After the selection of a site in Tribseer, a suburb to be west of the old town, work recommenced. The first special train carrying the Prussian King William I ran on 26 October 1863. The first official passenger and goods trains ran on 1 November 1863. At the same time a branch line from Züssow to Wolgast was also opened. The stage coach postal services was closed in parallel with the opening of the railway. In the first years there were seven pairs of trains each day between Berlin, Angermünde and Stralsund. Of these, four pairs were pure passenger trains, one pair was a pure freight train and two pairs were mixed trains. The planned top speed was 75 km/h for express trains, 56 km/h for ordinary passenger trains and 35 km/h for freight trains. Running times were about four hours. In the early years, trains to Stralsund and Szczecin ran together to Angermünde, where they were uncoupled. As passenger traffic grew more strongly than was initially expected, the BStE began to run separate trains on these routes a few years later. The opening of the Ducherow–Swinoujsciein line in 1876 enabled a continuous connection to Usedom and the opening in 1883 of the Altefähr–Bergen line—with trains carried by ferry between Stralsund and Altefähr—further increased the number of services. In 1891 the latter line was extended to Sassnitz, which from 1897 was served by a mail steamer service towards Trelleborg. In 1909 this was replaced by a train ferry, the "Königslinie" ("Royal Line"). Simultaneously with the establishment of the train ferry, a pair of night trains was also established between Berlin and Stockholm. The entire route was operated by the BStE until 1879, when it was nationalised and became the "Königliche Direktion der Berlin-Stettiner Eisenbahn" (Royal Directorate of the Berlin-Szczecin railway), one of the Prussian state railways. From 1895 it was called the "Königliche Eisenbahn-Direktion Stettin" ("Royal Railway Directorate Szczecin", "Stettin KED"). As the condition of the line could no longer handle the ever-increasing traffic, Stralsund station was rebuilt in 1905 and the track was duplicated in 1907 and 1908.