Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof

Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof
Station forecourt in December 2007
Operations
Category	2
Type	Through station
Platforms in use	9
DS100 code	HHI
Station code	2765
Construction and location
Opened	1961
Location	Hildesheim
State	Lower Saxony
Country	Germany
Home page	www.bahnhof.de
52°9′38″N 9°57′14″E / 52.16056°N 9.95389°E / 52.16056; 9.95389Coordinates: 52°9′38″N 9°57′14″E / 52.16056°N 9.95389°E / 52.16056; 9.95389
Route information
Lehrte–Nordstemmen (1770) Hildesheim–Brunswick (1772) Hildesheim–Goslar (1773) Hildesheim loop (1774)
List of railway stations in Lower Saxony

Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the German city Hildesheim. It is used by trains of Deutsche Bahn and Euro Rail. Trains stopping in Hildesheim are Hanover S-Bahn services, regional services and the hourly Intercity-Express trains running between Frankfurt am Main and Berlin (lines 11 and 12).

History

The first Hildesheim station was opened by the Royal Hanoverian State Railways as the terminus of the Lehrte–Nordstemmen line—the southern arm of its Cross railway—on 12 July 1846 to the north of the present Kaiserstraße, near the current Bahnhofsallee. After the opening of the Hanoverian Southern Railway the Cross railway was extended on 15 September 1853 to Nordstemmen Station on the Southern Railway. The reception building of the first Hildesheim railway station was a half-timbered building with a slate roof.^[1]

The Hanover-Altenbeken Railway Company (German: Hannover-Altenbekener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, HAE) was planning to build a rail line from Löhne to Vienenburg, through Hildesheim. Since it became insolvent before the completion of the line, Magdeburg-Halberstädt Railway Company (German: Magdeburg-Halberstädter Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, MHE) took over the construction of the line as well as the management of the HAE. It opened the line from Hildesheim to Vienenburg on 19 May 1875 and on 1 May 1883 the Brunswick Railway (German: Braunschweigischen Eisenbahn) opened a branch to Goslar, now part of the Hildesheim–Goslar line.

For the additional traffic the HAE built a second track from Nordstemmen to Hildesheim, but at first it had to build a temporary station, the current Hildesheim Ost Station, because it was not allowed to use the existing station. Only after the nationalisation of the HAE and its parent the MHE did trains begin to stop at the main railway station on 20 May 1880.

Even without the additional traffic the original station was already too small, and so, after long negotiations with the city it was agreed to build a new station further north. On 4 May 1884,^[1] the new station was opened to a design by Hubert Stier in a neo-renaissance style. The old station building was demolished and rebuilt as Dissen-Bad Rothenfelde station, which still stands. In 1888, the single-track line to Brunswick was opened for long-distance trains running east to Magdeburg and Berlin.

Although the station building was only slightly damaged in the bombing of Hildesheim on 22 March 1945, it was demolished in 1959. In 1961 the station received a new station building in the functional style of the time. The buildings on its island platform were then removed.

The Nordstemmen–Lehrte line was electrified on 29 May 1965 and the line to Brunswick has been worked by electric trains since 30 May 1976. The Hanover–Würzburg high-speed line was connected to Hildesheim by the Hildesheim loop in 1991.

Operations

Long distance

Regional

S-Bahn

Since December 2008, Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof is located on the network of the Hanover S-Bahn. S-Bahn trains leave every hour for Hannover Hauptbahnhof via both Barnt and Sarstedt (S4) and Lehrte (S3). In preparation the platforms of tracks 4/5 and 6/7 were completely renovated in 2008.

Notes

References

• Bahls, Michael (2006). Die Hannover-Altenbekener Eisenbahn (The Hanover Altenbeken Railway) (in German). Nordhorn: Kenning. pp. 207–218. ISBN 3-927587-77-X. 

External links

• Media related to Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof at Wikimedia Commons