Leipzig Central Station (Leipzig Hauptbahnhof) is, at 83,460 m², Europe's largest railway station when measured by floor area. It has 24 platforms housed in six iron trainsheds; a multi-level concourse with towering stone arches; and a 293 metre-long facade. It handles an average of 120,000 passengers per day.
The station was opened in 1915 as a joint terminal for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the Prussian state railways. The building has two identical domed entrance halls facing the street, one for each company. When the German railway systems were combined into the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the two halls lost this purpose. The building was damaged by bombing during World War II when roof over the concourse collapsed and one of the entrance halls was destroyed. The station was restored by the Deutsche Reichsbahn to its original appearance in the 1950s.
After German reunification the station was renovated and modernized by the Deutsche Bahn. The concourse floor was removed and two basement levels were dug out to create a shopping mall. Other areas of the building were largely restored, but also modernized at the time.
The City Tunnel Leipzig, leading from the south of Leipzig to the central station, is under construction and is expected to be finished in December 2013.
The station was used in the 1992 film Shining Through.
Read more about Leipzig Central Station: Train Services, Historic Exhibits, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words central station, central and/or station:
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
—Anonymous.
An axiom from economics popular in the 1960s, the words have no known source, though have been dated to the 1840s, when they were used in saloons where snacks were offered to customers. Ascribed to an Italian immigrant outside Grand Central Station, New York, in Alistair Cooke’s America (epilogue, 1973)
“Parental attitudes have greater correlation with pupil achievement than material home circumstances or variations in school and classroom organization, instructional materials, and particular teaching practices.”
—Children and Their Primary Schools, vol. 1, ch. 3, Central Advisory Council for Education, London (1967)
“Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of Man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Thro’ worlds unnumber’d tho’ the God be known,
‘Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)