In 1980, S-Berlin trains were still composed of pre-World War II Class 475, 476 and 477 vehicles. Both the West Berlin and East Berlin S-Bahn operators were looking into options to replace their ageing fleets. In East Germany the LEW Hennigsdorf locomotive works were tasked with construction of new class of vehicle, which was presented at the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1980. However, it took until 1987 until an initial batch of eight cars were built for test running on the S-Bahn network. These entered regular passenger service in 1988.
Originally, it had been planned to build 300 units of this class to completely replace the older fleet. In 1992, deliveries were cancelled after only a 170 unit run. In 1993, one of the two car sets and side cars were being used for the Duo S-Bahn (S19) for a trial from the LEW Hennigsdorf.
Their train roller-blinds were changed to electronic displays, to allow the route to be reformatted into S-Bahn Berlin numbers. The S-Bahn, now unified, was planning a new fleet of trains (to be known as DBAG Class 481). A mock-up was presented in 1993 and the first production vehicles entered service in 1996. As it was planned for the new Class 481 to replace all the older fleet, Class 485 units were withdrawn as from 2003, with 50 trains being scrapped in 2007/2008. Due to technical problems on the Class 481, a number of Class 485 were however reactivated in 2009 - since 2012 a fleet of 80 Class 485 units have been in service.
The 485 series was retired from service on 12 November 2023.[1]
