Berlin’s public transport system is complete and includes ferries, buses, trams, and trains split into the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn. But for a brief moment in time, there was also the Berlin M-Bahn, and we will always regret not being able to take a ride in one since it was retired in 1991, a little after Germany’s reunification.
Because a wall split the city in half, there were many issues with public transport in Berlin. The Berlin M-Bahn came to fruition as a solution for all these problems.
If you do not know what a Maglev train is, you might wonder why we wrote an article about it here. We heard about it first on a Simpsons episode called Marge and the Monorail. At that time, Berlin already had an experience with it, but we didn’t know anything about it. A maglev train uses a set of magnets to move the train up the tracks.
Yeah, you read it right. Maglev is a floating train, and Berlin was the first world capital to have one.
The Brief History of the Berlin M-Bahn
The idea was to use this Maglev train to extend the U-Bahn from Gleisdreieck to a new station called Kemperplatz and Potsdam Platz. Since Potsdamer Platz was directly under the border of East Germany, no trains could stop there, and the western area close to it required a connection to the U-Bahn. This is why the Berlin M-Bahn was built.
The Berlin M-Bahn’s foundation stone was laid in June 1983, and the first test journeys started a year later, in 1984. The first cars built specially for Berlin arrived in 1986, and they were supposed to be used by the public a year later, but a fire at Gleisdreieck Station in April 1987 destroyed one of the cars and delayed the project.
The first rides on the Berlin M-Bahn were in August 1989, and passengers didn’t need to pay since the service was still being tested. In July 1991, the M-Bahn was integrated into Berlin’s public transportation system. But remember what we mentioned about the reason behind these trains?
The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Berlin M-Bahn was only fully ready in 1991. When it was ready, there was no more reason for it to exist and reestablishing the U-Bahn and S-Bahn became more critical than the Berlin M-Bahn.
Two months after its official opening, the Berlin M-Bahn was dismantled, and in February 1992, there were no signs of it anymore. Kemperplatz was demolished, and now it’s where the Sony Center building is located. Bernburger Str. was close to where Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park is today, and Gleisdreieck is the only station that still stands today, but it was reclaimed for its original use as a U-Bahn station.
If you want to learn more about the Berlin M-Bahn, you need to read the Wikipedia article about it, Tagesspiegel’s 2016 article about it, and the source of the top picture.
