From North to South with Berlin’s U6

The photographic ride along the course of Berlin’s underground continues, this time with the U6 which runs from the North to the South, connecting bourgeois Alt-Mariendorf with the aviation noise characterised Alt-Tegel neighbourhood. Along its course the U6 serves not only 29 stations, it also stops at important transportation hubs like Wedding and Tempelhof, both part of the circular S-Bahn line, or Friedrichstraße, one of Berlin’s major transfer stations.

Among all of Berlin’s underground lines the U6 has the same colour code for the longest time, that is violet. Like for the whole city 1961 was also a year of destiny for the U6 as the Building of the Berlin Wall meant that all stations in East Berlin became ghost stations. Only Friedrichsstraße was accessible and only for West Berliners to enable them to change to the S-Bahn.

Only known the West Berliners knew about those ghost stations were as from the East Berlin side only border troops and transport police offers were allowed to enter and also those U6 stops never appeared in any of the GDR city maps.

In 1990 that chapter of German history fortunately ended, the ghost stations got reconstructed and the U6 reopened. To operate the line with 6 coach trains, the platforms of the stations between Kochstraße and Reinickendorfer Straße got extended during full operation from July 1992 until September 1996.

But also the present time means big changes to the U6 as the construction works for “Unter den Linden” are going on, a big interchange station to be opened in 2019. Then the U6 will also meet the trains of the U5 line.

Like each of my photo reports on Berlin’s underground lines also this photo series was taken strictly using aperture f/1.4 and a focal length of 24mm.