ARCHIV: Eine S-Bahn faehrt in Berlin ueber eine Bruecke, waehrend im Hintergrund die Siegessaeule zu sehen ist (Foto vom 17.03.08). Trotz einer neuerlichen Panne soll die Berliner S-Bahn nach knapp drei Wochen Unterbrechung ab Montag (28.09.09) wieder auf der Stadtbahn fahren. Zwischen Alexanderplatz und Westkreuz wuerden dann wieder alle S-Bahn-Stationen bedient, teilte der Mutterkonzern Deutsche Bahn am Mittwoch (23.09.09) mit. Nach Angaben der S-Bahn wurde unterdessen ein defekter Bremszylinder an einem Zug entdeckt, der die vorgesehene Laufleistung noch nicht erreicht hatte. Aus diesem Grund seien erneut 17 Zuege aus dem Verkehr genommen worden. Die Ausweitung des Fahrplans soll hiervon nicht betroffen sein. (zu ddp-Text) Foto: Sebastian Willnow/ddp

S-Bahn passengers in central Berlin will have to face massive restrictions from next week. Due to construction work, the central light rail route will be interrupted for around two and a half weeks starting next Monday.

First of all, the section between the Alexanderplatz and Zoologischer Garten train stations will be closed in the first week of the holiday, as Deutsche Bahn announced on Thursday. The interruption begins with the start of operations on Monday, July 11, at 4 a.m. From then until the end of operations in the night from Sunday to Monday, July 18, no S-Bahn trains will run on the Stadtbahn section west of Alexanderplatz.

With the end of this measure, the second part of the blocking begins. From Monday morning, the train will interrupt the S-Bahn service on the route between Ostbahnhof and Friedrichstrasse. Here the restrictions will remain in place until the night from Wednesday to Thursday, July 28th. Deutsche Bahn cites extensive track and switch renewals as the reason. Lines S3, S5, S7 and S9 are affected by the closures.

Work was originally scheduled to start on July 8th. In the short term, the start is postponed by a few days. As an alternative, the railways are setting up rail transfers every five minutes on the affected sections.

However, during the closure between Alexanderplatz and the Zoological Garden, this now takes about ten to 15 minutes longer than originally estimated, the railway said. The background is a subsequent order from the Mitte district, which means that the route of the bus has to be changed at short notice.

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So the buses cannot stop at Hackescher Markt. The train recommends that passengers on this section switch to tram line M1 coming from Friedrichstrasse and lines M4, M5 and M6 from Alexanderplatz.

If you can, you should avoid the replacement service on the Stadtbahn with the regional trains of the lines RE1, RE2, RE7 or RB14. It is also possible to change to the U2 subway line between Zoo station and Alexanderplatz – although the journey time is significantly longer.

Between Alexanderplatz and Hauptbahnhof we recommend changing to the U5. In addition, during this time, the railway will allow other regional trains to run under the name RB S7 in order to offer more services on the route running parallel to the closed S-Bahn.

Deutsche Bahn regularly uses the holiday periods for their major construction projects. The background to this is that fewer passengers tend to use local transport during these phases because many commuters are on holiday.