ABSTRACT
The Royal Prussian Eastern Railway, connecting Prussia's capital of Berlin with Eastern Prussia's capital of Knigsberg, was the line that would revolutionise Prussia's East. In 2007, German and Polish towns along the historic Royal Prussian Eastern Berlin-Knigsberg Railway celebrated the 150th anniversary of its existence. The celebrations increased public interest in a run-down line that had been the most important route of Prussia's east-west transportation network some 100 years ago. World War One and the Russian Revolution put an end to unlimited trans-European transport of people and goods. With Germany's new frontiers, the Ostbahn had to pass through Polish territory. World War Two put an end to Prussia's Eastern Railways. With the German border only 80 kilometres east of Berlin, the majority of the former Ostbahn was now in possession of the Polish and the Soviet State Railways. Ostbahn became one of the symbols of Germany's loss of its Eastern territories.
