Gare de Strasbourg

Gare de Strasbourg SNCF
SNCF railway station

Original building under the modern canopy built in 2007
Location 20 Place de la gare, 67000 Strasbourg
Coordinates 48°35′06″N 7°44′04″E / 48.58500°N 7.73444°E / 48.58500; 7.73444Coordinates: 48°35′06″N 7°44′04″E / 48.58500°N 7.73444°E / 48.58500; 7.73444
Owned by SNCF
Line(s) Paris–Strasbourg railway,
Strasbourg–Basel railway,
Appenweier–Strasbourg railway,
Strasbourg-Lauterbourg railway,
Strasbourg-Saint-Dié railway
Tracks 13
Other information
Website gare-strasbourg.fr
History
Opened 1841
Rebuilt 1883
Traffic
Passengers (2012) 75,000 (daily)[1]

Gare de Strasbourg, officially gare de Strasbourg-Ville, is the main railway station in the commune of Strasbourg, in Bas-Rhin, France. It is the eastern terminus of the Paris–Strasbourg railway. The current core building, an example of historicist architecture of the Wilhelminian period, replaced a previous station inaugurated in 1852, later turned into a covered market and ultimately demolished.

Previous history

Strasbourg's first railway station was inaugurated on 19 September 1841 with the opening of the Strasbourg–Basel railway. It was situated far from the city center, in the district of Koenigshoffen.[2] On 11 July 1846, it was moved to the city center; a new building was designed (as a terminus station) by the French architect Jean-André Weyer (1805–??) and inaugurated on 18 July 1852 by Président Bonaparte. After the German annexation of Alsace following the Franco-Prussian War and as part of the general rebuilding of the town after the Siege of Strasbourg, the construction of a larger station (not a terminus station) in the Neustadt was decided and began in 1878. Weyer's station became Strasbourg's central market hall in 1884. It was demolished in 1974.[3]

Building

The historical building of Strasbourg's current railway station was built between 1878 and 1883 by the German architect Johann Eduard Jacobsthal (1839–1902). In 1900, Hermann Eggert, architect of the imperial palace Palais du Rhin, added a special waiting section and staircase for the German emperor, Wilhelm II, now known as the Salon de l'empereur, with stained glass windows by the manufacturers Ott Frères. The historical building was classified as a Monument historique (type "inscrit") on 28 December 1984. Prior to the opening of the high speed train line LGV Est, the station was refurbished by architect Jean-Marie Duthilleul (born 1952) in 2006–2007 and its size and capacity largely increased by the addition of a huge glass roof entirely covering the historical façade. The modernization of the station was bestowed a Brunel Award in 2008.[4] [5] [6]

The main hall is adorned by two larger than life statues of female allegorical figures representing Industry and Agriculture. They are the work of Otto Geyer.[4] Geyer also sculpted the figured reliefs adorning the historical façade, both of which bear his signature.

Works by Otto Geyer (1882)
Relief on façade
Relief on façade
Statue "Agriculture"

The main hall also used to display two frescos by Hermann Knackfuss, painted in 1885, one depicting William I's visit of the fortress Fort Kronprinz in Hausbergen (now Fort Foch, Niederhausbergen), belonging to the fortified belt around Strasbourg, on 3 May 1877 and the other one, as a historical parallel, depicting in Frederick I's arrival in Haguenau in 1164. The two works of art, called Im alten Reich and Im neuen Reich ("In the old Empire" and "In the new Empire") were removed at some point in the 20th century and are lost.[4]

Gare de Strasbourg as viewed from Place de la Gare at dusk, showing the new and old façades

Services

Gare de Strasbourg around 1910
Historical main hall
A TGV (right) and a TER (left) in Gare de Strasbourg

The station is the main station in Strasbourg and one of the main stations in France with 75,000 passengers a day in 2012. TGV service is being improved by the LGV Est, which will be opened in April 2016.[7] The first phase opened in 2007 and cut travel time between Paris and Strasbourg from 4 hours to 2 h, 20 min; the opening of the second phase will decrease travel time to 1 h, 50 min.[8]

TGV

Other Main Line services

TER

Preceding station   SNCF   Following station
toward Paris-Est
TGVTerminus
toward northwestern France
TGV
TerminusTGV
toward Zürich
TerminusTGV
toward southeastern France
Terminus
ICE/TGV 83
towards Munich Hbf
towards Marseille
ICE/TGV 84
toward Brussels Hbf
EuroCity
Sélestat
toward Zürich Hbf
TerminusIntercités
night trains
Sélestat
toward Nice-Ville
TerminusIntercités
night trains
Sélestat
toward Portbou
TerminusTER Alsace 1
Sélestat
toward Basel SBB
TER Alsace 2
Graffenstaden
toward Mulhouse
TER Alsace 3
Brumath
toward Sarrebourg
TER Alsace 4
Mundolsheim
toward Wissembourg
TER Alsace 5
Hœrdt
toward Niederbronn
TER Alsace 6
Mommenheim
toward Saarbrücken
TER Alsace 7
Strasbourg-Roethig
toward Barr
TER Alsace 8
Strasbourg-Roethig
toward Saint-Dié-des-Vosges
TER Alsace 9
Bischheim
toward Lauterbourg
TER Alsace 11
toward Offenburg
toward Metz-Ville
TER Lorraine 21Terminus
toward Nancy-Ville
TER Lorraine 23

Local transport connections

The station also serves lines A, C and D of the Strasbourg tramway. The lines A and D stop in the underground station beneath the actual building, that was inaugurated on 25 November 1994 together with the line A. Line C (opened in 2010) stops overground, on Place de la gare.

The following buses of the CTS stop at the railway station: Line 2, Line 10 and Bus à haut niveau de service G (from 30 November 2013)[12]

Other stations

References

  1. ↑ Transports - Alsace, une année dynamique pour les transports, INSEE, 29 May 2013 (French)
  2. ↑ Ancienne gare de Koenigshoffen on archi-strasbourg.org (French)
  3. ↑ Ancienne gare de Strasbourg on archi-strasbourg.org (French)
  4. 1 2 3 Gare de Strasbourg on archi-strasbourg.org (French)
  5. ↑ Gare ferroviaire centrale, Strasbourg on the Base Mérimée database of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  6. ↑ 10th Brunel Awards 2008 on brunel-awards.org (retrieved on 20 November 2013)
  7. ↑ "LGV Est Phase 2 completed". Railway Gazette. 31 March 2015. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  8. ↑ "RFF attribue le marché du Tunnel de Saverne" (PDF). BG-21.com (in French). Réseau Ferée de France. 15 September 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 June 2015. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  9. ↑ Strasbourg-Moscou en train, c'est désormais possible, France 3 Alsace, 10 April 2013
  10. ↑ Se déplacer en TER, on ter-sncf.com/Regions/alsace/fr (French)
  11. ↑ http://www.ter-sncf.com/Regions/alsace/fr/Se_deplacer_en_TER/Avant_mon_voyage/Flash_actus/DetailsFlash_actus.aspx?URI=tcm%3A10-75121
  12. ↑ Detailed public transport network map on cts-strasbourg.eu

External links

Media related to Gare de Strasbourg at Wikimedia Commons Media related to Ancienne Gare de Strasbourg 1846-1883 at Wikimedia Commons

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