Dresden Hauptbahnhof ("main station", abbreviated Dresden Hbf) is the largest passenger station in the Saxon capital of Dresden. In 1898, it replaced the Böhmischen Bahnhof ("Bohemian station") of the former Saxon-Bohemian State Railway (Sächsisch-Böhmische Staatseisenbahn), and was designed with its formal layout as the central station of the city. The combination of a station building on an island between the tracks and a terminal station on two different levels is unique. The building is notable for its train-sheds, which are roofed with Teflon-coated glass fibre membranes. This translucent roof design, installed during the comprehensive restoration of the station at the beginning of the 21st century, allows more daylight to reach the concourses than was previously possible.
The station is connected by the Dresden railway node to the tracks of the Děčín–Dresden-Neustadt railway and the Dresden–Werdau railway (Saxon-Franconian trunk line), allowing traffic to run to the southeast towards Prague, Vienna and on to south-eastern Europe or to the southwest towards Chemnitz and Nuremberg. The connection of the routes to the north (Berlin), northwest (Leipzig) and east (Görlitz) does not take place at the station, but north of Dresden-Neustadt station (at least for passenger trains).
Location
The station is located south of the Inner Old Town in the Seevorstadt and the district of Südvorstadtat reaches its southern edge. Next door to the station area is the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Dresden (University of Applied Sciences). Federal highway 170 passes under the station area to the east of the station building, running north–south.
Prager Straße, the inner-city shopping street, begins at Wiener Platz to the north. Road traffic on Wiener Platz was diverted in the 1990s to run through a road tunnel with connections to underground parking, and it is now a pedestrianised street. Several major buildings have been constructed in the area in the modern style and there is an excavation in Wiener Platz, which was dug a few years ago, but construction has been abandoned (2013).
History
In 1839, the Leipzig–Dresden Railway Company (Leipzig-Dresdner Eisenbahn-Compagnie) opened the first long-distance railway in Germany from Leipzig to its Dresden terminus, the Leipziger Bahnhof. In the following decades more railways were built, increasing the destinations that could be reached from Dresden. Each private company built its own station as the terminus of its lines. The Silesian Station (Schlesischer Bahnhof) was opened in 1847 as the terminus of the Görlitz–Dresden railway and the Bohemian station (Böhmische Bahnhof) was opened in 1848 on the line towards Bohemia. Seven years later, the Albert station (Albertbahnhof) was opened on the line towards Chemnitz and the Berliner station (Berliner Bahnhof) opened in 1875 on the line to Berlin.
Between 1800 and 1900, the population of Dresden grew from 61,794 to 396,146. As a result, traffic grew enormously. The existing railway facilities proved to be inadequate to satisfy the increasing traffic as a result of rising mobility, population increase and industrialisation. In particular, the railway tracks of the poorly interconnected stations were not designed for through traffic and the many level crossings created major traffic problems.
After the late 1880s, when all the railway infrastructure affecting the city had been nationalised, the Saxon government decided to carry out a fundamental reconstruction of the Dresden railway node under the leadership of the engineer Otto Klette. This would create a new central railway station, but there was no consensus on its location for a long time. After the Elbe flood of March 1845, the inspector of surveys, Karl Pressler suggested that the Weißeritz near Cotta should be relocated and that the existing riverbed could be used for a central station. This plan was taken up and the former riverbed was used for a connection line between Dresden's long-distance railway stations, but, instead of a central station, the planners foresaw a new main station in front of the former Bohemian station, as it was already the busiest station in Dresden and it was close to Prager Straße, which became the most important shopping street of Dresden in the last quarter of the 19th century.Kaiß/Hengst: Dresdens Eisenbahn, pp. 10f
Böhmischer Bahnhof
On 1 August 1848, the Saxon-Bohemian State Railway (Sächsisch-Böhmische Staatseisenbahn) opened the Bohemian station as the terminus of its line, which only extended to Pirna. It was initially only a barn-like half-timbered building spanning four tracks and it also had a makeshift locomotive depot, carriage sheds and workshops.
The opening ceremony took place on 6 April 1851, coinciding with the extension of the line to Bodenbach (now Děčín). A year later the opening of the Marienbrücke (Maria Bridge) for road and rail traffic on 19 April 1852 allowed the operation of traffic through the Bohemian station to the Leipziger station and the Silesian Station on the Neustadt side of the Elbe.
From 1861 to 1864, the passenger infrastructure was moved to the west, to make room for a new building. On 1 August 1864, a solid new entrance building replaced the previous provisional building Berger/Weisbrod: Über 150 Jahre Dresdener Bahnhöfe, p. 16 Four long wings, which were designed by Karl Moritz Haenel and Carl Adolph Canzler in the form of Italian Renaissance buildings, were annexed.The main platform could handle two trains simultaneous at first, but it was only long. An additional -long island platform was built between 1871 and 1872. This extension had become necessary because in 1869 the Bohemian station took over the passenger traffic of the Dresden–Werdau railway from the Albert Station, which was located about to the northwest and subsequently only served coal traffic. In order to handle the traffic towards Chemnitz a new main station (Hauptbahnhof) was built in front of the Bohemian station.Kaiß/Hengst: Dresdens Eisenbahn, p. 6 In addition, the new Hauptbahnhof would handle the passenger traffic of the Berliner station, which was also located in the Old Town (Altstädt) on the south side of the Elbe, but almost to the northwest.
