trains (which did not stop in East Germany) between West Berlin and West Germany. From 1976, the line was included in Deutsche Reichsbahn’s new Städteexpress ("city express") network. List of Städteexpress (Ex) services on the line (as of 31 May 1991) Ex 100/107 Elstertal: Gera–Leipzig–Berlin Ex 160/167 Sachsenring: Zwickau–Berlin Ex 151/156 Berliner Bär: Berlin–Leipzig–Erfurt Ex 162/163 Thomaner: Leipzig–Berlin Ex 166/161 Lipsia: Leipzig–Berlin After 1990 Following the reunification of Germany the section from Leipzig to Bitterfeld became less important at first; the Städteexpress trains were abandoned on 31 May 1991 and replaced by Intercity and InterRegio services. Later a regular-interval timetable was introduced. The scheduled travel time between Leipzig and Berlin was around two and a half hours in 1990. As of the summer 1992 timetable, long-distance line 8 service ran every two hours from Bitterfeld to Leipzig on the Berlin–Leipzig–Nuremberg–Munich route. From 1997 to 1999, this service ran via Berlin-Wannsee and Dessau. After the service returned to running via Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Dessau initially received in its place InterRegio 36 services running between Stralsund and Frankfurt running through Bitterfeld and Halle. In addition, from 1994, there was a single daily InterRegio service running from northwest Germany via Magdeburg, Dessau and Leipzig through Saxony and eastern Thuringia with a stop in Zerbst. During the night, a train ran, depending on the timetable period, from Berlin via Dessau with destinations in Switzerland, Northern Italy or Hungary. In 1991, upgrading of the line from Berlin to Halle and Leipzig commenced as part of the German Unity Transport Projects: rail project 8.3. In the same year, work began at the section between Bitterfeld and Delitzsch, followed in 1992 by work between Zschortau and Delitzsch. The upgrading of the entire 27.5 km section for 160 km/h was estimated to cost 340 million Deutsche Marks in early 1993. The development of the line between Leipzig and Bitterfeld was carried in a total of ten sections. At this time the line between Delitzsch and Zschortau was upgraded for a length of 2.2 km. In the mid-1990s, the upgrade was sufficiently advanced for speeds on a section of it to be raised to a maximum of 160 km/h. Further work was required for the raising of speeds to 200 km/h, in particular the elimination of many level crossings. Completion of this work in 1999, at a cost of 3.5 billion marks, cut the travel time between Halle/Leipzig and Berlin