Köln Hauptbahnhof

By 1850 there were five stations at Cologne that had been built by different railway companies. On the west bank of the Rhine there were the Bonn-Cologne Railway Company (German, old spelling: Bonn-Cölner Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BCE), the Cologne-Krefeld Railway Company (German, old spelling: Cöln-Crefelder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CCE) and the Rhenish Railway Company (German: Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, RhE). On the east bank there were the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (German: Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BME) and the Cologne-Minden Railway Company (German, old spelling: Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CME). In 1854 a controversial decision was taken to locate a new rail and road bridge next to the cathedral, following consideration of such proposals as connecting the bridge to an existing freight yard and temporary passenger station on the banks of the Rhine (Rhine Station) at the street of Trankgasse, which is to the southeast of the current Hauptbahnhof. It was suggested that carriages could be lowered by lift to the Trankgasse station, but it was quickly realized that the only effective way for connecting the left and right bank line was to create a central station. The city agreed to the proposal in 1857 and made available the ground of the former Botanical garden to the north of the cathedral and on the site of part of the old University of Cologne, suppressed by the French in 1798. The railway track was laid at ground level from the bridge over the Rhine and crossing the street of Eigelstein west of the station at ground level and running through the medieval city wall. Original station The original Central Station (German: Centralbahnhof) was built beginning in 1857 to the plans of Hermann Otto Pflaume on behalf of the RhE, which had in the same year acquired the BCE. The station was opened on 5 December 1859 together with the Cathedral Bridge (German: Dombrücke, later the site of the Hohenzollernbrücke). The Central Station was a combined terminus and through station: it included four terminating tracks for the RhE running to the west, while the CME had two through tracks connected to its line on the eastern side of the Rhine by the Cathedral Bridge. The station quickly reached capacity, but the RhE as operator had only limited interest in developing the station, as this would have mainly benefited competing companies. Serious planning for an enlarged station was therefore only taken after the nationalisation of the railways in Prussia in the 1880s. New station For the planning of the new central station two options were considered: • Construction of a major railway station in an open area north of Venloer Straße and reclassifying of the original station as a minor station, or • Replacement of the central station with a new building at the same place with an increase in platforms and the construction of two secondary passenger stations (Cologne West and Cologne South) on the urban railway on the model of Berlin Stadtbahn and a rail freight bypass. While the Prussian government argued for the second option, opinion in Cologne was split. On 9 January 1883, the Cologne City Council decided by one vote, finally, for the second option under a plan by the engineer E. Grüttefien of Berlin. Construction began in 1889. The tracks were raised by with half the new space created under the track filled with earth and a new entrance building was built to the design of Georg Frentzen, an architect from Aachen. The foundation stone was laid on 7 May 1892. In 1894, the large tripartite platform hall was completed. The central hall had a roof span of covering today's platforms 2 to 7, and outside it were two -wide aisles for platforms 1 and 8. The -long hall included a two-storey waiting room building, with easy access to all platforms. The station included four terminating platforms facing east and four facing west on either side of the waiting rooms, with one through platform on the northeast side and one on the southwest side. During the restructuring of the rail tracks in the Cologne area in about 1905–1911 (most notable for the construction of the new South Bridge and the four-track Hohenzollern Bridge), the waiting room building was removed and all the platforms were rebuilt as through platforms. Advantage was taken of the previously unused space beneath the tracks. Only the first and second class waiting rooms in Trankgasse and Johannisstraße (streets) survived World War II and subsequent modifications and are now used as a restaurant and the Alter Wartesaal events centre. Reconstruction and new construction For several years after World War II, there was debate as to whether the main station should be rebuilt on the site of the Gereon freight yard—now the site of MediaPark. Therefore, the reconstruction of the main railway station was a slow process and for a decade Cologne station included temporary structures. The first phase of redevelopment began in 1953 with the demolition of the long building on the western side, replaced by a modern structure incorporating baggage handling facilities and a hotel. The original station building, which had sustained only minor wartime damage and had been temporarily repaired, was demolished in 1955. On 23 September 1957, the new station hall, featuring a shell-shaped roof designed by architects Schmitt and Schneider, was inaugurated. The main station building was constructed on the northern side of the station following the clearance of built-up areas between Maximinenstraße, Domstraße, Hofergasse, and Hermannstraße, along with the relocation of Goldgasse to accommodate the creation of Breslauer Platz as a secondary entrance plaza. In the course of building the S-Bahn up until 1991, the entire railway line, railway station and the Hohenzollern bridge were supplemented by two independent S-Bahn tracks. First, in 1975 two additional platforms were built (10 and 11) and then the additional tracks were built on the Hohenzollern bridge for the S-Bahn line. In 2000, a shopping centre was opened at the station's entry level, extending to the area beneath the S-Bahn tracks. Known as the colonnade, it comprises 70 shops and restaurants, encompassing over 11,500 square metres (124,000 sq ft) of retail space and employing approximately 700 people. Planning At a summit of Deutsche Bahn, the federal government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on 31 March 2010 in Düsseldorf, it was decided that the station should be extended by 2019 with an S-Bahn platform with two S-Bahn tracks at Breslauer Platz. The estimated cost would amount to €60 million. The platform for track 1 was planned to be extended to provide a secure area for checking passenger and baggage to enable ICE trains to run to London-St Pancras in 2016. This plan was not implemented, the reason given that there were issues approving ICE trains by Belgian and French authorities. In December 2025, DB and Eurostar signed a letter of intent with the goal of offering direct connections using Eurostar trains starting in the early 2030s. The necessary crossing of the western track area by trains departing towards London is considered operationally challenging. == Rail services ==