Construction and opening
The basic functional design of the station with the combination of a large terminal hall at a low level and two flanking through halls at a high level is considered to be the work of Claus Koepcke, a ministry of finance official, and Otto Klette. This functional framework was based on an architectural competition held in 1892 for the design of the new station. Dresden architects Ernst Giese and Paul Weidner and Leipzig architect Arwed Roßbach each won a first prize.Berger/Weisbrod: Über 150 Jahre Dresdener Bahnhöfe, pp. 24f The realised design incorporates elements of both drafts. Construction began in the same year, led by Ernst Giese and Paul Weidner. Railway operations continued at the Bohemian station while the south hall was opened to traffic on 18 June 1895. Subsequently, the Bohemian station was demolished and the construction of the central and northern halls started on its site. Until the completion of the entire building, the south hall served as the provisional station.
The new building, which had six terminal platform tracks in the central hall, six through high-level tracks and other terminal tracks in the eastern precinct, met all the requirements for greatly expanded passenger operations. A roofed building with two elevated tracks was built for freight traffic between the south hall and Bismarckstraße (now Bayrischen Straße) to the south. The entrance building covered an area of approximately . The steel fabrication company, August Klönne supplied of steel for the structure of the platform halls and the masonry consists of Elbe Sandstone. The cost of construction amounted to 18 million marks; corresponding to the equivalent of about €320 million. (Brochure: 42 A4 pages)
After more than five years of construction the whole building went into operation on 16 April 1898.Reichler: Dresden Hauptbahnhof, p. 31 At 2:08 AM the first train running as the 101 from Leipzig entered the newly opened Dresden Hauptbahnhof.
As a result of the restructuring of the Dresden railway infrastructure that was carried out simultaneously, the station received better links with the lines to Leipzig, Berlin and Görlitz, which had previously been poorly connected. A new high-capacity, continuous four-track urban connecting line was opened through the new Wettiner Straße station (now Dresden Mitte station) for suburban traffic and the Maria Bridge to Dresden-Neustadt station in 1901. It was connected by rail junctions to other stations, in particular to Dresden-Friedrichstadt station.
Although it was built in the heyday of luxury trains, it was almost unaffected by this phenomenon with only one branch of the Balkanzug (Balkan train) serving Dresden between 1916 and 1918.
Early conversions and extensions
The builders of the station assumed that the new facilities would provide sufficient capacity for many decades. In fact, the volume of traffic developed more rapidly than assumed as indicated in the table below.Reichler: Dresden Hauptbahnhof, p. 36.
Year Station Trains starting at station Trains ending at station Through trains Total 1871 Böhmischer Bahnhof 13 13 16 42 1898 Böhmischer Bahnhof 208 1898 Hauptbahnhof 304 1910 Hauptbahnhof 199 191 14 404 1930 Hauptbahnhof 174 178 63 415 Since the rapid increase in traffic could barely be handled, the first expansion of facilities was planned prior to the start of the First World War. In 1914, the Saxon Parliament approved funds for the expansion, but the beginning of the war prevented its realisation. The extension could not be started until the late 1920s.Kaiß/Hengst: Dresdens Eisenbahn, pp. 22ff
One obstacle to operations until then was that it was difficult to reach the terminal tracks in the eastern precinct. As a remedy, a new through track was built through the north hall between platforms 10 and 11, replacing a luggage platform. This would henceforth be used for the passage of additional trains to the eastern precinct and for the passage of unattached locomotives and freight traffic. To take advantage of the sharp rise in through passenger traffic, the covered side hall next to the south hall was demolished, so that the two freight train tracks could be moved on to an outer track on a new concrete structure over the pavement and the released space could be used for an island platform.
The signal box equipment was modernised at that time. New electromechanical systems replaced the mechanical systems and a new command signal box tower was built on the Hohe Brücke (bridge) that at that time carried an extension of Hohe Straße over the station's western track field. The architecture of the station was also transformed. Numerous decorations and structures were replaced by modern plain surfaces.
During the Third Reich
In the 1930s, Deutsche Reichsbahn built a high-speed rail network. It operated high-speed diesel multiple units on routes between Berlin and Hamburg, Berlin and Cologne and Berlin and Frankfurt among other cities. However, the connection from Dresden to Berlin was served by a high-speed steam-hauled train, the Henschel-Wegmann Train. From 1936 until the outbreak of war in 1939, the journey time from Dresden to the Anhalter Bahnhof was about 100 minutes.
In the late 1930s, the Nazi Party planned to reconstruct the city with the intention of glorifying the Third Reich on an enormous scale. A new central train station to be built at Wettiner Straße station would have been wide and long. In addition, an oversized station courtyard and spacious streets were intended to create spaces for rallies and marches. With the outbreak of the Second World War, however, these plans lapsed.Kaiß/Hengst: Dresdens Eisenbahn, pp. 27f