Hamburg S-Bahn – Hauptbahnhof Station | Germany | 19/11/24
Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (abbrev. Hamburg Hbf), or Hamburg Central Railway Station in English, is the main railway station of the city of Hamburg, Germany. Opened in 1906 to replace four separate terminal stations, today Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is operated by DB Station& Service AG. With an average of 550,000 passengers a day, it is Germany’s busiest railway station and the second-busiest in Europe after the Gare du Nord in Paris.[6] It is classed by Deutsche Bahn as a category 1 railway station.
The station is a through station with island platforms and is one of Germany’s major transportation hubs, connecting long-distance Intercity Express routes to the city’s U-Bahn and S-Bahn rapid transit networks. It is centrally located in Hamburg in the Hamburg-Mitte borough. The Wandelhalle shopping centre occupies the north side of the station building.
Rapid transit
Beside the inter-urban rail services, the Hauptbahnhof is also the central intersection for two of the three rapid transport systems in the city: the Hamburg S-Bahn (suburban railway) and the Hamburg U-Bahn (underground network).
The S-Bahn platforms are located inside the station itself (platforms 3 and 4, going eastwards to Barmbek, Harburg and Bergedorf) and in a separate tunnel, adjacent to the station building (platforms 1 and 2, going westwards to Altona, Wedel and Eidelstedt).
The U-Bahn is split in two stations: Hauptbahnhof Süd (south) and serving the lines U1 and U3. This part of the station had been included in the 1900 planning for the new station (the construction for the subway started in 1906, the “ring” was opened in four stages between February and June 1912. Until 28 September 1968, this station was simply called Hauptbahnhof without any suffix. There were two lines: the original Ring (opened in 1912) and the southeastern branch line (opened on 27 July 1915) leading to Rothenburgsort, the tracks and stations of which have been destroyed in the Operation Gomorra on 28 July 1943 and never been rebuilt.
The station Hauptbahnhof Nord (north), opened on 29 September 1968, serves the lines U2 and U4.
The Hamburg S-Bahn is a rapid transit railway system in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Together, the S-Bahn, the Hamburg U-Bahn, the AKN railway and the regional railway form the backbone of railway public transport in the city and the surrounding area. The network has operated since 1907 as a commuter rail system, under the direction of the state railway, and is a member of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (HVV; Hamburg Transport Association). There are four lines, serving 68 stations, on 147 kilometres (91 mi) of route. On an average working day the S-Bahn transports about 590,000 passengers; in 2010 about 221 million people used the S-Bahn.
The S-Bahn is the only railway in Germany that uses both 1,200 V DC supplied by a third rail and 15 kV 16+2⁄3 Hz AC supplied by overhead lines. Most of the tracks are separated from other rail services. The S-Bahn is operated by S-Bahn Hamburg GmbH, a subsidiary of DB Regio.
Similarly to Berlin but unlike Hanover, the S-Bahn is an important part of public transport within the city due to its dense schedule and good coverage of the metropolitan region. Unlike both Berlin and Hanover, the S-Bahn is of little importance for regional traffic since the network lies mostly within the city, though in 2007 the southwestern S3 line was extended about 32 km (20 mi) into the state of Lower Saxony (the Neugraben – Stade portion, which included seven new stations).