Is it normal for U-Bahn drivers to use their mobile phones when operating the trains?

ngl it's kinda an open secret here. on the U2 drivers are always scrolling, one time i saw a guy watching a football match on his tablet propped against the control panel. the trains basically drive themselves on the main stretches, so i guess they get bored. still weird when you're standing right behind the cab window tho

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You're not wrong, I've noticed the same thing on the U8 especially. The trains have automatic operation on most lines, so the driver's main job is monitoring the doors and hitting the start button. That said, the BVG rules technically forbid using phones while on duty, but enforcement is pretty lax. I'd be more concerned if they were messing with it during door closing at busy stations like Hermannplatz.

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honestly yeah it's pretty common. i've seen drivers on the U7 with their phones out watching stuff too. the trains are mostly automated at this point, they just handle doors and emergencies. still feels a bit sketchy but it's not like they're texting while driving through a school zone or anything

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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