‘Dresdner Bahn': New rail connection to cut travel time to Berlin airport

In future, trips to BER airport from Berlin's Hauptbahnhof (central train station) will be more frequent and take as little as 20 minutes.

That's because of the so-called 'Dresdner Bahn' – the rail operator announced it will open the upgraded track, which runs south of Berlin, in mid-December. 

The route will allow passengers to travel between Berlin and Dresden, the capital of Saxony, in two hours. It will also offer direct regional connections to and from Brandenburg cities such as Lübbenau, Eberswalde and Oranienburg.

What's the Dresdner Bahn?

The Dresdner Bahn is a historic railroad in Berlin which originally opened in the 19th century. It runs southeast of the city from Berlin's Südkreuz to Blankenfelde. 

It dates all the way back to the 19th century but was largely dismantled for longer distance traffic in the 20th century.

Construction for this major upgrade began in 2019. But in true Germany fashion (let's not forget BER airport's infamous nine year opening delay), fraught political and legal disputes plagued the rail project for years. 

The track has been rebuilt at a cost of around €560 million in a bid to increase connectivity between Berlin, Brandenburg, BER airport and Dresden. 

Deutsche Bahn said the 16-kilometre line is scheduled to go into operation with the timetable change on December 14th this year. 

What are the changes to airport connections?

Airport Express (FEX) trains from Berlin's central station will no longer run via Gesundbrunnen and Ostkreuz as they do at the moment. They will instead go south via Potsdamer Platz and Südkreuz. This is expected to reduce the journey time to just over 20 minutes.

The FEX is also scheduled to run every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes as is currently the case.

As things stand, there is not enough capacity for the FEX on the fastest route between the main station and the airport. It therefore runs every half hour during the day and takes a detour via the northern S-Bahn ring with stops at Gesundbrunnen and Ostkreuz. The journey time is around 39 minutes.

From mid-December, the new RE20 line will run on the route from Lübbenau in the Spreewald to BER and on to Berlin Central Station.

The RB24 from Eberswalde, which previously only ran to Alt-Schönefeld, will be extended to the airport.

From February 2026, the RE32 regional train will also run once an hour to BER from Oranienburg. Both connections will run via Berlin's Ostkreuz, which means that two trains per hour will travel towards the airport via this route.