Siemensbahn
The ghost stations of Siemens’ abandoned S-Bahn line
Don’t ever plan on getting the S-Bahn back from Siemensstadt. You’ll be left waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting…
No trains have trundled through the S-Bahnhöfe in this remarkable part of Berlin for a third of a century, not since they were deserted due to falling passenger numbers, a strike and an upstart U-Bahn line that opened the same year.
I was only expecting one abandoned S-Bahn station but followed the line and found two more, as well as an abandoned railway switch tower.
This was the Siemensbahn, which started from Jungfernheide, went on to S-Bahnhof Wernerwerk, continued to S-Bahnhof Siemensstadt and ended at S-Bahnhof Gartenfeld, with the switch tower, or signal-box, just before it.
To get this tale off on the right track I have to start with the story of Siemensstadt, or Siemens City, named after the industrial behemoth that gave rise to its creation since purchasing over 200 hectares of virtually uninhabited land to the north east of Berlin in 1897.
Siemens & Halske, as it was known at the time (the company was founded by Werner Siemens and Johann Georg Halske in Kreuzberg, Berlin in 1847), gradually moved most of its operations here, building new factories and employing renowned architects to construct innovative housing for its workers.
The residential development was one of six modernist housing estates in Berlin granted World Heritage status by UNESCO in 2008.
Nonnenwiesen was officially renamed Siemensstadt on January 1, 1914, by which time the company had over 23,850 employees.
They didn’t all live in Siemensstadt and the company wanted to make sure they could make it to work! Siemens had helped finance S-Bahnhof Fürstenbrunn in 1905, and a six-carriage tram from Spandau three years later.
The S-Bahnhof was a good half-hour walk from Siemensstadt, however, despite efforts to bring it closer by renaming it Siemensstadt-Fürstenbrunn in 1925, and neither it nor the tram – which was running up to 65 times an hour! – could really cope with demand as Siemens’ employee numbers went through the roof.
Apparently there were over 55,000 workers employed by the firm in 1925, when Siemens and the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Imperial Railway) decided to go ahead with the construction of another line from Jungfernheide – the Siemensbahn.
No doubt the arrangement was facilitated through Siemens boss Carl Friedrich von Siemens, Werner’s son, who had been president of the Deutsche Reichsbahn’s administrative board since the year before. (The Siemenses had become von Siemenses through Werner in 1888.)
Construction of the elevated track on a steel viaduct over the river and across Siemensstadt itself began in 1927. It was a groundbreaking type of construction for its time, and the first S-Bahn rolled along the Siemensbahn on December 18, 1929.
It was an immediate hit, with trains running in both directions as often as every five minutes. S-Bahnhof Siemensstadt-Fürstenbrunn suffered as a result, with passenger numbers dropping drastically. I presume the poor aul’ tram suffered too. Though there was a tram from Prenzlauer Berg as well, so maybe they were needed.
Siemens and its city were booming. Construction continued into the 1930s and employee numbers grew accordingly. At one stage there were up to 67,000 workers (or 90,000 depending on your source), while “only” 15,000 at most were living in Siemensstadt at the end of the decade. The rest were commuters.
The war made life difficult, to say the least. Siemens, which played an important role in the German war effort, had to move factories and facilities to avoid having them bombed. Nevertheless, factories were hit and workers were killed. The company employed forced labor toward the end of the war too, though that’s another story and we better stay on track with this one…
Train services were restricted from 1943 but the Siemensbahn itself survived relatively unscathed. The bridge over the river was blown up alright. The Russians, kindly souls, replaced it with a wooden one shortly after war’s end so they could make off with machinery and whatever else they could find in the way of reparations. They even helped themselves to tracks and railway equipment before the arrival of British troops in July 1945 ended their further dismantling.
A very limited service resumed on the one remaining line from September 1945. In 1953, Siemens offered steel to replace the Russians’ ropey looking bridge and the new one was completed in 1954. That helped a bit.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn only started reconstructing the second line in 1955, however, so full services in both directions weren’t restored until December 1956.
Now, that Deutsche Reichsbahn wasn’t the same Deutsche Reichsbahn as the one mentioned before, the one that Werner Siemens’ son got himself involved in. Nothing was simple in post-war divided Berlin…
From 1949 the Deutsche Reichsbahn referred to the East German state railway, which simply kept the name of the pre-war German railway operator, and continued to run S-Bahn services across the whole city, even after relations became so frosty they led to the Cold War.
