Bolzano/Bozen railway station

Bolzano/Bozen
Location Piazza della Stazione 1 /
Bahnhofplatz 1
39100 Bolzano-Bozen BZ
Bolzano, South Tyrol, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol
Italy
Coordinates 46°29′48″N 11°21′30″E / 46.49667°N 11.35833°ECoordinates: 46°29′48″N 11°21′30″E / 46.49667°N 11.35833°E
Operated by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana
Centostazioni
Line(s) Verona–Innsbruck
Bolzano/Bozen–Merano/Meran
Bolzano/Bozen–Malles/Mals
Distance 150.23 km (93.35 mi)
from Verona Porta Vescovo
Platforms 7 for long distance
4 bay platforms
(1 for regional trains)
Train operators Trenitalia
Connections
  • Urban and suburban buses
Construction
Architect Angiolo Mazzoni
Other information
Classification Gold
History
Opened 16 May 1859
Rebuilt 1927-1929
Location
Bolzano/Bozen
Location within Northern Italy

Bolzano/Bozen railway station (IATA: BZQ) (German: Bahnhof Bozen; Italian: Ferrovie Stazione di Bolzano) serves the city and comune of Bolzano/Bozen, in the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, northeastern Italy. Opened in 1859, the station forms part of the Brenner railway (Verona–Innsbruck) and also a junction of two branch lines to Merano/Meran and Malles/Mals.

The station is currently managed by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI). The commercial area of the passenger building, however, is managed by Centostazioni. Train services to and from the station are operated by Trenitalia. Each of these companies is a subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), Italy's state-owned rail company.

Location

Bolzano/Bozen railway station is situated at Piazza della Stazione / Bahnhofplatz, at the southeastern edge of the city centre and a short, 3-minute walk to the city centre.

History

The station was opened on 16 May 1859, upon the completion of the Trento-Bolzano/Bozen section of the Brenner Railway from Verona. At that time, the city was under the rule of the Austrian Empire and known solely as Bozen by the German-speaking population. The station carried the name Bahnhof Bozen-Gries. The passenger building was designed by the Bozner architect Sebastian Altmann.

In 1864, construction began on the final section of the Brenner railway between Bozen and Innsbruck and was completed on 24 August 1867. In 1871, rail services in the area were enhanced by the inauguration of the Puster Valley railway, which connected Bozen to Marburg/Maribor in today's Slovenia through Innichen and southern Austria. The Brenner and Puster Valley railways provided Bozen direct links with numerous cities in central Europe and benefited the local economy of crafts, industries and commercial enterprises.

In 1881, a third railway line, Vinschgau Railway, joined the Bozen station and connected it to Merano/Meran. In order to cater for freuqent holiday makers, the Vinschgau line was extended 1906 from Meran to Mals.

Between 1898 and 1974, Bolzano/Bozen was also the terminus of the Überetsch Railway to Kaltern.

Transfer to Italy

After the World War I, the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) assigned the region south of the Brenner Pass to Italy. As a result, Bozen-Gries station became a part of the Italian railway network and came under the management of the FS.

Between 1927 and 1929, the station is replaced by a passenger building in the style of Italy's fascist regime and designed by the architect Angiolo Mazzoni. The facade on the access road to the station was reworked into two half-columns and flanked by two statues, crafted by the Austrian artist Franz Ehrenhöfer, that represent electricity and steam. Ehrenhöfer also produced for the station masks on the cornices of the complex, a fountain with St. Christopher, and an allegory of the Adige river to be placed above the entrance to the clock tower (east of the station).

Features

The passenger building hosts the main ticket office, a Deutsche Bahn ticket office and a waiting room. Other facilities include a cafe bar and a newspaper store. There are six platforms for passenger service and additional tracks for freight traffic.

Passenger and train movements

The station has 5.5 million passenger movements per year and is therefore the busiest within the region in terms of passenger numbers.[1]

Train services

Aerial view of the station.

All scheduled passenger trains passing through Bolzano/Bozen, including EuroCity and Eurostar Italia (now Trenitalia Freccia) trains, but except the Venice Simplon Orient Express and DB CityNightLine night trains in the direction of Munich, call at the station. The main domestic destinations are Verona and Trento, but passengers also depart for and arrive from farther afield: Florence, Milan or Rome. The main cross-border links are Munich and Innsbruck.

Since 2010, the station has been a stop for the weekly EuroNight train of Russian Railways between Moscow and Nice.

Germany/Austria/South Tyrol

(D for Germany, A for Austria)

Italy

Cross-border

(A for Austria, F for France, CZ for Czech Republic, PL for Poland, BR for Belarus, R for Russia, MN for Monaco)

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Flussi Annui nelle 103 Stazioni" [Annual flows at the 103 stations]. Centostazioni website (in Italian). Centostazioni. Retrieved 4 December 2010.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bolzano/Bozen railway station.

This article is based upon a translation of the Italian language version, and incorporates information from the German language version, as at December 2010.