Heidekrautbahn
Signal in contemporary use: the Heidekrautbahn is a railroad line that runs from the north of Berlin to the districts of Oberhavel and Barnim in Brandenburg. Its name – the “Heather Railroad” – is derived from the Schorfheide woodland, a popular day trip destination for city dwellers at the end of the line.
Inaugurated in 1901, the line had its heyday in the 1940s, with more than 4.5 million passengers in 1942. After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the original start and end station Berlin-Wilhelmsruh was cut off from the rest of the line. The Heidekrautbahn today is operated by the Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn (NEB) again, which aims to revive the main line in late 2024, and even has plans for extension.
For the 120th anniversary of the Heidekrautbahn, NEB introduced a new logo and rebranded with Signal, possibly for its nostalgic qualities. The name might have played a role, too. The angular low-contrast script is three decades younger than the railroad line: it originated at the Berthold foundry in Berlin-Kreuzberg in 1931.
The anniversary logo with the number and the byline in Frutiger
Signal on the cover of Die Heidekrautbahn – a special publication on the line’s history and its reactivation
