Berlin
The ghost trains of Gleisdreieck
Just as the name suggests, Berlin's Gleisdreieck or 'triangle of rails' is a place indelibly associated with railways.
It's a U-Bahn station where two elevated Metro lines converge, carriages thundering across viaducts supported by an almost impossibly intricate - and endlessly compelling - mesh of steel girders.
It's also an area of the city that's threaded with countless disused train tracks.
They once served local freight yards and huge, bustling termini, but these destinations were obliterated by war-time bombing and the lines never again needed.
For years much of Gleisdreieck lay in ruins, but has recently been reconfigured as a huge park. Planners wisely opted to retain traces of its past, and many of the railway tracks are still in place, rusting or half-hidden beneath foliage.
And for real railway buffs, the area surrounding the nearby German Technical Museum incorporates the roundhouse turntables and sheds of the former engineering works of the Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company, as well as a fine collection of locomotives past and present.
The ghosts of industrial Berlin provide the city with some of its most memorable sights. Visit Gleisdreieck, and prepare to be haunted.
See also:
A colonnade of steel
A U-Bahn line through an apartment
Gleisdreieck U-Bahn station: 10963 Berlin
Gleisdreieck Park. Click here for park plan (pdf) including location of railway relics (Bahn Relikte and Gleiswildnis)
