The tracks of the Berlin subway are lines operated in the line traffic, operating distances, which serve only internal purposes, turn-off and turning plants and plants in the operating farms.
Route numberings In the construction of the Berlin U-Bahn and subway was not yet distinguished between lines and routes. From the point of intersection Gleisdreieck each led a track branch to the west, north and east. On February 18, 1902, the first stretch from the Stralauer Tor to Potsdamer Platz was opened, on 11 March the section Potsdamer Platz - Zoologischer Garten went into operation. As of March 25, 1902, after the commissioning of the southern tracks of the Gleisdreieck, trains drove from the Stralauer Tor to the Zoologischer Garten. The line branches were lined up on a ten-minute line, giving each station a five-minute sequence of each direction. Names for the lines in the form of letters or numbers did not exist yet.
In a business report of Hochbahngesellschaft appear first in 1928, the line names A, B, C and D on. The line from Alexanderplatz to Friedrichsfelde has already been opened under the name "Line E".BVG/NSAG: Zur Eröffnung der Untergrundbahn vom Alexanderplatz durch die Frankfurter Allee nach Friedrichsfelde (Linie E) und der Erweiterung der Linie C vom Bhf. Bergstraße über den Ringbhf. Neukölln zum Bhf. Grenzallee. Berlin, 21. Dezember 1930
In the passenger information products received the line names from the mid-1930s input. From the beginning of the 1950s, the line designation of branching lines were specified by appended Roman numerals. It now came the line designations AI, AII, BI, BII, CI, CII, D and E are used, with the line branches to Ruhleben and Richard Wagner place initially ran both under the line name AI. A few years later, the route to Richard-Wagner-Platz got the designation AIII. The lines of the small profile lines changed frequently until the mid-1960s.
In the large profile, the possibilities of line change did not exist. The only branching line was the line C, which divided south of the station Belle Alliance Street (now Mehringdamm) in two branches to Neukölln (line CI) and Tempelhof (line CII).Senator für Bau- und Wohnungswesen: Linien C, H / Dokumentation zum U-Bahnbau in Berlin. Berlin 1966 The CI line went on 28 February 1966 in the new line H (immediately afterwards referred to as line 7), the line CII was from this moment to the line C and immediately following the line 6.
After the construction of the wall, East Berlin was left with line E and the eastern half of line A. This oddity, and the fact that the two-line network was simple to navigate anyway, caused line designations to be gradually abandoned there over the years.
The shortest line in this system was line 5, which was a shuttle between Deutsche Oper and Richard-Wagner-Platz. It was closed in 1970 for incorporation into an extension of line 7, which opened a few years later.
In March 1966, West Berlin abandoned the Roman numeral system and instead replaced by the route numbering system that is in place:
Line Route FormerStretch 1 Schlesisches Tor – Ruhleben B; AI 2 Gleisdreieck – Krumme Lanke A; AII 3 Wittenbergplatz – Uhlandstraße BII 4 Nollendorfplatz – Innsbrucker Platz BI 5 Deutsche Oper – Richard-Wagner-Platz AIII 6 Tegel – Alt-Mariendorf C; Mehringdamm – Tempelhof before 1963 CII 7 Möckernbrücke – Britz-Süd H; Mehringdamm – Grenzallee before 1963 CI 8 Gesundbrunnen – Leinestraße D 9 Leopoldplatz – Spichernstraße G Pankow (Vinetastraße) – Thälmannplatz A Alexanderplatz – Friedrichsfelde E
After the construction of the Berlin Wall initially only the two sections Schlesisches Tor – Warschauer Brücke (continue to the border in the West as a parking facility continue to use) and Thälmannplatz - Gleisdreieck (the route from the underground station Potsdamer Platz to Thälmannplatz was from the BVG East as On 1 January 1972, the section Gleisdreieck - Wittenbergplatz line 2 / route A was shut down for economic reasons. Parts of the route were then used at times for a museum tram and as a test track of a maglev train (M-Bahn), before the line went back in the 1990s again continuously as line U2 from Vinetastraße to Ruhleben into operation.
Apart from these exceptions, the route and line designations remained unchanged until the German reunification. In both halves of the city, the existing large-profile routes were extended several times, the small profile was a "clip" between the lines 3 and 4 (Wittenbergplatz and Viktoria-Luise-Platz) discussed. As a result, all U-Bahn lines were standardised with "U".
The reconnection of the U2 route required extensive work between Wittenbergplatz and Mohrenstraße. The M-Bahn had to be removed, stations such as Potsdamer Platz needed to be rebuilt and refurbished, and the tunnel needed to be rebuilt with relaying of the tracks, along with removal of border and safety fortifications. The leases at Nollendorfplatz and Bülowstraße stations, which had been repurposed as a flea market and a Turkish bazaar meant for storing the last West Berlin trams, expired in March 1991. The amalgamated line was finally reopened on 13 November 1993. With the connection, the new small profile (Kleinprofil) network was reorganised as follows:
U1 (Schlesisches Tor – Ruhleben) was renumbered U12 and converted to night service. In 2003, it was discontinued. U2 (Wittenbergplatz – Krumme Lanke) was extended to Schlesisches Tor and renumbered U1. It was renumbered to U3 from 12 December 2004. U3 (Wittenbergplatz – Uhlandstraße) was extended to Kottbusser Tor and renumbered U15. In off-peak hours, it continued to use the former U3 routing. It was renumbered to U1 from 12 December 2004. The U2 section was made possible by extending to the new western terminus point, at Ruhleben.
