Out in front of the Zoo Bahnhof there was a hectic scene of taxis, buses, pedestrians and more than one guy with no visible means of earning his income as an eckesteher ("corner stander"). West Berlin's station for Interzone trains traveling the main lines through East Germany presents its other face in this face. On the quiet back street, there's lots of room for the economy cars of people who look for cheap or free parking.
This illustrates the layout of the rail level of the station. The large hall on the left/rear is for main line trains, with a high enough roof to vent the smoke of steam locomotives of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. The smaller hall on the right/in front is for the third-rail electric trains of the S-bahn, the "City Railway."
The Zoo Station was not intended to be a terminal. Trains ran through it on the Stadtbahn line, through the Berlin Wall, and then terminating from the West in the Ostbahnhof -- which later became the Berlin Hauptbahnhof under the German Democratic Republic government of East Germany. Some trains or through cars continued to Warsaw, Brest-Litovsk, or Moscow.
Many Americans imagined or imagine that the Berlin Wall was impermeable. In fact, it was crossed so routinely by some that I became fascinated with that aspect of life in the Divided City.
Continue on the tour. Weitermachen!