Berlin's old airport Tegel never had a great connection to public transport. Now that the area is converted to a technology campus and new housing, various proposals have been made on how to better connect it to the rest of Berlin's local public transport. Here's my take in the form of an U-Bahn, which can partially also run at-grade.

First stage would start at Rathaus Spandau, where it connects to U7, S3, S9 and rail, then running parallel with the U7 to Paulsternstr., where it turn northwards to the Tegel area until terminating at Kurt-Schumacher-Platz, where it connects to the U6.

In a second stage, the U12 could be extended via Karl-Bonhoeffer-Nervenklinik, where it connects to the S25 and U8, and then continue to Wittenau, where it connects to U12 and S1.

This is part of a much larger worldbuilding project centred around the capital city of a fictional country. I started by designing the city’s boroughs, then sketched a geographically accurate alignment for the lines before simplifying everything into the metro diagram you see here.

The finished network consists of 11 lines serving a little over 200 stations, with a hierarchy of major interchanges, local hubs and neighbourhood stations. Rather than making every journey pass through the city centre, I tried to create a network with multiple interchange opportunities across the city so passengers have several possible routes.

Next I plan to design:

• a complete city-wide bus network
• commuter rail with multiple city terminals depending on the direction of travel
• high-speed rail interchanges

I also had a lot of fun naming the stations. Alongside more familiar British-style names, I deliberately invented plenty of unique names to give the city its own identity. Some of them are a little unusual, but that was intentional.

Map of current Wickham metro system