Bern railway station

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Bern railway station
Main facade of the reception building
Main facade of the reception building
Data
Location in the network Crossing station (SBB, BLS)
underground terminus (RBS)
Platform tracks 18 (1-10, 12.13, 21-24 and 49-50)
abbreviation BN
IBNR 8507000
opening May 1, 1860
location
City / municipality Bern
Canton Bern
Country Switzerland
Coordinates 600062  /  199849 coordinates: 46 ° 56 '59 "  N , 7 ° 26' 22"  O ; CH1903:  600062  /  199849
Height ( SO ) 540  m
List of train stations in Switzerland
i16

The Bern train station is the main station of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), the BLS AG (BLS) and the narrow-gauge railway regional transport Bern-Solothurn (RBS) and the hub for the S-Bahn network of the city of Bern , Switzerland . It is the second largest train station in Switzerland after Zurich main station.

location

Bern train station is on the western edge of the old town . Its reception building with the main south entrance is located between Burgerspital and Heiliggeistkirche . The tracks and platforms curve between the north-east and west. The Schallenhaus , the first prison in Switzerland, was located in the same place until 1860 .

history

Provisional Wylerfeld station from 1857

The Olten – Bern line , built in 1857 by the Swiss Central Railway (SCB), ended because of a missing bridge over the Aare, which flows deep below the city, outside the city in the Wylerfeld. From this first train station in Bern, travelers were then transported to the center by stagecoach.

On November 15, 1858, the so-called Red Bridge over the Aare was completed and the trains could continue to the city center. The construction of a central reception building was still behind schedule, so that the trains drove past it for a while to the west to the nearby Villette freight station , where travelers were received.

Bern 1858, bird's eye view from the west, train station in the foreground
Terminal station from 1860, plan
End station from 1860, entrance
Terminal station from 1860, station building
Christoffelturm : demolished in 1864
left: terminus-railway hall
right: Heiliggeistkirche
Through station from 1891, plan

Railway station from 1860

The terminus station with a four-track station hall, which faces south to the Heiliggeistkirche and the Christoffelturm , was built on behalf of the Swiss Central Railway under the direction of its chief architect Ludwig Maring and the engineer Wilhelm Pressel . Construction began on February 12, 1858, and the station was inaugurated on May 1, 1860.

In 1864 the Christoffelturm, built in the 14th century as part of the city wall, was demolished to make space in front of the train station. The foundations of the tower were uncovered in 1974 and made visible in the Christoffel underpass under the station square.

Railway station from 1891

In 1860 the extension of the Olten – Bern line to the vicinity of Freiburg / Friborg with a western exit behind the terminus was put into operation. In order to avoid the hairpin turn maneuver necessary for the approach to the terminus, a project was proposed by the Swiss Central Railway in 1870 with tracks that were perpendicular to the previous headlines and continuous to the west behind the Burgerspital (through station) and implemented by 1891. For the construction, part of the embankment of the Grosse Schanze on the northern edge of the station had to be removed. The station building, freed from the head rails, was still used.

In 1897 the station building was completely destroyed by fire, but was then rebuilt in the same style. It burned again on the night of July 10, 1902. The fire brigade was able to bring the fire under control after an hour and a half, and the accommodation of the buffet staff was particularly badly damaged.

In 1930, the station building was shortened by 30 meters, with its frontal facade away from the track being set back.

RBS station in Bern

In 1965, the newly built terminal station of the Bern – Solothurn regional line ( meter gauge ) was inaugurated at approximately right angles under the SBB and BLS tracks ( standard gauge ) .

Reception building from 1974

Aerial photograph 1967, during the construction of a parking roof over the tracks; left, near the Heiliggeistkirche, the old reception building, slightly shortened in 1930.

The construction of a new reception building adapted to the through station at the same location or to the west has been discussed since 1914. In 1956, it was decided in a vote to replace the old building with a wider and even shorter (facade now at the end of the Burgerspital near the track) new building at the same location. In 1957 construction began under the direction of the later SBB general director Roger Desponds ; In 1974 the new building, a reinforced concrete structure partially clad with glass, in the style typical of the 1960s and early 1970s, was inaugurated. The station remained cut off from the city center by motorized traffic, and the station square was not accessible to pedestrians.

