Blankenfelde station is on the

Berlin–Dresden railway The Berlin–Dresden railway is a double track, electrified main line railway in the States of Germany, German states of Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony, which was originally built and operated by the ''Berlin-Dresden Railway Company'' (''Berlin- ...

in the locality of Blankenfelde in the municipality of

Blankenfelde-Mahlow Blankenfelde-Mahlow is a municipality in the Teltow-Fläming district of Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated approximately south of Berlin. History The municipality shared its borders with the former West Berlin, and so during the period 1961- ...

in the district of

Teltow-Fläming Teltow-Fläming () is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the southwestern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the east clockwise) Dahme-Spreewald, Elbe-Elster, the districts Wittenberg in Saxony-Anhalt, the district Potsdam-Mittelm ...

in the German state of

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

. The station consists of two sections that are structurally separate from each other. One section is located just south of the Karl-Marx-Straße level crossing and consists of an island platform for regional and long-distance services. The other section lies north of Karl-Marx-Straße and is the southern terminus of

Berlin S-Bahn The Berlin S-Bahn () is a rapid transit railway system that services the reigon in and around Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It has been in operation under the name since December 1930, having been previously called the special tariff are ...

line S2. On the official S-Bahn maps its name is styled ''Blankenfelde (Kr. Teltow-Fläming)'' to avoid possible confusion with Blankenfelde locality in the

Pankow Pankow () is the second largest and most populous Boroughs and quarters of Berlin, borough of the German capital Berlin. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, it was merged with the former boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg and Weissensee (Berlin), W ...

district in northern Berlin.

Location and infrastructure

The station is situated in the locality of Blankenfelde at kilometre 19.4 of the Berlin–Dresden railway. Curves connect the long-distance tracks to the northern branch of Glasower Damm Süd junction on the

Berlin Outer Ring The Berlin outer ring (, BAR) is a long double track electrified railway, originally built by the German Democratic Republic to bypass West Berlin in preparation for the building of the Berlin Wall during the division of Germany. It was develop ...

(''Berliner Außenring'', BAR). A long-distance track and the single track of the S-Bahn cross over the Outer Ring towards Berlin; both tracks merge before

Mahlow station Mahlow station is a station in the town of Mahlow in the municipality of Blankenfelde-Mahlow in the district of Teltow-Fläming in the German state of Brandenburg. It is on the Berlin–Dresden railway, Berlin–Dresden suburban line and is serve ...

. The long-distance platform is 229-meter long and 76 centimetres high and is covered for a length of about 30 metres. The S-Bahn platform is 180 metre long and 96 centimetres high and has one platform edge. The S-Bahn tracks are three metres above the level of the long-distance tracks. The long-distance platform has a pedestrian tunnel with exits on both sides of the tracks as well as a ground level access to the Karl-Marx-Straße level crossing. The S-Bahn platform can be accessed via stairs and a ramp.

History

The station was built as part of a

Subbotnik Subbotnik and voskresnik (from rus, суббо́та, p=sʊˈbotə for "Saturday" and , for "Sunday") were days of volunteer unpaid work on weekends after the October Revolution, though the word itself is derived from (''subbota'' for Satur ...

by the people of Blankenfelde and was opened on 8 October 1950 with the name of ''Blankenfelde (Kr Teltow)''—Kr standing for Kreis (district). This was in response to the imminent closure of the

Anhalter Bahnhof The Anhalter Bahnhof is a former train station, railway terminus in Berlin, Germany, approximately southeast of Potsdamer Platz. Once one of Berlin's most important railway stations, it was severely damaged in World War II, and finally closed fo ...

in Berlin and the associated diversion of long-distance trains over the Berlin Outer Ring to

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

. Blankenfelde station was established as a transfer point to provide a connection between West Berlin and long-distance services on the railway to Dresden. Although the second track of the Dresden Railways had been removed for

reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Reparation (theology), the theological concept of corrective response to God and the associated prayers for repairing the damages of sin * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for re ...

to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, an island platform was built in preparation for the second track to be restored. The S-Bahn continued over the line to

Rangsdorf Rangsdorf is a municipality in the district of Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg in Germany. It has an airfield p to 1940 a genuine commercial airportfrom where on 20 July 1944 Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg took off on his fateful attempt to assa ...

