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The ghost trains of Gleisdreieck

Gleisdreieck Metro station, Berlin

Just as the name suggests, Berlin's Gleisdreieck or 'triangle of rails' is a place indelibly associated with railways.

It's a U-Bahn station where two elevated Metro lines converge, carriages thundering across viaducts supported by an almost impossibly intricate - and endlessly compelling - mesh of steel girders.

Girders forming the viaducts into Gleisdreieck Metro station, Berlin
Cobbled walkway, Gleisdreieck, Berlin

It's also an area of the city that's threaded with countless disused train tracks.

They once served local freight yards and huge, bustling termini, but these destinations were obliterated by war-time bombing and the lines never again needed.

Abandoned railway tracks, Gleisdreieck Park, Berlin

For years much of Gleisdreieck lay in ruins, but has recently been reconfigured as a huge park. Planners wisely opted to retain traces of its past, and many of the railway tracks are still in place, rusting or half-hidden beneath foliage.

And for real railway buffs, the area surrounding the nearby German Technical Museum incorporates the roundhouse turntables and sheds of the former engineering works of the Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company, as well as a fine collection of locomotives past and present.

Gelisdreieck Park, Berlin, with view of Technical Museum Park in background

The ghosts of industrial Berlin provide the city with some of its most memorable sights. Visit Gleisdreieck, and prepare to be haunted.

See also:
A colonnade of steel

A U-Bahn line through an apartment


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Gleisdreieck U-Bahn station: 10963 Berlin
Gleisdreieck Park. Click here for park plan (pdf) including location of railway relics (Bahn Relikte and Gleiswildnis)

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