Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof
Encyclopedia
is the central railway station in the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
city of Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
. The station is classified as one of the major Category 1
German railway station categories
About 5,400 railway stations in Germany that are owned and operated by the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB Station&Service are assigned into seven categories, denoting the service level available at the station....
stations in Germany, due to its function as a hub connecting several railway lines with each other.
History
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
to Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
line. The station had two platforms and opened in 1843. The station at first was built using 1600 mm gauge tracks, but soon the gauge was changed to the more common 1435 mm. Lines were added to Maxau, Pforzheim
Pforzheim
Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry. Until 1565 it was the home to the Margraves of Baden. Because of that it gained the nickname...
, Heilbronn
Heilbronn
Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 123.000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state....
and Leopoldshafen after the conversion.
As the lines were all laid down on street level, and traffic increased over the years, the old station was soon found impractical. A new station was therefore erected approximately one kilometre south of the old station, and opened in October 1913.
The station saw little damage in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and was extensively modernised in the early 1990s when the Karlsruhe model
Karlsruhe model
The Karlsruhe model reflects urban and heavy rail trains running on the same tracks. It was initially developed and implemented in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany by the local transit authority, Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund. It provides a connection between the regular railway network and the city's...
tram-train
Tram-train
A tram-train is a light-rail public transport system where trams run both on an urban tramway network and on main-line railways to combine the tram's flexibility and availability and the train's greater speed...
system was implemented. Today, it sees about 150 long-distance passenger trains per day.
Operational usage
The station is served by the following lines:- Karlsruhe–Mühlacker railway
- Palatine Maximilian RailwayPalatine Maximilian RailwayThe Palatine Maximilian Railway - sometimes referred to as Maximiliansbahn or just the Maxbahn - is a railway line in southwestern Germany that runs from Neustadt an der Weinstrasse to Wissembourg in Alsace, France, with a branch from Winden via Wörth and the Maxaubahn to Karlsruhe.- Overview :It...
- Rhine Valley Railway
- Rhine Railway