The Glasower Damm Ost – Bohnsdorf Süd railway is an electrified, predominantly double-track main line in Germany.

[3] The southern part of the airport was transferred for civilian use to Deutsche Lufthansa of East Germany (later Interflug) on 27 April 1955.

[4] This line proved not to have sufficient capacity with the growth of the airport and it was also severely hampered the increasing road traffic.

As a result a new siding was built in 1959 from the Grünbergallee station on the Berlin Outer Freight Ring (Güteraußenring, GAR) and the old line was closed.

Demands from Deutsche Lufthansa for services to carry its employees over the line were rejected due to the expected low traffic and lack of signalling infrastructure.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the line, popularly called the Ölbahn (oil railway), was upgraded to enable the operation of axle loads of up to 22.5 tons.

To handle the number of visitors, shuttle trains ran hourly from Berlin-Lichtenberg via Schöneweide or from Schönefeld Airport station to Berlin-Schönefeld Airport South station, meaning that two trains an hour and direction ran over the industrial railway.

In addition, signalling and control systems from Siemens were installed for passenger traffic at the previously unprotected level crossings.

[7] Shuttle trains were again used at the following aerospace exhibitions, which took place every two years, with the rolling stock used changing over time.

Since 2012, the ILA is no longer held in Diepensee, but at Selchow on the west side of the airport grounds, so the shuttle trains have been cancelled.

The Brandenburg transport ministry granted planning approval in August 2004 and the Federal Administrative Court confirmed it on 16 March 2006.

Work began on the shell of the underground airport station in September 2007, on the S-Bahn line at the end of 2007 and on the western long-distance rail connection in the spring of 2008.

Originally an upgrade of the existing line was planned,[8] which could not be built because of the tight curve radii and the noise pollution for the residents, among other things.

There were a number of protests by local residents and conservationists against its construction, partly because 14 hectares of forest had to be cleared.

On 19 February 2010, the EBA gave planning approval and a few days later, Deutsche Bahn began construction.

[15] Deutsche Bahn estimates that the trips required to ventilate the tunnel since the completion of the line cost €2 million a month.

In addition, a new RE 9 line was to connect the airport via the Outer Ring and the Berlin–Halle railway (Anhalter Bahn) to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

[17] The Dresden railway crosses the Berlin outer ring in the area of Glasower Damm in the town of Mahlow.

The outer ring was upgraded to four tracks from the Glasower Damm Ost junction towards Schönefeld Airport in the 1980s.

The new line to Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) first uses the former northern pair of tracks of the outer ring.

A short Selchow West junction–Selchow Süd junction link connects the southern tracks of the outer ring to the line to BER.

North of the village of Selchow, it meets the Grünau Cross–Berlin Brandenburg Airport railway of the S-Bahn coming from the northeast.

Both routes run parallel from the western edge of the airport area in a several kilometre-long tunnel between the two runways.

Similarly, the northern connecting curve built parallel to the old line from the Görlitz Railway from Berlin to Bohnsdorf West junction bears this number.

The 0.79 km-long Selchow West–Selchow Süd connecting curve (line 6186) lies south of the tracks of the outer ring.

Selchow West and South are junctions on the short connecting curve from the southern track of the Berlin outer ring towards BER airport.