Ghost station
The name Geisterbahnhof was soon aptly applied to these dimly lit, heavily guarded stations by travellers from West Berlin, who watched them pass by through the carriage windows.
U-Bahn maps in the Friedrichstraße transfer station were unique: They depicted all the Western lines, but not the Geisterbahnhöfe, and showed the city divided into "Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR" ("Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic") and "Westberlin", the official terminology used by East Germany.
The lines were a vital part of the West Berlin transit network, but because part of the route of some of the lines lay in East Berlin territory, it was difficult for Western support staff to perform maintenance work on the tracks and tunnels.
[citation needed] At the closed stations, barbed wire fences were installed to prevent any would-be escapees from East Berlin from accessing the track bed, and the electrically live third rail served as an additional and potentially lethal deterrent.
[citation needed] A wide white line on the wall marked the exact location of the border.
Guard posts at other stations were staffed continuously, creating additional employment positions with the transport police.
In the platform area, the guards always worked in pairs, and care was taken in their assignment to assure that there would be no personal ties between them.
In addition, superior officers could conduct surprise inspections at any time, thus, maintaining maximum security.
[citation needed] Friedrichstraße station, though served by Western lines and located in East Berlin territory, was not a Geisterbahnhof.
Western passengers could walk from one platform to another without ever leaving the station or having to show papers, much like air travellers changing planes at an international airport.
The first ghost station to reopen to passenger traffic was Jannowitzbrücke (U8) on 11 November 1989, two days after the fall of the Wall.
The very last ghost station to reopen was Potsdamer Platz, which opened on 3 March 1992, following an extensive restoration of the entire North–South tunnel.
In the following years, the city and German government put a great deal of effort into restoring and reunifying the S-Bahn and U-Bahn networks in Berlin.
The S-Bahn system reached a preliminary completion in 2002 (with the reopening of the ring), even though there are still disused sections of lines closed in the aftermath of the wall.
This list only includes those stations in East Berlin territory that western trains passed through without stopping.
Checkpoints were no longer necessary for those reopened after that date when border checks were eliminated with the currency union between East and West Germany.
Apart from Berlin (which also has provisions for future extensions that serve no current purpose): On some German high speed lines there are provisions made at overtaking stations (which serve an important function for operating trains, but do not appear obvious to most passengers as having any purpose) to allow for (conversion to) passenger service more easily in the future.
Brennanstown station exists on the Green Line of the Luas tram system in Dublin, between Ballyogan Wood and Carrickmines.
On 23 June 2003 it was officially opened to passenger traffic,[15] ending a 13-year long period of ghost station status.
