Lehrte station

Lehrte had developed by the mid-19th century into a major railway junction of the Royal Hanoverian State Railways (Königlich Hannöverschen Staatseisenbahnen) and it had become known as a typical railway town. The railway line between Hanover and Lehrte via Peine was built in 1843 and extended in the following years to Brunswick (Braunschweig). Branch lines were subsequently built from Lehrte to Celle (1845) and to Hildesheim (1846). In 1844, an entrance building was built in the neoclassical style to a design by Eduard Ferdinand Schwarz.

The Berlin-Lehrte railway was built by the Magdeburg-Halberstadt Railway Company (Magdeburg-Halberstädter Eisenbahngesellschaft, MHE) and was opened throughout in 1871. It competed with the existing line via Magdeburg and Brunswick. The end of the line was at the Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin, which was demolished in 1958. This was on the site of the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

The line to Hildesheim, which had previously run to the south through the centre of the town was relocated in 1990 and reconnected to the Berlin-Lehrte line to the east of Lehrte. As a result, it eased congestion in the centre of the town, which had long been desired. The old railway embankment was converted into an urban green space. As a result, the level crossings that had been common in Lehrte were removed in the centre of the town.

In 1998, a high-speed railway was opened from Hanover to Berlin next to the old Berlin-Lehrte railway via Lehrte, Meinersen, Gifhorn, Wolfsburg, Oebisfelde, Stendal and Spandau. Lehrte station is now used only for regional transport services, as the Intercity-Express and Intercity (IC) services towards Berlin and the IC services towards Leipzig run through without stopping.

By the summer of 2008, the junction in Lehrte was rebuilt again to provide a grade-separated connection for freight trains from the Hanover freight bypass to the east and to give a grade-separated route from Celle to Hildesheim and Brunswick; this involved the raising of the tracks of the high-speed rail line. The long-distance trains from Wolfsburg and Brunswick can now run through Lehrte at 120 km/h.

Former signalbox at the separation of the lines to Hannver (left) and Celle (right)

Lehrte is a major hub for public transport in the Großraum-Verkehr Hannover (GVH; Greater Hanover Transport Association) with connections to the Hanover S-Bahn. Trains of various train classes to/from Bielefeld, Brunswick, Celle, Hanover, Hildesheim, Rheine and Wolfsburg stop at Lehrte.

The station is served by the following service(s):[4]

• Regional services RE 30 Hannover - Lehrte - Gifhorn - Wolfsburg
• Regional services RE 60 Rheine - Osnabrück - Minden - Hannover - Braunschweig
• Regional services RE 70 Bielefeld - Herford - Minden - Hannover - Braunschweig
• Hannover S-Bahn services S 3 Hannover - Lehrte - Hildesheim
• Hannover S-Bahn services S 7 Hannover - Lehrte - Celle

• Albert Diedrich (1984). 140 Jahre Eisenbahn Hannover - Lehrte: 1843 - 1983 (in German). Lehrte.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Werner Mikus (1966). Die Auswirkungen eines Eisenbahnknotenpunktes auf die geographische Struktur einer Siedlung: am speziellen Beispiel von Lehrte und ein Vergleich mit Bebra und Olten/Schweiz (in German). Freiburg: Freiburger Geographische Hefte. (dissertation of the University of Freiburg, 1966)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lehrte station.

• "Track plan" (PDF) (in German). Deutsche Bahn. Retrieved 9 February 2015.