The Glasower Damm Nord – Bohnsdorf Süd railway is an electrified, predominantly double-track main line in Germany. It is mainly located in the state of Brandenburg south of Berlin, but a small part of it is in Berlin. It is mainly intended to connect Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) with the underground Berlin Brandenburg Airport station. Its eastern section replaced the Berlin-Grünau – Berlin Schönefeld Airport South railway (Bahnstrecke Berlin-Grünau – Berlin Flughafen Schönefeld Süd), which was opened in 1963. This ran parallel to the current line and was mainly used to supply the airport with fuel and building materials. From 1992 to 2010, it was also used for passenger services to the biennial ILA Berlin Air Show.
The new continuous line to the airport went into operation in October 2011. Because of the delays in opening the airport, it has only had any traffic significance since October 2020, apart from the freight traffic to Schönefeld airport.
History The construction of the Henschel aircraft factory near the town of Diepensee, south of Berlin, began in 1934. The so-called Henschelbahn (Henschel Railway) initially supplied the works. It had emerged from the Diepensee freight railway, which had originally operated as a horse tramway. The line ran from Berlin-Grünau station straight through the built-up area of Bohnsdorf. After the Second World War, the railway was dismantled for reparations. A Soviet military airport was built on the grounds of the Henschel works after 1945. The Henschel Railway was rebuilt in 1947 to supply it with materials and fuels.
The southern part of the airport was transferred for civilian use to Deutsche Lufthansa of East Germany (later Interflug) on 27 April 1955. Initially, the former Henschel Railway continued to be used for the supply of materials and fuels. This line proved not to have sufficient capacity with the growth of the airport and it was also severely hampered the increasing road traffic. As a result a new siding was built in 1959 from the Grünbergallee station on the Berlin Outer Freight Ring (Güteraußenring, GAR) and the old line was closed. By the beginning of the 1960s, it became apparent that this line could no longer be used in the longer term. On the one hand, the line crossed the freeway that was under construction to the airport, on the other hand, the route of the GAR was needed for the future S-Bahn to Schönefeld. First, a track was laid parallel to the GAR, but due to the A 113 autobahn, which was under construction there, it could not be used in the longer-term.
The freight line to Schönefeld Airport
Because of these problems a completely new connection was built to the airport, which went into operation on 3 September 1963. It branched in Berlin-Grünau station from the Berlin–Görlitz railway, initially running parallel to it, then it turned to run south of Bohnsdorf through the forest and reached the airport from the east. Demands from Deutsche Lufthansa for services to carry its employees over the line were rejected due to the expected low traffic and lack of signalling infrastructure. In the 1970s and 1980s, the line, popularly called the Ölbahn (oil railway), was upgraded to enable the operation of axle loads of up to 22.5 tons. This enabled building materials to be carried on block trains to the Kienberg building materials warehouse, which was located next to the line.
After German reunification, the ILA Berlin Air Show (ILA) took place for the first time on the southern part of the airport. To handle the number of visitors, shuttle trains ran hourly from Berlin-Lichtenberg via Schöneweide or from Schönefeld Airport station to Berlin-Schönefeld Airport South station, meaning that two trains an hour and direction ran over the industrial railway. Services were operated as seven-carriage double-decker push–pull trains that were hauled by class 232 locomotives. A temporary chipboard platform was built for passengers. In addition, signalling and control systems from Siemens were installed for passenger traffic at the previously unprotected level crossings. Previously, only the federal route 179 level crossing was protected with a semi-barrier system.
Shuttle trains were again used at the following aerospace exhibitions, which took place every two years, with the rolling stock used changing over time. In 1994, for example, trains were operated with class 229 locomotives at both ends, alternately from Lichtenberg via Schöneweide and from Zoologischer Garten station via the Berlin Stadtbahn to the ILA station. In 2010, the last time the shuttle trains ran to ILA, they ran directly from Berlin-Lichtenberg without additional stops. Since 2012, the ILA is no longer held in Diepensee, but at Selchow on the west side of the airport grounds, so the shuttle trains have been cancelled.
Planning the connection of the new airport
After lengthy discussions in the 1990s, the federal government and the state governments of Brandenburg and Berlin decided on the location of Berlin's new airport (then Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg International, abbreviated BBI) in the municipality of Schönefeld, south of the existing airport, partly using the old airport’s facilities. It was soon determined that the new terminal would be location the area south of the runways of the existing airport. As part of the Pilzkonzept (mushroom concept) it proved to be sensible to build lines connecting to Berlin's inner city via the North–South mainline, on the one hand, and via the Dresden Railway, on the other hand. Plans from the mid-1990s already showed a long-distance line, which was close to the route later built, while the S-Bahn was intended at that time to use a short underground route from the old Berlin Schönefeld Airport station.
