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 and/or station:
“But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?—the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world—a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)