Is the S-Bahn on the right track? Heiko Büttner has been the new CEO of Berlin’s S-Bahn since the beginning of April. Before that, he was the chief executive officer of the Munich S-Bahn for almost 10 years. At a recent press conference, Büttner outlined his main priorities: to make Berlin trains cleaner and safer – two words we seem to be hearing a lot lately.
He intends to tackle the first goal by introducing on-the-go cleaning crews starting in June; they will regularly perform minor clean-ups while the trains are in motion and notify headquarters if a vehicle requires a more serious cleaning effort. Apart from picking up bottles and candy wrappers, Büttner’s crews are to clear the trains of passengers “who do not require transportation”. What he means by this is, of course, homeless people.
According to Büttner, the increased cleanliness of trains is to directly contribute to their safety, as troublesome persons who would bother other passengers will be kicked out. He intends to also put more effort into stopping unwanted people from going onto tracks and other off-limits zones, for example to steal cables – something that regularly causes service disruptions and is one of the reasons for ‘signal repair works’, the words every S-Bahn passenger dreads to hear.
Apart from putting up fences to keep trespassers off S-Bahn territory, Büttner intends to continue fixing switches and signals; he would also like to build a third platform edge on some Ringbahn stations to allow trains to reverse direction in more places. All of these measures are likely to cause more service disruptions in the short run.
In the long run, he intends to work on the construction of the new S15 line to run parallel to the existing S1/S2 tunnel via Hauptbahnhof and Gleisdreieck. Its first section, connecting Gesundbrunnen to the Hbf via Wedding, is already complete and unofficially scheduled for opening on June 15 – but considering the number of times that’s been postponed, we would advise keeping your hopes in check.
