Lübeck Hauptbahnhof

The forerunner of today's Hauptbahnhof was built by the LBE in 1851, on the wall peninsula near the Holstentor. Initially, it had only one platform, but due to later expansion work, ended up with four platforms. With increasing traffic, operations became problematic, as the trains crossed a main road directly after leaving the station, and the tracks needed to pass over several small streams. Upon the commissioning of the new Hauptbahnhof in 1908, the old station building finally lost its function.

After being put to various other uses (including the housing of the Harbour Railway administration), the old station building was demolished in 1934, as part of the transformation of the Holstentorplatz.

As was evident by the turn of the 20th century, the old station building was too small, so a new location was sought.

Diagram of the Lübeck-Büchener Eisenbahngesellschaft's new facilities

The problematic layout of the Lübeck inner city, which is situated on an island, had already caused great difficulties for the construction and operation of the original station. Thus, the new station site needed to be just outside the inner city to be able to solve these problems.

A suitable location was finally found in the Rethteich Meadows, a few hundred metres west of the inner city, near the St. Lawrence Church. The new station, built to a design by Fritz Klingholz, was finally opened in 1908, and the tracks slewed to the new location.

On the evening of 6 November 1918 every higher officer in Lübeck became interned in the Hotel International (Am Bahnhof N. 17).[2]

During World War II, the main building and the train shed remained largely intact. However, in the bombing of 29 March 1942, the passenger bridge took some hits, which partially burned out, and the station wing was rebuilt in simplified form.

From 1945 to 1990, Lübeck Hbf was a border station adjacent to what was, initially, the Soviet occupation zone, and later the German Democratic Republic. The Bundesgrenzschutz had its own border-inspection facilities on the easternmost platform, and this had to be passed by passengers departing from Lübeck. The Interzonal trains operated about once or twice daily to Rostock. They came usually from Hamburg or Cologne.

From 14 May 1963 onwards, Lübeck Hbf's most significant attribute was that it had become an important station on the Vogelfluglinie from Hamburg to Scandinavia. Numerous express trains with long itineraries served the station. Among them were the Italia Express and the Alpen Express, which operated between Rome and Copenhagen, and the Trans Europ Express Merkur, which ran from Stuttgart to Copenhagen.

The branch line to Segeberg, which had its platform next to the train hall, had its passenger traffic withdrawn on 26 September 1964, and was closed on 31 December 1967.

In 1967, on the occasion of the visit of Shah Reza Pahlavi to the city of Lübeck, the station was restored. The modifications then carried out corresponded with the spirit of the times, but were later perceived as being of dubious aesthetic value. They were removed during the 2003 renovations. Amongst other things, the passage to the station wing was closed, windows were bricked up, and the interior of the train hall was strengthened. Also installed during the Bundesbahn era was the metal luggage bridge, which obstructed the view of the station from the railway bridge.

After the opening of the combined road/rail Great Belt Bridge in Denmark in the late 1990s, Lübeck Hbf became a less important station for international traffic, as the new bridge made the longer route via Flensburg more attractive. At the same time, an increasingly substantial decline of the station was due to the reluctance of Deutsche Bahn to invest in Lübeck. Thus, the Lübeck Hbf of the late 1990s was still equipped with hand-operated semaphore signals, lack of care for the station building had become apparent, and Lübeck had become the largest German city not served by an electrified railway line. Additionally, the station wing looked decrepit, after its restaurant had had to close. By 2000, the entire building was completely outdated and no longer met the requirements of modern rail operations.

The turnaround in the policy of the Deutsche Bahn for the Lübeck area came in 2003. In that year, all the semaphore signals were replaced with centralized Ks- signals. At the same time, work began on a large-scale reconstruction of the station, to modernize and prepare it for future electrification. The most important modifications were completed on 20 July 2007.

Electrification of the Lübeck–Hamburg and Lübeck–Lübeck-Travemünde Strand railways, and therefore also of Lübeck Hbf, was begun in late 2006 and finished in December 2008. On 1 October 2008, the power was turned on.