Ersatz

Arriving in Schönefeld you take the S-Bahn directly to Lichtenberg, Storkowerstraße. Usually you do. If the S-Bahn doesn’t work they come up with Schienenersatz-Verkehr, an Ersatz-bus. Ersatz as you all know from Freud signifies compensatory.
This is how the compensatory station looks like:
  27,4% Reichsbahn pre-1945, 27,4% Reichsbahn post-1945, 27,4 post-wall.
Anyway the Ersatz-bus will stop 150 Meters away from the Ersatz-station. The Ersatz-Bus will bring you to Schöneweide Betriebsbahnhof. At Schöneweide Betriebsbahnhof, you get an Ersatz-Zug–not the S-Bahn–which runs one station back and forth to Schöneweide.
The seven foreigners you helped in the beginning are missing by this time––47 minutes after departing from Flughafen Schönefeld-S-Bahn station. In Schöneweide you take the S-Bahn to Ostkreuz and finally change and get the original S-Bahn you would be on if it worked all the way. You arrive more than an hour later as expected. If you arrive.
Wherever you go everyone praises the German efficiency, “schnell, schnell”. S-Bahn even means Schnell-Bahn. Not Ersatz-Schnell.