Walter Benjamin, a twentieth century German author, expressed his childhood comfort with Berlin's transportation network. "The rhythm of the metropolitan railway," explained Benjamin, "rocked me to sleep" (39).
Swiss author Robert Walser recorded his experience in an early twentieth century electric tram in Berlin. "Gazing straight ahead is something done by almost all the people who sit or stand in the 'electric'" (Walser 24).
Today the electric tram, and the S and U-Bahn are still an important part of the transportation of city's population plus the tourists. Since their initial development decades and decades ago, the electrical transportation network has been updated and modernized. But, even while being updated, the transportation systems have continued to use similar color schemes thus giving an effect that the electric tram or the S and U-Bahn were timeless—they had remained and they had not aged. And it is that system that links the city.
Image from Wikipedia Commons Image from Wikipedia Commons
Michael Dittrich / CC-BY-SA-3.0 User: Jorge / CC-BY-SA-3.0
In the 1860s Siemens expressed his desire to experiment with electrical transportation (Feldenkirchen 110-11). And, in just over a decade, Siemens unveiled his electric train at the Berlin Trade Fair in 1879 (Weiher 39). The miniature locomotive, which was only used as an attraction for the Trade Fair, held less than twenty of the Fair’s attendees as it maneuvered around the exhibition area (39). Within two years of the Berlin Trade Fair, Siemens, in 1881, was able to take the concept used for the small electric train and developed the first electric tram (39). The tram allowed citizens a quick and convenient way to traverse the bustling city streets.
The same technology Siemens used to create his electric tram would also grow into the city’s above and underground railway system—the S and U-Bahn. “The narrow streets in the city centres made it impossible to lay rails at ground level, and to solve this problem Siemens was planning both elevated and underground railways as early as 1880” (Weiher 40). Alfred Döblin, a German author, recorded his experience of witnessing the creation of the U-Bahn: "The underground railway, which goes from the north to the south of Berlin, is about to be covered. A heavy concrete roof will be attached, the cables laid, and the new street will stretch out over lines sunk beneath the earth" (qtd. in MacDonogh 324). Other companies also began building their own underground lines. It was not until around 1920 before the various underground lines were combined; the entire system was also switched to run on electricity (324).