In a project study in 1989 , the Bern architecture firm Atelier 5 requested a redesign of the building with a new main entrance to a largely traffic-free station square with pedestrian connections to the city center at ground level. In the years that followed, parts of this study were modified and implemented by other architects. The Bahnhofplatz is still not free of traffic today (2019).

Accident on September 29, 1982

On September 29, 1982, the engine driver of an Olten – Geneva express train tried to make up for a delay. When leaving the station, he drove at 120 instead of 40 km / h over a switch in a distracting position. The derailment caused 15 injuries. The track normally used, on which a speed of 140 km / h would have been allowed, was not usable due to catenary work.

1999 to 2004

Entrance building: view from the inside of the main facade

From 1999 5 further conversions could be carried out from the studio. The reception building received a more modern facade in 2003.

« Welle » and west entrance to Bern railway station

A shopping center has been created whose shops have longer opening times in the evening than those in the rest of the city and are also open over the weekend , as the statutory shop opening times of the municipalities do not apply to SBB properties.

The design of the main station followed a design concept that emphasizes the function of the station as a traffic junction, behind which that of the shopping facilities has to take a back seat. Colors, advertising information, shop window frames and lettering are based on the SBB corporate design .

On 12 December 2004, was the timetable change under Rail 2000 , the wave of Bern (extended platforms and additional access to the station platform roofs on the west from the Schanzenbrücke out) put into operation.

present

Construction site on the Grosse Schanze 2019: new pedestrian underpass, view towards Schanzenbrücke (into town)
Extended part of the peron of the holding areas track 9 and 10 with additional holding areas 49 and 50 and passenger bridge

The current station is reaching its limits with around 269,000 passengers per working day. In regional traffic, the capacity is already considered exhausted (as of 2015), in national traffic the limit is to be reached by 2030. An increase in the number of travelers to 375,000 is expected by 2030. There are therefore plans for a further expansion, the “Zukunft Bahnhof Bern” (ZBB) project, a joint project between the canton and city of Bern, SBB, BLS, RBS, BERNMOBIL and other parties involved.

In the early 1990s, the first drafts for the extension were developed.

The problem is particularly acute with the RBS underground station, which was designed for 16,000 passengers when it was built, but is used by around 60,000 passengers every day. By 2025, a new RBS underground station is to be built across and 17 m deep under the SBB tracks with tracks parallel to the tracks above. Two tracks are to be created on each of two 12 m wide central platforms. Access will be via a one kilometer long underground tunnel. A new pedestrian underpass with a second station entrance is also planned. Initially, a terminal station is planned. However, this solution enables the RBS to be extended to the west later. The SBB made the RBS train station accessible from their pedestrian underpass and created a direct pedestrian underpass with main access at the Bubenberg center to the west .

Before the 2015 summer break, SBB and RBS submitted the application for planning permission to the federal government. The subject of the project is the new pedestrian underpass and the new underground station for the RBS. It is intended to replace the existing RBS train station. The project is to be implemented between 2017 and 2025. The costs were estimated at CHF 867 million in 2015. The canton of Bern will take on around CHF 300 million of this.

In addition, a lateral expansion of the station is planned. In a second stage, four more SBB tracks and platforms are to be built in the north under the Grosse Schanze between 2025 and 2035 . According to other information, this expansion is planned for 2035. The measures are to be financed by the federal government.

The construction work, which will last until 2027, began on July 3, 2017. First, the new RBS deep station will be built and from November 2017 the new underpass.

In order to be able to block tracks during the renovation without major operational restrictions, the platform with tracks 9 and 10 at its western end was extended from approx. 400 m to 785 m in autumn 2019. Two S-Bahn or long-distance trains can now stop one behind the other on each side of this platform. About half of the extension is covered with an 8 m wide passenger bridge (similar to a passenger boarding bridge ) connected to the "Welle von Bern" . Two flights of stairs and a lift lead down to the platform. Because this solution was planned as a temporary solution, the passenger bridge was bent when viewed from above and connected to the “shaft” between two corrugated roofs . The short section of the corrugated roof over the new platform section was thus spared from intervention.

