Today, now that the Easter holidays are over, Berlin S-Bahn passengers who transverse the S41 and S42 Ring at Ostkreuz, will have a completely new view of the station.
As of 0400hrs this morning April 16th the busy station will show her new face – namely her new main hall as in the foto above.
While not all work has been completed yet –another 2 years to complete the Southern extension – it will be a major achievement in its own right.
As has been pointed out before on this blog – you may not agree with some things in Germany – but when they do infrastructure, they do it properly, do not cut corners and think about users decades from now. http://www.s-bahn-berlin.de/aktuell/2012/048_Ringsperrung.htm
For decades, nothing happened – now everything is proceeding very fast in deed.
This above picture – taken today Saturday 5th of November of last year- shows that the roof and the walls are now installed at what will eventually become the completely new S-Bahn and regional district trains station called ‘Ostkreuz’ [We will update the foto later this week]
Because of its ailing and rusty equipment had been held together only by rust, Berliners have mocked it for years as ‘Rostkreuz’.
We reported earlier this year how things were moving along -http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/04/18/new-s-bahn-station-ostkreuz-slowly-taking-shape/
Wikipedia writes . “The station was opened with the Stadtbahn in 1882 under the name Stralau-Rummelsburg. It was given its present name in 1933. Along with Westkreuz it has long served as the interchange point between the Ringbahn that circumnavigates central Berlin and the Stadtbahn that passes east-west through it. During the division of Berlin, when links between East and West Berlin public transit were severed, Ostkreuz served as the main hub of the East Berlin S-Bahn network.
Ostkreuz was notable for remaining essentially unchanged since the 1920s, and its dilapidated state earned it the nickname Rostkreuz (“Rust Cross”). A modernization of the station was proposed as early as 1937, and again during East German rule. Plans were made from German reunification to modernize Ostkreuz from its partly dilapidated state, and turn it into a modern station with platforms for regional rail trains and stops for buses and the tramway. Implementation was delayed, due to the high cost involved, as well as the need to minimize disruption to the station’s 100,000 daily passengers, and the fact that the station is under historic preservation and parts of it, such as the brick Ringbahn viaduct and the western pedestrian bridge, needed to be retained. The reconstruction of the station, planned to last 10 years, finally began in 2007.”
For the extensive and well-run public transportation in Berlin see the website of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe - http://www.fahrinfo-berlin.de/Fahrinfo/bin/
BVG are targeting Easter 2012 as the opening of this part of the refurbishment of this important Berlin station.
However “ it is not over until the .fat lady sings” and in this case the complete project will be finished only by the year 2016, ten years after work was started.
However as those foreigners know who live in Berlin – when the Germans work on their city infrastructure they do it well and comprehensively, unlike most North American and certainly British cities.
The changes are expensive, time-consuming, have been and continue to be an irriantant for the users of Ostkreuz.
However this project is a well thought-out investment in the future and will serve Berliners and visitors to the city – including the many guests of OTA-Berlin “……….the intelligent alternative to Hotels in Berlin”
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Berlin ‘Ostkreuz’/ ‘Rostkreuz’ reopens today Monday 16th April ! – by Berlin observer and OTA-Berlin contributor Ms Cindy Su from OTA Berlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License. If you use this article or parts of it, please refer to http://www.ota-berlin.de.
Tags: 'rostkreuz = ostkreuz berlin, Berlin 'Ostkreuz'/ 'Rostkreuz' reopens today, BVG Berlin, Ostkreuz, ostkreuz re-construction, ostkreuz under-construction
