Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof

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Karlsruhe Hbf

Architectural information
Opened	1843
Location	Karlsruhe
State	Baden-Württemberg
Country	Germany
Bahnhofplatz 1a 76137 Karlsruhe
Operations
DS100 code	RK
Station code	3107
Type	Bf
Category	1
1913	Station moved
Deutsche Bahn - Stations in Germany
BW BY BE BR HB HH HE MV NI NW RP SL SN ST SH TH

Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof (usually translated from German as Karlsruhe Central Station, short form: Karlsruhe Hbf) is the central railway station in the German city of Karlsruhe. The station is classified as one of the major Category 1 stations in Germany, due to its function as a hub connecting several railway lines with each other.

[edit] History

Tram-train in the station

The first station was built about 500 metres south of the Karlsruhe market square, together with the Mannheim to Basel line. The station had two platforms and opened in 1843. The station at first was built using 1600mm gauge tracks, but soon the gauge was changed to the more common 1435mm. Lines were added to Maxau, Pforzheim, Heilbronn and Leopoldshafen after the conversion. As the lines were all laid down on street level, and traffic increased over the years, the old station was soon found impractical. A new station was therefore erected approximately one kilometre south of the old station, and opened in October 1913. The station saw little damage in World War II and was extensively modernised in the early 1990s when the Karlsruhe model tram-train system was implemented. Today, it sees about 150 long-distance passenger trains per day.