Bahnhofplatz

Bahnhofplatz Bern: the station on the left is not visible

At the beginning of 2007, the renovation of the station square began. The work was completed on May 31, 2008, shortly before the 2008 European Football Championship , and inaugurated with a party. The work included, among other things, the redesign of the tram and bus stops, the construction of a glass roof - the canopy - over the station square, the redesign of the Bubenbergplatz and an expansion of the Christoffel underpass.

The Bern train station is also the central hub in local public transport, all lines of the Bern tram and the Bern trolleybus are linked here. The tram stop on Bahnhofplatz and the adjacent turning loops have already been set up for the longer trains from Tram Bern West (tram lines to Bümpliz and Brünnen , which have been in operation since December 12, 2010).

Destinations of the trains

Long-distance transport

RBS underground station
S8 of the RBS in Bern station

Regional traffic

S-Bahn Bern (lines from 2016 timetable)

See: Bern S-Bahn

Set destinations (selection)

The last night train from Switzerland to Italy was the EuroNight EuroNight Luna (Zurich - Bern - Brig - Bologna - Florence - Rome) on the 12/13 timetable change. Discontinued December 2009. With the timetable change in December 2012, the EuroNight from Zurich via Bern - Friborg - Lausanne - Geneva - Perpignan - Girona to Barcelona, ​​which ran three times a week, was also discontinued.

literature

  • Werner Stutz: Railway stations in Switzerland . Publishing house, Zurich 1976, ISBN 3-85572-018-5 .
  • Paul Boss: That was the old train station… . Benteli Verlag, Bern 1974.
  • Bernhard Giger and Hansueli Trachsel: arriving in Bern . Stämpfli Verlag, Bern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7272-1194-2 .
  • Werner Huber: Bahnhof Bern 1860–2010 editor; SBB Specialist Office for Monument Protection and Society for Swiss Art History GSK (Volume 3, of the series; Architectural and technical history of the railways in Switzerland), 2010 Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich ISBN 978-3-85881-316-9
  • T. Lobsiger Berner Bahnhofschronik: (the history of the Bern train station from 1857 to 1999) self-published NB-link

Web links

Commons : Bahnhof Bern  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Daniel Gerny: Bern train station is growing in depth . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 152 , July 4, 2015, ISSN  0376-6829 , p. 11 .
  2. ↑ Beat Junker: The fight for the Christoffelturm in: History of the Canton of Bern since 1798: Volume III. Tradition and awakening 1881–1995
  3. ^ The old "new Bern station" 1974. On: SBB.ch
  4. ^ Erich Preuss: Railway accidents in Europe . Facts, reports, minutes. 4th edition. Transpress, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-344-70716-7 , pp. 109 .
  5. ↑ Le direct Olten – Genéve déraille. (Le Temps - archives historiques) In: Journal de Genève. September 30, 1982, p. 9 , archived from the original on December 2, 2013 ; Retrieved on November 18, 2013 (French, with photo).
  6. ↑ Atelier 5: Redesign of the reception building at Bern railway station (PDF; 3.8 MB)
  7. ↑ SFHF-AWARD 2005: Facade of the year: Bahnhof Bern, Architects: Atelier 5 ( Memento from February 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 3.3 MB)
  8. ↑ Arne Scheuermann, "RailCity or Hauptbahnhof" in: archimaera (issue 1/2008)
  9. ↑ Facts and Figures - Railway Stations. Retrieved March 23, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Frequencies of the SBB. Retrieved January 27, 2017 .
  11. ↑ a b The new RBS train station for Bern. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017 ; accessed on January 27, 2017 .
  12. ↑ a b c New underground station in Bern . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 133 , June 12, 2015, ISSN  0376-6829 , p. 10 .
  13. ^ A b c Daniel Gerny: Bern station is about to be expanded for the century. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . July 4, 2015, accessed July 18, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Canton of Bern : media releases
  15. ^ The federal government : decision for RBS underground station
  16. ^ SBB: Future of Bern station
  17. ↑ This is how the Bern train station is to be expanded . In: Berner Zeitung, Berner Zeitung . ISSN  1424-1021 ( bernerzeitung.ch [accessed on July 3, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Bern main station: The expansion work is taking longer than planned . May 22, 2019, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed May 30, 2019]).
  19. ↑ New platform with tracks 49/50 goes into operation. Retrieved October 30, 2019 .