, which was also shared with the mainline, resulting in a timetable that was often affected by operational failures on the single-track line. Therefore, the second track was restored in 1952. Instead of operating as a two-track mixed operation, long-distance and S-Bahn services were operationally separated, that is it was operated as two parallel single-track lines. The following year, the station was renamed ''Blankenfelde (Kr Zossen)'' due to changes in district boundaries. The construction of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

in August 1961 cut the S-Bahn line north of Mahlow. A shuttle service was operated south to Rangsdorf, but it was closed in September 1961. Instead an existing service between Rangsdorf and

Wünsdorf Zossen (; , ) is a German town in the district of Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg, about south of Berlin, and next to the Bundesstraße 96, B96 highway. Zossen consists of several smaller municipalities, which were grouped in 2003 to form the city ...

was extended to Mahlow, but it was diverted to run over the Outer Ring to

Schönefeld Schönefeld (, meaning ''beautiful field'') is a suburban municipality in the Dahme-Spreewald district, Brandenburg, Germany. It borders the southeastern districts of Berlin. The municipal area encompasses the old Berlin Schönefeld Airport (SXF) ...

in May 1963. In order to maintain a connection to Mahlow, a separate platform was built at Blankenfelde and the short section was served by a shuttle service. This was operated during the first years by a train that included a diesel locomotive of class V 15 and a

control car A control car, cab car (North America), control trailer, or driving trailer (UK, Ireland, Australia and India) is a non-powered rail vehicle from which a train can be operated. As dedicated vehicles or regular passenger cars, they have one or t ...

. The train was nicknamed the ''Blauer Bock'' (blue billy goat), because of the blue paint applied to the locomotive and the name of a contemporary radio entertainment program. Because there was no space available to the west the existing platform and the connecting curves to the outer ring were grade-separated, the platform for the " Blauer Bock" had to be built as an extension of the long-distance platform. After the

reunification of Germany German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of i ...

, it was decided to reconnect the

West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...

S-Bahn network with the surrounding area. Since the Dresden Railway had been electrified with the overhead system in 1985, the restoration of the S-Bahn to Rangsdorf would have required a completely new section of track to be built. Therefore, the initial restoration of S-Bahn services has been limited to the route to Blankenfelde, where it is now necessary to change to regional services. The ''Blauer Bock'' was abandoned on 16 September 1991 and electrical services were restored on the rebuilt section. The side platform was dismantled and rebuilt on the current site of the S-Bahn station. The option of building a new platform next to the long-distance platform–on the same level or on an embankment—was not chosen, because, on the one hand, it would have required a steep gradient north of the platform and, on the other hand, the tight schedule for the opening would have been difficult to meet. The S-Bahn service from Blankenfelde to Mahlow via

Lichtenrade Lichtenrade () is a German locality (''Ortsteil'') within the borough (''Bezirk'') of Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin. Until 2001 it was part of the former borough of Tempelhof. History The locality was first mentioned in 1375, named ''Lichtenrode' ...

and on to Bernau resumed on 31 August 1992. The station was given its current name on 2 June 1996.

Train services

Until the late 1950s, the only passenger services at Blankenfelde were provided by the Berlin S-Bahn. A few suburban services was also provided on the long-distance tracks in order to bypass

. In 1960, three trains towards Berlin and four trains coming from Berlin stopped in Blankenfelde; the S-Bahn ticket could be used on the long-distance trains. After the construction of the Wall, the only remaining services ran towards Berlin via Berlin Schönefeld Flughafen station. Double-deck trains between Berlin Schönefeld stopped in Blankenfelde approximately every hour, some running between Berlin-Schöneweide and

; a connecting train shuttled between Blankenfelde and Mahlow. After the fall of the Wall and the re-commissioning of the S-Bahn to Blankenfelde, regional transport continued to use the route via Schönefeld and the trains ran about twice an hour to Berlin. Trains on the service from Potsdam to Wünsdorf also stopped in Blankenfelde in the 1990s, but this service was abandoned after a few years. There were calls for Blankenfelde to be a stop for

InterRegio The InterRegio, often shortened to IR, is a train categories in Europe, train category for mainly domestic train services in use in some European countries, with Swiss Federal Railways operating the most dense network. InterRegio trains are semi ...

trains then operated by

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

, but these were not successful. Since the opening of the North-South mainline in Berlin in 2006, trains to Berlin run alternately on the new route or via Schönefeld to the

Berlin Stadtbahn The Berlin Stadtbahn is the historic east-west elevated railway of Berlin. It runs from Berlin Ostbahnhof station, Ostbahnhof in the east to Charlottenburg in the City West, west, connecting several of the most major sights of the German capi ...

. The station is served by S-Bahn line S2 operated at 20-minute intervals and the RE8S and RB24

Regional-Express In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (; RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with a top speed of and an average speed of about as it calls at fewer stations than ''R ...

services, which run hourly: The station is served by the following service(s):Timetables for Blankenfelde
*Regional services Berlin – Blankenfelde – Wünsdorf-Waldstadt – Luckau-Uckro – Doberlug-Kirchhain – Elsterwerda *Regional services – Blankenfelde – Wünsdorf-Waldstadt There are interchanges with the buses operated by the ''Verkehrsgesellschaft Teltow-Fläming'' (the municipal bus company of Teltow-Fläming).

Notes

References

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External links