Ruhleben underground station

Location of the Ruhleben underground station

The Ruhleben underground station is a Berlin underground station on the U2 line in the Ruhleben area of the Westend district in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district . It was opened in 1929 and is still the western terminus of the U2 underground line.

history

Cross-section of the train station by Alfred Grenander

Exit Charlottenburger Chaussee

South side of the subway station

The Ruhleben underground station on today's U2 line was built in 1929 and opened on December 22nd of the same year. To this day it represents the end point of the former main line . The architect Alfred Grenander built a functional train station on a dam with a covered central platform and a reception hall underneath. Since the tracks behind the platform do not continue, the trains have to turn around on the platform; the assumption that the capacity of the station is therefore severely limited is wrong. In 1946 there was an accident when a train drove over the end of the platform and only came to a stop on the steeply sloping embankment at Stendelweg.

End of the line before the renovation, 1993

Until the opening of the U7 underground line to the Spandau town hall in 1984, Ruhleben station was Spandau's main connection to the Berlin underground network and was served around every three minutes during rush hour. Several omnibus lines distributed passengers from here to the Spandau districts of Gatow / Kladow , Staaken , Falkenhagener Feld and Hakenfelde . The heavy transfer traffic between the bus and the subway was organized by appropriately installed escalators . A special feature in Berlin was the clock that has been preserved to this day to display the next subway departure on the front of the station (bus arrival from Spandau). Conversely, the bus drivers were shown by means of a red signal lamp at the bus stop whether a subway had just reached the station. In this case the bus would have waited a little longer. The lamp has also been preserved and was used in a similar form at other underground stations.

Platform with train of the GI / 1 series

A3 train entering the underground station, 1993

An extension of the U2 line via Rathaus Spandau to Hakenfelde and later to Falkenhagener Feld , which had been planned since the 1920s, was postponed in favor of the then controversial U7 subway line. In the Rathaus Spandau underground station, preliminary construction work has already been carried out for the extension of the U2 underground line. Today, Ruhleben is one of the less frequently used subway stations, but the BVG took care of this as early as 1984 by drastically reducing the number of shuttle buses. Therefore, the BVG now only lets many underground trains run to Theodor-Heuss-Platz . But this is also due to the strong competition from the Ruhleben underground station in terms of transfer traffic:

• The U7 to Rathaus Spandau ,
• an intensive bus traffic on the Heerstraße between Charlottenburg and the south of Spandau and
• since 1998 again put into operation Spandau Suburban Line of the S-Bahn .

The less efficient regional traffic via Westkreuz and Jungfernheide to Spandau plays a minor role here.

The U2 terminus has had an elevator since 1996, so that barrier-free access to the platform is possible. In 2010/2011, extensive work was carried out on the basic repairs to the station and the renovation of the embankment, after track 2 had been closed since 2007 due to sloping embankments. U-Bahn operations were suspended during construction work in the Olympic Stadium - Ruhleben section. The construction costs were 7.7 million euros.

On the meadow at the south exit of the train station there is a boulder that was transported from the Murellenschlucht to this point and is listed as a natural monument (see boulders in the Murellenschlucht ).

Connection

At the underground station you can change from the U2 line to the 130, 131 and M45 bus lines operated by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe.

line

course

Pankow  - Vinetastraße  - Schoenhauser Allee  - Eberswalde road  - Senefelderplatz  - Pink-Luxembourg-Platz  - Alexanderplatz  - Abbey Road  - Märkisches Museum  - Spittelmarkt  - Hausvogteiplatz  - City Center  - Mohrenstrasse  - Potsdamer Platz  - Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park  - Gleisdreieck  - Bülowstraße  - Nollendorfplatz  - Wittenbergplatz  - Zoological Garden  - Ernst-Reuter-Platz  - German Opera  - Bismarckstraße  - Sophie-Charlotte-Platz  - Kaiserdamm  - Theodor-Heuss-Platz  - Neu-Westend  - Olympic Stadium  - Ruhleben

Web links

Commons : U-Bahnhof Ruhleben  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• BVG map of the station (PDF; 41 kB)
• Description of the route Bismarckstraße - Ruhleben including pictures of the train station
• More pictures at untergrundbahn.de
• Entry in the Berlin State Monument List

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 80 years of interest group of the Eigenheimsiedlung Ruhleben e. V. A chronicle of the years 1922–2002. Self-published, p. 29 (with photo).
2. ↑ Elevators and ramps for disabled passengers . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 24, 1996
3. ↑ News in brief: U-Bahn . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . No. 7 , 2010, p. 136 .
4. ↑ News in brief: U-Bahn . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . No. 9 , 2011, p. 176 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 32 "  N , 13 ° 14 ′ 29"  E