen as narrow in most places of the world they also use bottom contact third rail but in this case it's negatively charged the oldest in-service model is the f which are married paired sets of 60 meter cars with three doors per side per car which were manufactured by companies which mostly ended up being acquired by siemens and alston again these trains also feature some transverse seating the h model is the wider variant of the hk seen on the narrow train network but with full walk-through six-car sets the final model operating on the wide train portion of the network is the ik yes the same ik model seen on the neural network very uniquely some of the ik trains have been ordered with semi-permanent gap-filling plates attached to them and modified bogeys with spacers to increase the floor height allowing them to operate as 8-car sets on the wide lines moving over to the s-bond trains we can note that they also operate on standard gauge tracks and with bottom contact third rail with 750 volt dc power s-bond trains are also even wider at 3.1 meters given most stations are above ground trains as long as 8 cars are operated the oldest model of s-bond train in operation is the class 480 and these were manufactured by siemens and companies which became daimler and bombardier and then later alstom these cars feature three doors per side and a very unique front fascia the second oldest model in the fleet is the class 485 originally used in east germany as the class 270. these trains were manufactured by a company which was absorbed into allston unlike other models used on the spawn and u-bond these cars feature four doors per side probably the most iconic model on the spawn network is the class 481 which returned to a more conventional three-door per side layout and were manufactured by bombardier again with an iconic front fascia that is curved and resembles a mask these also feature doors with uniquely shaped windows reminiscent of the h-model u-bond cars trains come in four-car interconnected sets the final and newest model on the berlin s-pawn network is the class 483 which requires no introduction as they're my favorite train model in the world the layout of the class 483 is similar to the 481 but the trains feature a more angular design with contrasting doors to help visibility for those with limited sight they're being manufactured by a consortium of statler and siemens now one of my favorite parts of any explained video is the unique facts and features section so let's take a quick look the s and yuban logos are basically standardized across the german speaking world and i find that very cool it's also useful if you're traveling from one place to another more widespread wayfinding standardization please as part of berlin's division by the berlin wall the entire rail network of berlin was operated differently with some lines being completely severed this included trains running through stations on the other side of the city patrolled by armed soldiers without stopping and interchanges located entirely on the other side of the border david frankl has a great video that goes into more detail about this when the u-55 line was disconnected from the rest of u5 it had to receive its rolling stock by way of a shaft and a lift grain not unlike the waterline city line of the london underground berlin is one of those places internationally that does not feature yellow platform edges as seen in most places in north america and despite being a very high quality system in some senses the signaling in the network is actually somewhat dated the system doesn't have as much pressure to upgrade this though as it doesn't need to operate extremely high frequencies to serve current demand the s-bahn on the other hand does have extremely high-end signaling the system doesn't have platform screen doors unlike the paris metro or london underground much like other legacy systems the networks are not fully accessible but unlike say the new york subway it is a priority and a number of smart measures are being taken to accelerate this transition unlike many systems in the world in berlin there are no fair gates proof of payment is the name of the game and this can massively simplify station designs station designs in berlin are also generally less awe-inspiring compared to some other systems i'd say they are more functional and that's probably in part because the rail network has not grown a ton in recent years that said a number of major stations on the stop bond are quite the sites to behold the traditional architecture of some of the network's older stations and elevated infrastructure on lines like u1 is very beautiful and the newly opened stations on the u5 are also lovely berlin's network is a lot bigger than it probably needs to be and there is lots of infrastructure which has been abandoned modified or just laying in weight for future use such as those track connections on the new north south espan tunnel at potsdamer platz something other cities could certainly learn from when building new structures around rail lines this is in large part because historical projections had berlin being much larger with the city's division as well as the aftermath of the world wars seriously changing the course of the city's fate at the same time much of the infrastructure is above ground of course large portions of the yuban are subterranean but a significant amount of the suburban lines are on the surface and of course that is the case for almost the entire s-bahn which shows you don't need to go underground much to create an amazing system and berlin's network operates more than most with 24-hour weekend service along much of the rail lines this is helped by the somewhat low frequencies during other periods allowing for more maintenance and upkeep than might be possible in other systems if you're wondering why it is that the infrastructure often follows weird axai in the city the whole region has been developed in a very rail-centric way with development following the s-bahn and regional express lines further out into the suburbs in the shape of a star perhaps the nerdiest fact is just that berlin has some incredible rail junctions from the one at the new east cross station to the north of the ring the amount of railways in the city boggles the mind so with that we have berlin let me know something you learned in the comments down below and stay tuned for more explained [Music] you

Channel: RMTransit

Views: 184,724

Keywords: transit, transportation, rail, railway, railfan, berlin, metro, subway, berlin u-bahn, berlin s-bahn, s-bahn, u-bahn, underground, train, trains, train station, Germany, public transportation, public transport, Deutsche Bahn, urban planning, documentary

Id: zW_3sLrM6EA

Length: 22min 48sec (1368 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2022