BVG | U2 interrupted for days after fire at Wittenbergplatz

Whoever has the damage doesn't have to worry about the grief: Note from the BVG at the Zoo station Photo: dpa/Fabian Sommer There has been a state of emergency around the Wittenbergplatz subway station for over a week. A fire in a control cabinet on the night of September 16th to 17th initially completely interrupted subway operations at the intersection of three lines. At least the U3 has been running through again since September 18th, and since September 19th it has stopped at Wittenbergplatz again.

The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) wants to be able to announce “by the middle of next week” when the U1 will be able to run again and the U2 will be able to run continuously. »The cleaning work after the fire in a technical room on Wittenbergplatz is well on schedule and can probably be completed a little earlier than planned. The first preparatory work to repair the damaged systems can begin as early as the weekend," says the information page published by the BVG.

It burned in a control room in the train station. The BVG cites a technical defect as the cause of the fire. At the request of "nd", the BVG also explains why exactly the trains cannot run: "This affects systems that supply the line sections around Wittenbergplatz with traction current." There is only a single control room for all five route branches that meet at the station.

“This affects systems that supply the line sections around Wittenbergplatz with traction current.”

This means that the fire differs in two respects from the one in the Schloßstrasse station on the U9 at the end of November 2025: At that time, homeless people who were camping in a service room probably negligently caused the fire.

The entire cabling of signaling, IT and communications technology was also destroyed there, which resulted in particularly complicated repair work. It was only after more than three months that the section between Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz and Steglitz Town Hall with a stop at Schloßstrasse could be fully put into operation again at the beginning of March 2026.

In this respect, the BVG and its passengers will still have a black eye if in “a few days and not several weeks” the U1 can resume operations and the U2 can resume traffic in the section between the Zoological Garden and Gleisdreieck stations.

What makes operations even more difficult is that the only company workshop in the so-called small profile of the subway lines U1 to U4 at the Olympia-Stadion subway station on the U2 is not completely cut off, but can only be reached to a limited extent. "Transfers are possible - for a limited time - from all power supplies, in the interrupted section using a battery-powered locomotive," says the BVG in response to a request from "nd".

As a rule, the trains can only run to and from the company workshop during the night-time break. This in turn restricts the construction work that regularly takes place at night.

In fact, the network is currently divided into three parts. The eastern section of the U2 between Gleisdreieck and Pankow is connected to the U3 elevated line with a track. However, this connection is not integrated into the signaling technology. Personnel- and time-consuming manual procedures are therefore necessary.

The disruption also led to irregular service on the East U2 and U3. At least the U3 continues to run irregularly in the evenings. Apparently the BVG still lacks the resources to ensure stable operations on the U3. On Thursday evening, for example, the trains ran randomly at intervals of three to 18 minutes instead of the actually scheduled ten-minute intervals.

The electronic information media have once again proven to be almost completely unusable. For long stretches, neither the online information nor the departure displays at the train stations provided a realistic representation of actual operations. And not just immediately after the fire, but also after the fire had settled down for days.

However, there could be pleasant surprises for passengers on the U9 from the beginning of next week. The first train of the new J series could go into passenger service there as early as Monday.

Since this week, the trains produced by Stadler Rail have been delivered to the responsible Britz workshop. After months of only one two-car and one four-car unit being stationed for driving school purposes, three two-car trains have arrived there in the past few days.

This means that the BVG is deviating from the original announcement of first fully equipping the U5 with the new J trains before they are used on other lines.

So far, 122 cars from the new fleet are stationed in the Friedrichsfelde workshop. That would only be enough if there was 100% availability to equip the entire 20 courses with six-car trains. To ensure this in real operation, at least 22 more cars would be necessary.

A total of 142 of the 170 cars scheduled for delivery this year have arrived at BVG so far. If the agreed delivery rhythm of six cars per week remains, the last car for 2026 should have arrived by the end of October.

However, the 140 cars from the sister series JK for the small profile lines U1 to U4 are still not completely delivered. To date, 126 are in active service. A four-car train is used for operational purposes on the U5 to transport small-profile trains between the connecting tunnel to the U2, the connection to the railway network at Wuhletal station and sidings at Wuhletal station. So ten cars are still missing.

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