Berlin Südkreuz

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Berlin Südkreuz
Berlin Papestraße (1898-2006)
Location
State	Berlin
Place	Berlin
Local authority	Tempelhof-Schöneberg
General-Pape-Straße 1 10829 Berlin
Operations
DS100 code	BPAP
Station code	4859
Category	1
History
Key dates	Opened 1898
1990s-2006	Rebuilt as Südkreuz
Deutsche Bahn - Stations in Germany
BW BY BE BR HB HH HE MV NI NW RP SL SN ST SH TH

Berlin Südkreuz is a railway station in the German capital Berlin. The station was originally opened in 1898 and is a crossing station. The Ringbahn line of the Berlin S-Bahn is situated on the upper level and connects to the east and west, whilst the Anhalter Bahn and Dresdner Bahn reach the station on the lower, north-south level. The station was extensively rebuilt between the late 1990s and 2006, and has been renamed to Berlin Südkreuz on May 28, 2006.

[edit] History

The station's original name originates from the nearby General-Pape-Straße, which is named after the Prussian general Alexander August Wilhelm von Pape. The Ringbahn platforms were opened on January 1, 1901, the Ringbahn platform opened as an island platform on December 1, 1901.

[edit] Becoming Südkreuz

The station played a vital part in Deutsche Bahn's new concept for long-distance services in Berlin; it was deemed necessary to have a long-distance station in southern Berlin for the new north-south axis, so it was decided to rebuild Papestraße and rename the station to Südkreuz, giving the station a more intuitive name like the Ostkreuz and Westkreuz stations on the Berlin Stadtbahn. Construction, however, was severely delayed due to unexpected difficulties and NIMBY complaints of residents living near the long-disused north-south lines. Instead of opening in 2000 as scheduled, the station only opened on May 28, 2006, together with Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It is now used as a terminal station for ICE trains to Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, and sees a fair share of north-south services heading from and toward Leipzig Hauptbahnhof.