Bhf Zoologischer Garten served as Berlins main station for long-distance trains from West-Germany while East and West Berlin were separated by the wall. The amount of traffic passing over the Stadtbahn and through this station with its only 4 tracks was impressive and there were routinely reports in the press how this station was bursting at the seams.
Today Bahnhof Zoo is not quite as busy any more, since a lot of traffic as moved to the new and nearby Berlin Hbf station. However, one can still see a variety of modern regional and long-distance equipment here, e.g. this class 442 regional train.
To my surprise I didn't see an ICE here today as we waited for our train, but a DB Intercity led by a class 101 locomotive and a PKP Intercity led by a class EU44, which is the polish version of Siemens' ES64U4, came through the station.
Speaking of ES64, the area around Berlin hosts the two dozen ES64U2 rostered by DB as class 182, which is the same model as the famous Austrian "Taurus". These versatile and fast locomotives are wasted on regional trains with bi-level cars like this RegionalExpress.
Our ride to Luebbenau today is a Stadler-built bi-level EMU of Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH (odeg). Yet another example how German regional rail traffic has been rapidly changing in the last few years as new operators enter the scene and are generally required to provide service with new modern equipment as part of their operations contract.
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