Berlin Hermannstraße station

Berlin Hermannstraße is a railway station in the Neukölln district of Berlin. It is served by the S-Bahn lines S41, S42, S45, S46 and S47 and the U-Bahn line U8, of which it is the southern terminus. It was formerly also possible to transfer there to the Neukölln-Mittenwalde railway line, which is now only used for goods traffic.

Hermannstraße was on the route of the first segment of the Berlin Ringbahn which opened on 15 November 1877 (with passenger service beginning on 1 January 1878). At that time the closest station was Rixdorf. Today it is the Berlin-Neukölln because the locality changed its name in 1912. The Hermannstraße station opened on 1 February 1899, as one of several suburban stations added during the enlargement of the ring line to 4 tracks.

Initially the only access was at the east end of the station, via a small building with a red-tiled roof. In 1910 a second entrance on Siegfriedstraße was added. For 29 years the station was served by steam trains. After the creation of Greater Berlin in 1920, electrification to create the S-Bahn system began in 1924; the Ringbahn was fully incorporated on 6 November 1928.

In 1895 a committee of residents of Mittenwalde formed a committee to construct a railway from Mittenwalde to Rixdorf, since existing rail routes were not conveniently located. Finding the cost prohibitive, they partnered with Vering & Waechter, a company which was at the time developing rail lines throughout Germany. On 23 February 1899, the Rixdorf-Mittenwalder Eisenbahn Aktiengesellschaft was founded; it still exists today. Vering & Waechter, given the responsibility for planning and construction, mapped out a 27 km route from North Mittenwalde to Hermannstraße with 7 intermediate stations: Brusendorf, Groß Kienitz, Selchow, Schönefeld, Rudow, Buckow and Britz. After the Ringbahn station was built, the plans were changed and the Hermannstraße terminus of the line became a transfer point and the Britz station the operating centre.

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