knowledge Overview
The U-Bahn line U4 is the shortest line of the Berlin U-Bahn network: it has five stations and a length of 2.9 km. It was opened on 1 December 1910 by the then independent city of Schöneberg as Germany's first municipal U-Bahn (client: Schöneberg; construction: Siemens & Halske/AEG) and is the only Berlin U-Bahn line that was never extended. It has borne the designation U4 since 28 February 1966.
Operator
Operated by Berlin Transport Company (BVG).
History
The Schöneberg U-Bahn was built by the city of Schöneberg, which was independent until 1920, and was the first municipally built U-Bahn in Germany; after construction began on 8 December 1908, the line was opened on 1 December 1910 between Nollendorfplatz and Innsbrucker Platz (then Hauptstraße). Operation was transferred to the Berliner Hochbahngesellschaft; only in 1926, with the reconstruction of Nollendorfplatz, was a track connection to the Berlin Kleinprofil network created. The line was never extended and thus retained its original length of around 2.9 kilometres.
Stations
Stations in operating direction from north to south (Nollendorfplatz – Innsbrucker Platz):
- Nollendorfplatz
- Viktoria-Luise-Platz
- Bayerischer Platz
- Rathaus Schöneberg
- Innsbrucker Platz
Special features
With a length of 2.9 kilometres and five stations, the U4 is the shortest Berlin U-Bahn line; it has never been extended since its opening and is also the only line without continuous night service on weekends. At its opening in 1910 it was the pride of the then city of Schöneberg; the excavated soil from the tunnel was used to fill the Rudolph-Wilde-Park. Until 1932 the line had its own workshop on Otzenstraße; thereafter the vehicles were maintained using the facilities of the Berlin U-Bahn network (including the Grunewald depot). Nollendorfplatz station is a central junction: all four Kleinprofil lines (U1–U4) meet here; the U4 initially received its own underground station on Motzstraße in 1910, before the joint reconstruction into a four-station junction was created in 1926. An extension today is blocked by the tunnel of the Stadtring (A 100) crossing beneath Innsbrucker Platz as well as by the preliminary construction works for the never-realised U10, so southern extension plans are considered unfeasible. All five stations are barrier-free; on the occasion of the centenary, a museum train of class A1 ran on the line in November 2010.