The Chancellor's metro

The so-called "Kanzler U-Bahn" or "Chancellor's Metro" connects Berlin's central train station with the city's most famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate. The construction of the line, which has been nicknamed the "Stummellinie", or "Stump Line", by some, took 13 years and came at a cost of 320 million euros ($454 million).

The new line, officially called the U55, takes just three minutes to run 1.8 kilometers (1.2 miles) from end to end, making each meter of rail worth around 178,000 euros – 25 percent more than was earmarked for this part of the planned route.

To add insult to injury, the U55 doesn't even link up to the rest of the city's 146 kilometer long underground network, and only contains three stations: Central station, Bundestag and Brandenburg Gate.

A long time coming

As early as the 1920's people were discussing the possibility of such a line but firm plans were only drawn up in the 1950's. However, with the erection of the Berlin Wall, these plans were abandoned.

Following the reunification of East and West Germany in the 1990s, city planners relaunched the idea, envisioning it as an extension of the U5, which currently ends at Alexanderplatz in the middle of what used to be no man's land, and travelling on through the government quarter until it finally connected with the U9.

But Berlin, which is about 60 billion euros in debt, thanks in part to an end to its lavish federal subsidies it received for its western half when it was a Cold War outpost, didn't want to pump money into the project, shutting it down in 1999. The only reason it was actually finished was because parliament gave them an ultimatum, saying the city had to finish the line and honor existing contracts or pay back millions in development aid.

There is still hope for the mini line. As an attempt to make up for the serious shortcomings, the city has made the new stations at the German parliament building and the Brandenburg very user friendly, outfitting them with information points and computer terminals.

It is of course planned to connect it up to the rest of the network eventually. By 2017, the U55 should reach Alexanderplatz, at an additional cost of 433 million euros.

Tens of thousands of Berliners came out for the inauguration of the U55 and on its opening day everyone traveled for free.

mrm/td/dpa/afp
Editor: Andreas Illmer