or having to show papers, much like air travellers changing planes at an international airport. Westerners with appropriate visas could also enter East Berlin there (they could even get a visa in the station). There was an Intershop in the station that could be accessed without having to pass a border or customs checkpoint of either East or West Germany and it was thus a popular place for westerners to buy cheap alcohol in D-Mark, but the West Berlin customs considered goods bought there contraband and did spot checks on what they considered customs evasion. The station was the only ghost station not located in a tunnel. It was situated close to the wall near the border crossing. West Berlin trains passed through it without stopping. East Berlin trains passed the same station but on different tracks. The tracks used by Western and Eastern trains were sealed off from each other by a tall fence. Another oddity was station. Like , it was an stop served by West Berlin trains, but located on East Berlin territory just behind the border. However, was in use and accessible for West Berliners, as one of its exits opened on a West Berlin street. This exit was exactly on the border line, a warning sign next to it informing passengers about the situation. Its other exits to East Berlin streets were blocked. Reopening The first people to enter the ghost stations after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 found that they lived up to their informal name, with ads and signage on the walls unchanged since 1961. None of them have been preserved. The first ghost station to reopen to passenger traffic was (U8) on 11 November 1989, two days after the fall of the Wall. It was equipped with a checkpoint within the station akin to , where East German customs and border control were provisionally installed to facilitate passengers heading to or coming from East Berlin. Hand-drawn destination signs were hung up covering the old ones from pre-1961; these signs were both crumbling from age and obviously missing the termini of post-1961 line extensions. On 22 December 1989, (U8) was reopened with a similar provisional checkpoint. On 12 April 1990, the third station to reopen was (U8). As its northern exit was directly on the border, it could be opened with direct access to West Berlin without the need