Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof

Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof is the primary railway station in the city of Stuttgart, the state capital of Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany. It is the largest regional and long-distance railway station in Stuttgart, the main node of the Stuttgart S-Bahn network, and, together with the station at Charlottenplatz, it is the main node of the Stuttgart Stadtbahn.
Located at the northeastern end of the Königstraße, the main pedestrian zone of the city centre, the main line station still is a terminus, whilst the subterranean S-Bahn and Stadtbahn stations are through-stations. The station is well known for its 12-storey tower with a large, rotating and illuminated Mercedes-Benz star insignia on top; the tower and station building are city landmarks.
Currently, as part of the Stuttgart 21 project, which is also very controversial among the population, the train station is being converted from an above-ground terminus station into an underground through station. These works include the demolition of the side wings of the building, together with the elimination of the platforms, tracks, and apron of the terminus station. The planned underground through station is configured at a 90-degree angle to the present station. The construction started in 2010 and is scheduled to end in 2027.
In November 2009, preservationists of the International Council on Monuments and Sites nominated the building for inclusion in UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage list, an occasion that opponents of the Stuttgart 21 project picked to urge the city and Deutsche Bahn to stop the project which implies demolition of parts of the complex designed by Paul Bonatz.

History

First and second Centralbahnhof

Until 1922, the central station was located on the Schlosstrasse, near the Schlossplatz. The first station building, a terminus station with 4 tracks, was built by Karl Etzel for the opening of the Württemberg Central Railway, with its two branches to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen.
The wooden station hall was not unusual at the time and covered four tracks. The first train, arrived at the station from Canstatt on 26 September 1846. The first phase of railway construction in the Kingdom of Württemberg, with routes to Heilbronn, Bretten, Ulm, and Friedrichshafen, was completed by 1854.
Due to increasing railway traffic, the first building was replaced by new construction at the same spot in the 1860s. Between 1863 and 1867, the engineers Klein, Georg Morlok, Carl Julius Abel and later city architect Adolf Wolff created this second station, with 8 tracks, featuring a building with grandiose arches in the Renaissance Revival style. Parts of the façade of this building are now part of the Metropol, an events centre and cinema complex.

Sprickerhof through station

With a steadily increasing traffic volume and the connection of additional lines, the station had increasingly reached its capacity limits in the early 20th century.
By 1905, there were three designs for the redevelopment of the station:

the so-called Sprickerhofsche Durchgangsbahnhof,
a terminal station on Bolzstraße, and
a terminal station on Schillerstraße.

The concept of Sprickerhof through station was introduced in 1901. The Stuttgart–Horb railway and the line from Feuerbach were to run through the Kriegsberg to the central station in three parallel twin-track tunnels at a gradient of 1:100 from Wolframstraße in an arc with a radius of. This would have run to Bahnhofstraße via Kriegsbergstraße and the tracks would have been in the area of the road to Ludwigsburg. The crossover tracks would have run into the tunnel for about. The entrance building would have been built in the area of the main customs office. The above-ground areas between Schloßstraße and Schillerstraße would have been demolished for this project. A commission of external experts opposed the project.

The current Hauptbahnhof

The present Hauptbahnhof was built between 1914 and 1928 on the street now called Arnulf-Klett-Platz, only about east of the former station.
In 1910, the Royal Württemberg State Railways financed an architectural contest, which drew 70 participants. The competition was won by the architects Paul Bonatz and Friedrich Eugen Scholer with their plans for umbilicus sueviae—the Navel of Swabia. After undergoing numerous changes, including moving the station tower from the main façade to the wing at the Schlossgarten, construction began in 1914 on Cannstatter Strasse. Changes to the plan also occurred in the construction phase. Due to the route of the tracks to the old station, construction needed to be done in two phases, with the first stage, including tracks 9 to 16, going into service on 22 October 1922. The tracks to the old station were cut at the same time.
As further construction of the new station was delayed for financial reasons, the city of Stuttgart loaned Deutsche Reichsbahn two million Reichsmark in 1925 and a further loan of 5 million Reichsmark in 1927. The second stage was completed in 1928 and the electrification of the 16 tracks was completed on 15 May 1933.
In the bombing of Stuttgart in the Second World War, the Hauptbahnhof was severely damaged several times, although from 1940 to 1942 a decoy target at Lauffen am Neckar diverted many raids. The reconstruction took several years. Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof has been listed as a cultural heritage site of special significance since 20 August 1987.