In addition to the connections with an S-Bahn line and a long-distance line that were actually built, a number of other options for the development of rail transport at the airport were discussed, which were not realised: An extension of U-Bahn line 7 from Rudow via the old Berlin Schönefeld airport station to the new terminal was discussed. An extension of the planned Transrapid Hamburg–Berlin line to the airport was also under discussion. Officially, the Berlin Senate did not abandon these plans until 2000. There were demands, including from some of the Berlin Greens, to dispense with a direct connection to the terminal and instead to use the old Schönefeld station. A shuttle or a people mover would then convey passengers to the new terminal.
Construction and commissioning
The railway connection was initially planned as part of the "rail transport connection" in the application for planning approval for the airport as a whole. The Brandenburg transport ministry granted planning approval in August 2004 and the Federal Administrative Court confirmed it on 16 March 2006. Work began on the shell of the underground airport station in September 2007, on the S-Bahn line at the end of 2007 and on the western long-distance rail connection in the spring of 2008.
The planning approval process for the eastern connection to the Görlitz Railway was delayed due to changes to the plan. Originally an upgrade of the existing line was planned, which could not be built because of the tight curve radii and the noise pollution for the residents, among other things. The planning approval process only started in 2007. Among several options tested, one involved building a line through the forest, running about 250 metres south of the old line. There were a number of protests by local residents and conservationists against its construction, partly because 14 hectares of forest had to be cleared. Due to the delays, there were fears that the eastern connection would not be completed by the planned opening of the airport in 2011, so alternative connection concepts were considered.
Proposals of an environmental group to build a line along federal road 113, instead of the line through the Bohnsdorf forest, was declined by the Federal Railway Authority (Eisenbahn-Bundesamt, EBA). The EBA pointed out that there would be higher burdens for Bohnsdorf residents due to noise and vibration. On 19 February 2010, the EBA gave planning approval and a few days later, Deutsche Bahn began construction. It was agreed that the course of the old line would be restored to nature and noise barriers would be built on the new line.
For the originally planned opening date of the new airport (now abbreviated as BER) on 30 October 2011, the eastern connection would be completed together with the western connection, the S-Bahn line and the Berlin Brandenburg airport station. However, the opening of the airport had meanwhile been postponed to 3 June 2012.
It was not until the beginning of May 2012 that it officially announced that the opening of the BER airport would be delayed for the first time. Initially, completion was officially expected in 2013. As a result, the opening of the line also had to be delayed. At the beginning of 2018, the airport was expected to open in 2020 or 2021.
Thus, there wasis no significant use of the completed line to the airport, apart from the freight traffic from the Görlitz Railway to the airport. DB operated several empty trains each day over the S-Bahn and the mainline tracks to reduce rusting of the tracks and to help ventilate the airport station.
Costs
In the financial agreement signed on 5 September 2006 by the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, the federal government and the Berlin Airports agreed to provide €636 million for rail connections (including the S-Bahn line). The federal government was to fund €576 million of this. The states of Berlin and Brandenburg were to fund €30 million each and undertook to fund transport services under contract for 20 years on the basis of full cost recovery. Under a fixed-price agreement, the airport company was required to fund the construction of the external structures of the tunnel and the airport station. Even after the completion of the rail link, the official construction cost was €636 million.
Deutsche Bahn estimates that the trips required to ventilate the tunnel since the completion of the line cost €2 million a month.
Planned passenger services
The first plans in the mid-1990s included as an airport connection for regional services, an InterRegio service from Kiel via Berlin and the airport line to Görlitz.
In the mid-2000s, the Berlin Senate planned that all ICE and IC trains starting or ending in Berlin would be routed to and from the airport station and an InterCity line would run from Berlin to the airport towards Cottbus and continue to Poland. However, these plans were not pursued further.
At the beginning of 2012, prior to the planned opening of the BER, it was planned that the three RE/RB lines that run to the old Schoenefeld Airport station would instead run to the new airport station. These were the RE 7 (Dessau – Berlin – Wünsdorf-Waldstadt), RB 14 (Nauen – Berlin – Senftenberg) and RB 22 (Potsdam – Airport (− Königs Wusterhausen)) services. In addition, a new RE 9 line was to connect the airport via the Outer Ring and the Berlin–Halle railway (Anhalter Bahn) to Berlin Hauptbahnhof. A direct fast connection to the city centre of Berlin was not possible because the construction of long-distance tracks on the Dresden Railway in Berlin has been delayed. In addition, a few long-distance services would be extended to the airport. With the completion of the Dresden Railway, instead of the current RE 9 service, an unsubsidised airport express service would connect the airport station with the city centre every 15 minutes and some other services would also run over this route.
Future plans