is one of two main inter-city transit hubs in the German city of
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. 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 central railway stations. 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 stationTerminal Station is a 1953 film by Italian director Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of the love affair between an Italian man and an American woman. The film was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.-Production:...
. The new 30,000 m² roof, covered by a canopy made from Teflon-coated fibre glass, was designed by
Foster and PartnersFoster + Partners is an architectural firm based in London. The practice is led by its founder and Chairman, Norman Foster, and has constructed many high-profile glass-and-steel buildings....
with fabric roof design by
Buro HappoldBuro Happold is a professional services firm providing engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of buildings, infrastructure and the environment, with its head office in Bath, Somerset...
and other structural design by Schmitt Stumpf Fruhauf and Partner. The reconstructed building was nominated for the 2006
Stirling PrizeThe Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects...
and won the 2007 IStructE Award for Heritage Buildings.
History
Dresden Hauptbahnhof is part of the railway system that provides direct connections to
BerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
,
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and
NurembergNuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. Opening in 1897, it replaced three stations in the south of the city.
The station was damaged by the
bombing of DresdenThe Bombing of Dresden was a military bombing by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force and as part of the Allied forces between 13 February and 15 February 1945 in the Second World War...
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.
In the postwar era Dresden Hauptbahnhof became one of the important railway stations in East Germany. However, the legacy or wartime damage subsequently compounded by poor maintenance saw the structure deteriorate to the point where remedial conservation was required.
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.
During the
floods in August 2002In August 2002 a 100-year flood caused by over a week of continuous heavy rains ravaged Europe, killing dozens, dispossessing thousands, and causing damage of billions of euros in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Croatia....
, the station hall was badly damaged by flooding from the river
WeißeritzThe Weißeritz is a river in Saxony. The 12 km short left tributary of the Elbe runs through Freital and Dresden. Its name is derived from west Slavic bystrica . The official name of the river used in documents and hydrographic maps is Vereinigte 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 ArchitectsThe Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...
Stirling PrizeThe Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects...
for excellence in architecture in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Operational usage
The station is operated and owned by the
Deutsche Bahn GroupDeutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...
subsidiary
DB Station&ServiceDB Station&Service is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG, responsible for managing over 5,000 stations on the German railway network....
.
Regional and long distance services call at the station. The station is part of the
InterCityIntercity is the second-highest train classification in Germany, after the ICE. Intercity services are loco-hauled express services, usually over long-distances. There are Intercity routes throughout Germany, and routes generally operate with a two-hour frequency, with multiple routes giving a more...
and
ICEThe Intercity-Express or ICE is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany and neighbouring countries. It is the highest service category offered by DB Fernverkehr and is the flagship of Deutsche Bahn...
network. Night services are provided by
DB NachtZugCity Night Line is a category of night trains in Europe. They were originally operated by the former railway company CityNightLine AG...
trains.
EuroCityThe German rail network provides connections to each of its neighbouring countries, many of which are under the EuroCity classification. EuroCity services are part of the Intercity network - many EC services represented a couple of train pairs on an IC route extended across the border, while other...
services also call, providing connections to
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
in the
Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
.
The daily passenger numbers of about 50,000 are relatively low compared to other German cities of the same size. (The
central station of Bremenis the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Bremen in northwestern Germany. It is the most important rail station for both the city and the state of Bremen; InterCityExpress, Intercity, EuroCity, CityNightLine and DB NachtZug services call at the station, which is situated to the Northeast of the city...
, 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-NeustadtDresden-Neustadt station is the second largest railway station in Dresden, as well as one of the largest stations in Saxony.-Construction:...
.
Train services
The station is served by the following services (incomplete list):
- intercity service (IC 50) Wiesbaden/Saarbrücken - Frankfurt (Main) - Eisenach - Erfurt - Leipzig - Dresden
- intercity service (IC 50) Düsseldorf - Dortmund - Kassel - Eisenach - Erfurt - Leipzig - Dresden
- intercity service (IC 50) Oldenburg - Hanover - Magdeburg - Halle - Leipzig - Dresden
- intercity service (IC 50) Munich - Nuremberg - Bamberg - Jena - Leipzig - Dresden
- intercity service (EC 27) Hamburg - Berlin - Dresden - Prague - Brno - Bratislava - Budapest
- intercity service (EC 27) Hamburg - Berlin - Dresden - Prague - Brno - Vienna - Villach
- intercity service (EC 27) Binz - Stralsund - Eberswalde - Berlin - Dresden - Prague - Brno
- intercity service (EC 27) Szczecin - Eberswalde - Berlin - Dresden - Prague
- intercity service (EC 27) Westerland (Sylt) - Hamburg - Berlin - Dresden
- intercity service (IC 50) Frankfurt Airport - Fulda - Eisenach - Erfurt - Naumburg - Leipzig - Dresden
- intercity service (IC 50) Düsseldorf - Dortmund - Kassel - Eisenach - Erfurt - Naumburg - Leipzig - Dresden
- interregional express service (IRE 1) Nürnberg - Bayreuth - Hof - Zwickau - Chemnitz - Freiberg - Dresden
- regional express service (RE 1) Dresden - Bischofswerda - Bautzen - Görlitz
- regional express service (RE 2) Dresden - Bischofswerda - Ebersbach - Zittau (- Liberec - Tanvald)
- regional express service (RE 3) Nürnberg - Marktredwitz - Hof - Zwickau - Chemnitz - Freiberg - Dresden
- regional service (RE 15) Hoyerswerda - Großenhain - Cossebaude - Dresden
- regional service (RE 18) Cottbus - Ruhland - Großenhain - Coswig - Dresden
- 2x per day regional express service (RE 20, Wanderexpress Bohemica, summer weekends only) Dresden - Pirna - Bad Schandau - Děčín - Ústí nad Labem - Litoměřice
- regional service (RE 50) Leipzig - Wurzen - Riesa - Coswig - Dresden
- regional express service (RE 100) Dresden - Bautzen - Görlitz - Wrocław
- 2x per day regional express service (SE 19, Wintersport Express, winter weekends only) Dresden - Heidenau - Glashütte - Altenberg
- regional service (RB 31) Elsterwerda-Biehla - Großenhain - Coswig - Cossebaude - Dresden
- regional service (RB 60) Dresden - Bischofswerda - Bautzen - Görlitz
- regional service (RB 61) Dresden - Bischofswerda - Ebersbach - Zittau
- 2x per hour S-Bahn S1 Meißen Triebischtal - Dresden - Pirna - Bad Schandau - Schöna
- 2x per hour S-Bahn S2 Dresden Flughafen - Dresden - Pirna
- 1x per hour S-Bahn S3 Tharandt - Freital - Dresden
External links