S-Bahn and Stadtbahn

A plan developed in the mid-1950s for a S-Bahn proposed a four-track station with two -long island platforms under the Hauptbahnhof, which would be linked by two tracks towards the city centre and four towards Feuerbach/Bad Cannstatt.
Between 1971 and 1978, an underground Hauptbahnhof station was built for the S-Bahn in the central Neckar area, which was a cut-and-cover construction under the main hall in the area of the small ticket hall. This station has two tracks and an island platform. The first S-Bahn services ran on 1 October 1978.
After four years of planning, construction commenced on a new central signalling centre of class SpDrL 60 at the Hauptbahnhof on 3 October 1973. The signalling infrastructure was gradually put into operation: first for the train depot on 1 and 2 October 1977, then for the passenger station and freight yard on 5 and 6 November 1977 respectively. The S-Bahn connecting line was opened as far as the former terminus at Schwabstraße on 1 October 1978.
A total of 95 stop signals, 93 distant signals, 583 shunting signals, 506 point machines, 530 track circuits and 169 axle counters were integrated into the track layout. The new signalling centre replaced twelve old signal boxes. DM 68 million was spent on the signalling centre and its outdoor facilities. Today, five to seven dispatchers work in the signalling centre.
The underground Stadtbahn station, called Hauptbahnhof , in front of the station hall under Arnulf-Klett-Platz was opened to traffic on 9 April 1976. Today, ten Stuttgart Stadtbahn lines serve the station.
The S-Bahn station was used by about 120,000 passengers per day. This included 55,000 transfers to long-distance, regional and Stadtbahn services, about 15,000 passengers transferring between the S-Bahn lines via Feuerbach and Bad Cannstatt and around 50,000 passengers entering or exiting at the station. The Stadtbahn station was used by around 75,000 passengers a day. In 2016, 140,000 passengers used the S-Bahn station each day. With the commissioning of Stuttgart 21, the volume is expected to decline by about 20 percent. The S-Bahn station is called Stuttgart Hbf tief and is below the Hauptbahnhof.

Building

The station building consists of cubes nested symmetrically and asymmetrically. It is characterised by cubes of different size, dimension and design. Concrete and steel were used during the construction of the station building and the rough-hewn Muschelkalk blocks were laid as a facade over bricks. The Muschelkalk comes from the Trochitenkalk Formation of the Upper Muschelkalk from the Crailsheim area. Inside, sandstone, tuff and brick dominate the walls. These are partly designed as flat wooden ceilings and partly designed as reinforced concrete structures. The pillars in the terminal station hall are made of exposed concrete.
The station is also integrated into the urban planning of the city of Stuttgart. The structure adapts to the sloping terrain. The original plans called for a road leading directly to the building, but Bonatz eliminated this in favour of the Lautenschlagerstraße, as it is now known, which ends at the Kleine Schalterhalle. The tracks for the local commuter traffic are behind this hall and the central exit is between the hall and the main building, which is useful for the control of passenger flow. Underneath the tracks area, three tunnels running at right angles to the tracks provide highly functional access points: the mail tunnel runs from the post office annex to the northwestern station area, a passenger tunnel eases the task of changing platforms and a third tunnel is meant for the transit of express freight.
The construction has some highly regarded features. The façade is made of limestone, which was covered with bricks; on the inside, sandstone, tuff, and bricks form the walls. The roof structures consist partly of flat wood and partly of reinforced concrete panels. The use of exposed concrete on the pillars lends a modern flair to the main hall. The structure features conservative elements, shown in the monumentality and the reserved decorations, as well as progressive elements, as shown by the flat roof structures, for example. The design is considered an important example of the Stuttgart School.
Christoph Ingenhoven, the architect of the new station, expressed the opinion that much of Bonatz's original visions, which tended towards "a knight's castle or Valhalla", can still be found in the current building. The Stuttgart Regional Court, in its decision to permit the demolition of the side wings, stated that only the terminal train shed, the tower, the ticket halls and the portico were decisive for the architectural recognition of the work, but not the side wings.