Lübeck Hauptbahnhof

Lübeck Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station serving the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is a through station at the western edge of the city centre. With approximately 31,000 travelers and visitors each day, Lübeck Hbf is the busiest of all the railway stations in Schleswig-Holstein. It is classified by the Deutsche Bahn as a Category 3 station.The present station building was built in 1908 by the Lübeck-Büchener Eisenbahn . At that time, the LBE operated most of the railway connections around Lübeck, including the express trains. The station building was designed by Fritz Klingholz, and replaced the previous, outdated building.Lübeck Hbf is a Reiterbahnhof, or station with a reception building laid out as a bridge "riding" over the tracks. Its reception building spans a total of 10 tracks with four platforms. A special feature is its wide wooden steps leading down to the platforms. The station was recently modernised and completely electrified, and is now fully connected with Germany's electric railway network.HistoryThe old HauptbahnhofThe 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.