You couldn’t make it up. The East German state railway was running S-Bahn services in West Berlin as well. West Berlin was completely surrounded by East Germany but nobody really anticipated it would be cut-off completely when the border was sealed with the establishment of the Berlin Wall on August 13,1961.
Of course the West Berliners weren’t happy with that and they responded with a boycott of the GDR-run S-Bahns. They didn’t want to be subsidizing the regime in the East.
Signs with slogans like “Der S-Bahn Fahrer zahlt den Stacheldraht (The S-Bahn passenger is paying for the barbed wire)”, “Keinen Pfennig mehr für Ulbricht (Not a penny more for [East German party leader Walter] Ulbricht)” and “Trapos raus aus dem freien Berlin (Transport police out of free Berlin)” were held by supporters outside S-Bahn stations in West Berlin and this naturally had a dramatic effect on passenger numbers.
The BVG (West) brought in buses from West Germany and set up “solidarity” services running along the S-Bahn routes. The boycott continued (it never actually ended) as West Berliners simply turned their backs on the S-Bahn.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn lost millions operating mostly empty trains through western sectors. To tackle losses, it planned drastic cuts to services in 1980. Workers were already unhappy after a very modest pay rise, but cuts to their hours proved the final straw. They declared a strike on September 17, 1980 and Deutsche Reichsbahn seized the opportunity to close down almost half the S-Bahn services in operated in West Berlin. It was probably grateful for the excuse.
The Siemensbahn never ran again. Its fate was sealed with the opening of the U7 through Siemensstadt the same year.
Adding insult to injury, it was granted Denkmalschutz protection so it can’t be ripped down, destroyed or converted into apartments, but this is Berlin, where anything with Denkmalschutz is ripped down, destroyed or converted into apartments…
Some hopeless romantics still harbor dreams of the Siemensbahn being reopened some day, possibly even extended, but I have to say I’d be very surprised if it hasn’t already reached the end of the line.
LOCATION AND ACCESS (HOW TO FIND GUIDE)
What: Die Siemensbahn. Dec. 18, 1929 to Sept. 18, 1980. Abandoned railway line through Siemensstadt, formerly the epicenter for Siemens’ industrial activity, comprising of the S-Bahn stations Wernerwerk, Siemensstadt and Gartenfeld, with a dainty little switch tower (there’s wood paneling on some of the walls inside!) not far from the end station.
There’s now an abandoned garden center in the appropriately named Gartenfeld so you get two for the price of one.Where: S-Bahnhof Wernerwerk, the first station on the line, is at Siemensdamm 54, 13629 Berlin, Germany.
How to get there: You can cycle, like I did, over the border into West Berlin, along Seestraße and then the Stadtring until you hit Siemensdamm and see the railway bridge overhead. There are more scenic routes to cycle. Alternatively, if you’re lazy or enjoy the thrill of underground travel, you can get the U7 to U-Bahnhof Siemensdamm, which is just around the corner. Just, if you do take the U-Bahn, know that you are contributing to the Siemensbahn’s demise. Maybe if there was a U-Bahn boycott we could get the S-Bahn line running again!
Here’s S-Bahnhof Wernerwerk on a map to make it even easier.Getting in: Apart from Wernerwerk, the stations are very easy to get into. Just find the points at which the fence is lowest, hop over, climb the embankment and you’ll be in. The door to the switch tower is open. Gartenfeld is accessible from the housing estate at the back. Again, you’ll need to keep an eye out for nosy neighbors and busybodies.
When to go: Any time really. Daytime is probably better from a safety point of view, for better photographs, and less likelihood of bumping into railway vampires. Maybe you want to meet railway vampires, in which case I would recommend going at night.
Difficulty rating: 3/10. I’m awarding this one mark for each station. It’s all pretty damn easy.
Who to bring: A railway fanatic to explain what the switch tower did exactly. Apparently it could handle 12 trains at a time.
What to bring: Camera, torch, beer, decent shoes, some money for a bite to eat on the way home.
Dangers: Nothing especially dangerous. They do seem to be patching up the Siemensstadt S-Bahnhof a bit so perhaps there was some danger of stuff falling on your head, but all-in-all the stations are in pretty good nick. The biggest danger here is nosy neighbors and general busybodies with nothing to better to do than report you to the Polizei.
Filed 22/1/2014 | Updated 25/7/2021