Question about connecting to train from BA flight - appr. one hour enough?
 

My flight lands at 11.05 on a Tuesday morning next February (luggage to collect) - what are my chances of catching a 12.14 train to Berlin Ostbahnhof to connect with an EC express - friends in Germany say I should be okay but I have my doubts...

would be a way too short connection for my very own risk tolerance. at any airport.

it could work tho. that's 69 minutes. totally doable if everything is on time. the way from the luggage belt to the train station is like 5 minutes.

Are you in CE? If so, any chance you can squeeze everything into hand luggage only?

It depends on the day.
if it was like my experience on Friday, it took 45 minutes to clear passport control.

However, a friend on a different flight was in the train station in about 45 mintues from landing on Friday.
so really dose depend on the que and the people your stuck behind.

After consulting Deep Thought, I have learned that the probability of making the train is 0.79.

Is Ostbahnhof your final destination? If so don't even worry about this since there's different trains that leave like every 20-30min depending on the schedule. Note that the FEX (Flughafen/airport Express) currently does not serve Ostkreuz (not Ostbahnhof) this month. You can take both the RB (Regionalbahn) and S-Bahn where the former would be the preferred and faster option.

It used to be reliably fast going through passport control in Berlin but our last trip in October took us over an hour.
A Turkish flight landed before us which made it extremely busy.
2 weeks ago I spoke to someone arriving on an EU passport. The automatic gates were closed and was apparently taking up to 2 hours to get through.
Providing the machines are open for residents and EU passports and you don't have busy flights before yours I expect you would make it in good time.

In February I would worry about possible delays or interruptions due to weather.

Frankfurt also depends heavily on which planes have just landed. I have almost walked right through and also had to wait a long time (in both terminals).

And remember for anyone with a German residency card - even though most of the signs have not been updated, you can use the EU EasyPass electronic gates at Frankfurt even with non-EU passports now.

I think the 08:something out of LHR gets to BER just around a TK and a QR flight, so if late (or they are early) the non-EU line can be challenging.

Technically with certain passports you can also just register for EasyPass even without a residency card. US for instance, from first hand experience. I'm sure the vast majority of non-EU using that system are resident card holders as the Bundespolizei staff are regularly bemused by someone not possessing one.

Queue's for immigration can be longer than at Tegel. Plus one flight a day seems to get bussed to an immigration hall where other airlines arrive and many passengers have to be photo'ed and fingerprinted. This took a very long time to clear. Despite this the bags had not arrived.
You could be OK, but it is very risky.

I’ve been able to clear plane to train in 20 minutes, including automated passport control. It’s worth the risk so long as you can take a later regional train at no cost. If using one of the non-EU lines, try to sit near the front of the aircraft.

Just look at train times on bahn.de ahead of time. Know what train options you have and the last possible train you can take. As others mention frequency is an issue.

Working in your favor is the fact that DB has poor on-time performance and could easily be late as well.

My Db tickets would be non flexible - however I have always found Db staff understanding but of course I would not rely on it...
The flight lands at 11.05 - the train is at 12.14 the next train is at 12.28 but then I have only a few minutes at Berlin Ost to catch my express - too much to go wrong - I think I'll book the later train....

What is your destination on EC from Berlin Ostbahnhof? Bear in mind that some EC/IC trains e.g. Berlin to Dresden go via BER Airport station.