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Photo: Espen Eichhöfer / DER SPIEGEL
On a mild spring night, at exactly 2.44 a.m., locomotive driver Klaus Rühmann puts the hand lever of S-Bahn line 45 forward and sets his train in motion, a three-quarter train from the 481 series. Almost 700 passengers fit into such a train, but Rühmann transports it no people that night.
He is alone.
He is pulling six unoccupied, unlit wagons behind him on the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin, and it looks as if he is about to hijack the S-Bahn.
The train drives straight through the dark night, then, as if to take a breath, it takes a long curve to the left and finally dives into the ground through a tunnel at the level of the Selchow district.
Klaus Rühmann is now moving 60 tons of steel towards his destination at 80 kilometers per hour.
The rails here are practically new.
They lead to a train station that is strangely unused.
It has three platforms, six tracks, elevators, escalators, display boards, everything you need.
There are just no people, no businesses, no movement.
The air is still down there, and there is a risk that the station will break down before it even opens.
It could rot, its walls could go moldy, its facilities could rust.
The train station needs air, like a pond about to tip over.
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