Regensburg Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in the city of

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...

in southern

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Location

Regensburg Hauptbahnhof is located on the southern edge of the old city (''Altstadt'') in the immediate vicinity of Schloss St. Emmeram. In front of the station building are a taxi rank and the regional bus station. A short distance away is the central public transport hub known as ''Bustreff Albertstraße''. The station has numerous shops; since its renovation in 2004 the overbridge also enables access to the ''Regensburg Arcade'' shopping centre south of the station tracks. At the site there are 177 car parking bays and stands for 300 bicycles.

History

Regensburg was connected to the railway network relatively late; although the first line in Bavaria opened in 1835, it took until 1859 for the

Bavarian Eastern Railway The Royal Bavarian Eastern Railway Company (''Königlich privilegirte Actiengesellschaft der bayerischen Ostbahnen'') or Bavarian Ostbahn was founded in 1856. Within just two decades it built an extensive railway network in the eastern Bavarian prov ...

(''Königlich privilegirte Aktiengesellschaft der bayerischen Ostbahnen'') to link this east Bavarian metropolis with

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, the first line to be built going via

Amberg Amberg () is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in the Upper Palatinate, roughly halfway between Regensburg and Bayreuth. In 2020, over 42,000 people lived in the town. History The town was first mentioned in 1034, at that time under t ...

. In 1860 Regensburg was connected to

Passau Passau (; bar, label=Central Bavarian, Båssa) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany, also known as the Dreiflüssestadt ("City of Three Rivers") as the river Danube is joined by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north. Passau's popu ...

; in 1873 a direct line to Nuremberg was opened; and this was followed by a connection to Ingolstadt in 1874. The first station building was built between 1859 and 1864 at the southern end of Maximilianstraße to plans by architect Heinrich von Hügel, its great length, twin towers and five-arched portal reflecting the influence of the Italian

renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

. The building was torn down in 1888 and replaced by a new building in the contemporary style of the

Gründerzeit (; "founders' period") was the economic phase in 19th-century Germany and Austria before the great stock market crash of 1873. In Central Europe, the age of industrialisation had been taking place since the 1840s. That period is not precisely ...

. This second station building was destroyed in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

; its successor was finished in 1955 and renovated in 2004. After just under five years of construction, a new signal box went into service at the Hauptbahnhof in spring 1988. At a cost of 24 million DM it replaced eight old signal boxes that had been repaired at the end of the Second World War. Plans for the replacement began in 1981. 180 sets of points and 220 signals in the marshalling yard and main station are controlled by the new box; the 9-metre-long control panel was designed for an expansion of the area to be controlled. For the first time in the history of the

Deutsche Bundesbahn The Deutsche Bundesbahn or DB (German Federal Railway) was formed as the state railway of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) on 7 September 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). The DB remained ...

, time signals were no longer controlled by cable but by long wave transmissions from the Mainflingen transmitter.Meldung ''Neues Zentralstellwerk für Regensburg''. In: ''Die Bundesbahn'' 1988, No. 5, p. 479 The marshalling yard, which is west of the main passenger station and adjacent to it, has been closed and is to be demolished.

Operational usage

Regensburg is situated at the crossing of the

main line Mainline, ''Main line'', or ''Main Line'' may refer to: Transportation Railway * Main line (railway), the principal artery of a railway system * Main line railway preservation, the practice of operating preserved trains on an operational railw ...

railway lines

- Hof and

; smaller branch lines connect Regensburg to

Ulm Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. Regensburg today sees about 200 trains per day, most of them operated by Deutsche Bahn AG, though some regional services are operated by Vogtlandbahn. The following is a summary: The platform announcements which inform travellers of the arrival and departure of trains at Regensburg Hauptbahnhof and also welcome alighting passengers were digitalised in July 2008.

References

External links

Virtual tour
{{Commons category, Regensburg Hauptbahnhof Regensburg Hauptbahnhof

Hauptbahnhof Central stations or central railway stations emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as railway stations that had initially been built on the edge of city centres were enveloped by urban expansion and became an integral part of the ...

Railway stations in Germany opened in 1892

Location

History

Operational usage

References

Further reading

External links