Dresden Hauptbahnhof

Dresden Hauptbahnhof
Bf
Location Innere Altstadt, Dresden, Saxony
Germany
Coordinates 51°02′25″N 13°43′54″E / 51.04028°N 13.73167°ECoordinates: 51°02′25″N 13°43′54″E / 51.04028°N 13.73167°E
Line(s)
Platforms 16
Other information
Station code 1343
DS100 codeDH
Category1
Website www.bahnhof.de
History
Opened 23 April 1898
Traffic
Passengers 60,000 (daily)[1]

Dresden Hauptbahnhof is one of two main inter-city transport hubs in the German city of Dresden. Designed by Ernst Giese and Paul Weidner, it was built between 1892 and 1897 at the southern border of the inner city and was important in the growth and development of the city.

Construction

Dresden Hauptbahnhof has 18 tracks. Eleven carry traffic through the station whilst the remaining seven, all from the west and located in the middle of the station, are terminal tracks. This layout makes Dresden Hbf unique among German railway stations named Hauptbahnhof. The station is divided into three halls, the central one of which is the biggest and covers the terminating tracks.

The arrivals hall is situated in front of the terminating tracks giving the station the character of a terminal station. The new 30,000 m² roof, covered by a canopy made from Teflon-coated fibre glass, was designed by Foster and Partners with fabric roof design by Buro Happold and other structural design by Schmitt Stumpf Fruehauf and Partner. The reconstructed building was nominated for the 2006 Stirling Prize and won the 2007 IStructE Award for Heritage Buildings.[2]

History

Aerial view

Dresden Hauptbahnhof is part of the railway system that provides direct connections to Berlin, Prague and Nuremberg. Opening in 1897, it replaced three stations in the south of the city.

The station was damaged by the bombing of Dresden starting in February 1945. This was limited in extent until a specific attack in April 1945.

The station was repaired after the war. It had suffered significant damage to the train sheds and the glazing that had previously covered the train sheds was replaced by timber.[3]

In the postwar era, Dresden Hauptbahnhof became one of the important railway stations in East Germany. However, the legacy of wartime damage subsequently compounded by poor maintenance saw the structure deteriorate to the point where remedial conservation was required.[3]

Assessments of the structure during its 1997-2006 refurbishment project further revealed that the steel arches of the train shed had even been distorted out of alignment by wartime damage. It was also discovered that the structure had been damaged by corrosion since the war, rendering it unsuitable to carry the weight of a glazed roof and leading architects to use lightweight fabric instead.[2]

During the floods in August 2002, the station hall was badly damaged by flooding from the river Weißeritz. The entrance hall and the lower platforms were flooded up to one metre by muddy water from the left tributary of the river Elbe coming from the Ore Mountains. Major damage to several tracks around Dresden closed the station for a month. The main reconstruction project was only temporarily interrupted.

In 2007, the station's reconstruction was a contender for the £20,000 Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture in Europe.

Operational usage

The reconstructed station hall.

The station is operated and owned by the Deutsche Bahn Group subsidiary DB Station&Service.

Regional and long distance services call at the station. The station is part of the InterCity and ICE network. Night services are provided by DB NachtZug trains. EuroCity services also call, providing connections to Prague in the Czech Republic.

The daily passenger numbers of about 60,000 are relatively low compared to other German cities of the same size (Bremen Hauptbahnhof, a city of comparable size, handles around 100,000.) This is because Dresden has two stations at which long-distance trains call: Dresden Hauptbahnhof and Dresden-Neustadt.

Train services

The station is served by the following services (incomplete list):[4]

Preceding station   Deutsche Bahn   Following station
ICE 50Terminus
towards Oldenburg Hbf
ICE 50Terminus
ICE 50Terminus
Elsterwerda
EuroCity
Bad Schandau
toward Budapest
Elsterwerda
toward Ostseebad Binz Hbf
EuroCity
Bad Schandau
toward Prague
Berlin Südkreuz
EuroCityTerminus
IC 50Terminus
towards Cologne Hbf
IC 55Terminus
TerminusRE 1
toward Görlitz
TerminusRE 2
toward Zittau or Tanvald
Tharandt
toward Hof Hbf
RE 3
Mittelsachsen-Vogtland-Express		Terminus
Dresden-Friedrichstadt
toward Hoyerswerda
RE 15Terminus
Dresden-Friedrichstadt
toward Cottbus
RE 18Terminus
TerminusRE 20
Wanderexpress Bohemica
Dresden-Strehlen
toward Litoměřice město
toward Leipzig Hbf
RE 50Terminus
TerminusRE 100
Dresden-Neustadt
Dresden-Plauen
toward Zwickau Hbf
RB 30Terminus
Dresden-Friedrichstadt
toward Elsterwerda-Biehla
RB 31Terminus
TerminusRB 60
toward Görlitz
TerminusRB 61
toward Zittau
Preceding station   Städtebahn Sachsen   Following station
TerminusSE 19
Wintersport Express
Dresden-Strehlen
toward Kurort Altenberg
TerminusSB 34
toward Kamenz
Preceding station   Dresden S-Bahn   Following station
Dresden Freiberger Straße
toward Meißen Triebischtal
S1
Dresden-Strehlen
toward Schöna
Dresden Freiberger Straße
S2
Dresden-Strehlen
toward Pirna
Dresden-Plauen
toward Tharandt
S3Terminus

Gallery

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "IStructE - Structural Awards 2008". The Institution of Structural Engineers - IStructE. Retrieved 2010-10-03.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Dresden Station Redevelopment Dresden, Germany, 1997-2006". Foster + Partners. Retrieved 2010-10-03.
  4. ↑ Timetables for Dresden Hbf station

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dresden Hauptbahnhof.