Vehicle Fleet - Our Trains
Get to know our different train generations: from the historical, through the current up to the newbies. And see how the centerpiece of the company is kept fit in the maintenance depots.
Three model series are currently in operation everyday in the Berlin S-Bahn network. The fourth series is in development and will be used from 2021 onwards. But what do the the "Coke Can", the "Diving Goggles" or the Babelsberg Film Studio have to do with the trains of the S-Bahn Berlin? The answers are in the S-Bahn crash course - a must, not only for train fans!
All about the full, half and quarter trains
Trains operating in regular service can only be made from passenger cars of the same series. A quarter-train consists of a two-vehicle unit. A half-train is again composed of two quarter-trains (four vehicles), while a full train consists of eight cars. Mainly, our three-quarter trains (six vehicles) are currently in operation.
The train formation is limited to eight passenger cars due to the infrastructure of the Berlin S-Bahn network (for example: signal distances and platform lengths). For the series 481 and 485, the half-train is the smallest operating unit. Only the 480 series can also be used as a quarter-train as each passenger car has an operator cab.
