BERLIN, Germany -- German officials reopened Saturday (June 15) a 3-kilometer (2-mile) section of railroad that was closed after the Berlin Wall's construction 41 years ago, completing efforts to reunify the capital's transport network more than a decade after the city was reunited, the Associated Press reported.
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit joined federal government and railroad representatives at a ceremony marking the return to service of the last part of a commuter railway line that circles downtown Berlin.
Passenger services start Sunday as a summer of transport disruption gets under way elsewhere in the revived German capital.
Coinciding with the reopening, local and long-distance trains across the capital will be affected for several weeks by work to switch rail tracks into Berlin's half-built new central station, the Lehrter Bahnhof. Another key commuter line running through the center of the former East Berlin, meanwhile, is being closed for four months of renovation.
Berlin's transport network was abruptly cut in two when communist East Germany sealed the border on Aug. 13, 1961 to stop a drain of people across the frontier in the city. It has gradually been restored since German reunification in 1990.