Network The Berlin subway network has around 146.2 kilometers of track and 173 underground stations. On the longest route with 32 kilometers runs the line U7. It is the longest rail track in Germany running completely in the tunnel. The shortest distance of 1.4 kilometers is used by the U55 line, which has been provisionally set up since its opening in August 2009. Similar to the London network, there are two different clearance profiles for distances and vehicles with car widths of 2.30 and 2.65 meters respectively with the so-called small and large profile.
The buildings of the Berlin subway are assigned to the routes. The total length of the buildings in the small profile was 46.195 km in 2001, 106.577 km in the large profile. The construction of the E line, which was created in 2006 with the opening of the U55 subway line, is not yet included in the statistics.
A distinction between the route and line designations emerged only in 1966, when the West Berlin BVG introduced to simplify the passenger information a continuous numbering of lines with Arabic numerals. Here, the subway line on the Kreuzberg trunk line, the oldest section of the Berlin high and subway, to line 1 (previously: line B). The later built downtown line became line 2 (previously: line A). The connecting to this network small profile routes in the west of Berlin, the line numbers 3, 4 and temporarily assigned to 5.
The later built first large-scale section of Berlin (with the branches CI and CII) from the 1920s was logically the line designation line 6. The branch to Neukölln (branch CI) was expanded at the time of the change of line names to the independent line 7. The route construction of the line 7 was renamed to H for better demarcation and to reflect the new independence.
The other large-scale sections in West Berlin, those of line 8 (line D) and line 9 (line G), were consecutively numbered according to their opening years. During the time of the reunification of the two halves of the city, the small profile line 5 no longer existed, was used in East Berlin operating former line E the U5. The move freed the number 5, which the West Berlin BVG had reserved for East Berlin's line E in the event of reunification – the only line that ran exclusively in East Berlin territory and was therefore not yet covered in the new West Berlin system.
With the construction of the line E in the 1920s, the construction of a route Weißensee-Alexanderplatz-Schöneberg was closely linked. This route was taken into account during the construction of the community station under the Alexanderplatz as a construction advance and therefore received the designation line F. The West Berlin Senate pursued the old plans for the line F even after the division of the city, so that further Vorratsbauten the now planned to Steglitz route F emerged. Under the Steglitzer Schloßstraße a community construction of the routes F and G was built. As a special feature, the U-Bahn line U9 changes for a short distance to the structure of the line F.
Route Routing Profile Current Line KilometrageStrecke A inkl. Rathaus Spandau, Strecke E inkl. Jungfernheide; Streckennetz der Hoch- und Untergrundbahnen, BVG, Stand: Januar 2001. A Pankow – Wittenbergplatz Kleinprofil (A, AI, AII) 33,516 km AI Wittenbergplatz – Ruhleben Kleinprofil AII Wittenbergplatz – Krumme Lanke Kleinprofil B Warschauer Straße – Nollendorfplatz Kleinprofil (B, BI, BII) 12,679 km BI Nollendorfplatz – Innsbrucker Platz Kleinprofil rd. 2,9 km BII Nollendorfplatz – Uhlandstraße Kleinprofil C Alt-Tegel – Alt-Mariendorf Großprofil 20,712 km D Wittenau – Hermannstraße Großprofil 18,899 km E Hauptbahnhof – Hönow Großprofil 23,379 km F Walther-Schreiber-Platz – Rathaus Steglitz Großprofil 1,536 km G Osloer Straße – Rathaus Steglitz Großprofil 13,048 km H Rudow – Rathaus Spandau Großprofil 32,768 km
Tracks The first operating routes of the Berlin subway running parallel to the tracks to track operating workshop Warschauer bridge and the track harp within the 90-degree curve to 1909 erected there eight-track wagon hall.
The until 1920 independent city Schöneberg had built for their opened on December 1, 1910 route from Nollendorfplatz to Innsbrucker Platz (then: main street) in the Eisackstraße own operating workshop. Starting from the parking facility at the end of the route, a single-track operating route led to the workshop grounds located at ground level.
In 1912, the main and operating workshop Grunewald (then operating station Grunewald) was added with operating tracks parallel to the underground station stadium and an extensive track apron.
The first line-connecting operating routes were created during the conversion of the Gleisdreieck from previously regular railway tracks. Already a year before the accident of 1908, the Hochbahngesellschaft had decided to make the Gleisdreieck in the sense of today's construction to a crossing station and to lead a relief route over the Kurfürstenstraße to Nollendorfplatz. The conversion of the Gleisdreieck took place while maintaining the operation, after the traffic transfer of the new station on November 3, 1912 served the former track rails and towards Warsaw Bridge as connecting tracks of the later designated the letters A and B lines.
In the large profile network emerged with the progress of construction of the respective routes connecting tracks on Hermannplatz (track U8 south to track U7 west), Leopoldplatz (parking northeast of the platform U9 to the track north of the U6) and Berliner Straße (both lines of the U9 to the track direction West of the U7).
Already from earlier years come the two longest operating distances of the net. Line D was originally not intended to cross Alexanderplatz. In 1927, a tunnel was built under the Spree to the Neue Friedrichstraße, today Littenstraße. It branches off north of the station Heinrich-Heine-Straße and leads, after it had been further developed as a connecting tunnel D / E, in a stump track of the sweeper of the U5 (former line E) west of Alexanderplatz. The structure designed for two tracks has only one track.