Dortmund Hauptbahnhof

History

The original Dortmund station was built north of the city centre by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company (Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CME) as part of its trunk line and opened on 15 May 1847. Two years later the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BME) opened its station as a purely terminating station south of the existing station at the end of its main line to Elberfeld (now Wuppertal), its line to Soest (from 1855) and its Ruhr route to Duisburg and Oberhausen (from 1860).

The original station building, which was built on an island between the tracks with its access from Burgtor, was replaced in 1910 by a new large building at its current location. The new station was opened on 12 December 1910. The tracks had been raised to remove the obstruction of road traffic at level crossings. This second Hauptbahnhof in Dortmund was one of the largest of the former German Empire when it opened. On 6 October 1944, it was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid.

The entrance building of Dortmund Hauptbahnhof was replaced in 1952 by a functionalist building. It is regarded as architecturally insignificant, but it has significant stained glass windows on the theme of the former industrial specialisations of Dortmund. Five large stained glass windows document the Dortmund economy. In the middle one the city is shown, flanked to the left and right by a steelworker, a blast furnace worker, a brewer and a bridge builder. During the reconstruction of the station they were removed and the put on exhibition at the Hattingen Henrichshütte (a former steel works, which is partly used as a museum of industry). They were replaced with exact copies.

Dortmund Hauptbahnhof originally housed a movie theatre. The Live Station discothèque was established in this former cinema in 1986. In April 2009, the nightclub was closed in the course of preparations for the reconstruction.

Reconstruction and rehabilitation

The reconstruction of the Dortmund Hauptbahnhof has been under discussion since 1997. The original plan for a residential area in the form of an "oversized UFO" (80,000 square metres of usable space) was rejected. On 7 October 1998 a memorandum of understanding had been signed between Deutsche Bahn, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Westdeutsche Immobilien Bank. The Deutsche Mark (DM) 850 million project was to be completed by 2002.

After the plans for the so-called "Dortmund UFO" were dropped, a new investor was found in 2001 in the form of the Portuguese investment group Sonae Imobiliaria. The DM 1.2 billion project was to be completed by 2006 and new designs were commissioned from architectural firms in the first quarter of 2001. The new proposed development was called "3do" (3 Dortmund). € 75 million of federal and € 55 million of state funds were pledged. It was planned to have 36,000 square metres of retail and 26,500 square metres of entertainment space. On 3 February 2006, the Essen branch of the Federal Railway Authority (Eisenbahn-Bundesamt) approved the plans for "3do". On 28 February 2007, Deutsche Bahn announced that the investor was unwilling to commit to the project.

Through plans for the reconstruction of the station have twice failed, Dortmund Hauptbahnhof suffers significantly from neglect. Only the terminating platforms (tracks 2–5) and the platform of S-Bahn lines S1 and S2 (tracks 6 and 7) have a lift.

The reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Dortmund Hauptbahnhof began in summer 2009. In a first phase, the station building and related operational areas were gutted. During construction the ticket office and a restaurant of a fast-food chain were placed in containers outside the station. The federal police station and the Bahnhofsmission (a German charity focussed on railway stations) were also placed in containers on the north side. On 17 June 2011, the first phase was formally completed. Of the total cost of € 23 million, the federal government contributed € 13.3 million, the state € 1.4 million and the Deutsche Bahn € 8.3 million.

In a second phase, which begins in 2014 and will not be completed until 2017, the station tunnels and the entrances to the platforms will be renewed. Dortmund is one of the few big-city stations in Germany where access to the platforms has not yet made accessible for the disabled. In the course of these alterations the eastern access to the tunnel linking the station’s buildings and platforms will also be rebuilt. At the same time it is also intended that there will be improvements to facilitate the introduction of the Rhine-Ruhr Express (a planned upgrade to North Rhine-Westphalia’s Regional-Express network). This will require a comprehensive restructuring of the track layout in Dortmund Hauptbahnhof.

Long distance trains

Dortmund Hauptbahnhof is served by Thalys, Deutsche Bahn Intercity-Express and Intercity services.

Regional trains

Regional-Express and Regionalbahn services:

S-Bahn trains

Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn services:

Light rail

Light rail services are operated by the Dortmund Stadtbahn.

∗ U45 becomes at the station Westfalenhallen the line U46 and continues to Brunnenstraße. On match days of the Borussia Dortmund soccer club the line ends instead of the regular terminus Westfalenhallen at the Westfalenstadion station, which is only open on these occasions. In this case it does not continue as U46.