By Michael Zehender
There's always a lot of noise and hectic activity at the Berlin Alexanderplatz subway station in the centre of the German capital. People rushing up and down the stairs, trains arriving and departing, signals blaring over loudspeakers that a train's doors are shutting.
But over on Platform Number Four, things are different. It's quiet there.
About 150 people - many of them tourists, but also any number of Berlin locals - are waiting. Also standing there is a train that doesn't fit in with the usual Berlin subways. Up front is a red locomotive, and in the back is another one.
In between there are three large wagons full of seats - but without any roof. Welcome to the "most unusual tour of Berlin" as the operators, the Berlin transportation company BVG, says of the open-top cars. A veritable below-ground convertible ride.
The unusual idea was born a few years ago when the BVG wanted to show journalists around to some underground construction sites.
So the BVG bolted office chairs on a flatbed rail car normally used to carry equipment, and the journalists were shown around. It became so popular that the BVG made a permanent tourist attraction of it.
On a recent excursion, 150 people are given the go-ahead - "all aboard!" - while also being handed yellow helmets to wear as well as a set of earphones.
At precisely 7 p.m. the light signals turn green and off the train goes for a two-hour excursion throughout the German capital, mainly underground. It is the first of two excursions, the next one starting at 10.30 pm.
The helmets are for the passengers' safety, of course. But all the same, they are also given one important piece of advice over the loudspeaker system: "Please don't stand up during the ride."
The voice belongs to a guide calling himself "Herr Jaeger" and he will be talking virtually non-stop for the next two hours.
For such tours, the lighting is turned on inside the tunnels. Normally it is pitch-black down below. Blue lights point to the emergency exits.
The excursion impressively shows the variety of designs and decorations adorning Berlin's many subway stations. In some, there are orange-coloured tiles on the walls, while others have blue tiles. Some stations have lower ceilings, others high ones.
Sometimes, an entire subway stop is decorated according to one single theme. The Oslo Street station, for example, bears the national colours of Norway.
Herr Jaeger naturally has a great deal of information about each and every station (the tour is only available in German so far).
There's the Voltastrasse stop, for example, which was completed long before any rail line was built through it. So in the meantime it was used as a warehouse for potatoes, including a special gateway for horse-drawn wagons.
At the Pankstrasse stop, the visitors learn that this had been outfitted to serve as a bunker in a nuclear war. To this day, huge, fortified, folding gates can be seen. There was room here for up to 3,340 people to take shelter from the atom bombs falling overhead.
It gets more than a bit chilly during the open-air ride, with the strong draught created as the train speeds along, especially on the U9 line which has virtually no curves to slow the trains down. The train reaches speeds of 70 kilometres per hour.
But the coldest stretches are those going past the Spree River, whose waters assure constant chilly conditions.
Now, once more through the loop tunnel, and Alexanderplatz comes back into view. There, the next 150 people are waiting.
Such an unusual experience does not come cheaply, nor is it easy to book. Tickets cost 50 euros (55 dollars) for adults and 35 euros for children. The rides take place only on Friday nights, from May to mid-October, and are usually booked well in advance.
dpa
