Goerlitz train station

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Goerlitz
Reception building
Reception building
Data
Operating point type railway station
Design Separation station
Platform tracks 6th
abbreviation DG
IBNR 8010131
Price range 3
opening September 1, 1847
Profile on Bahnhof.de Goerlitz
Architectural data
Architectural style Art Nouveau
architect Alexander Rudell
location
City / municipality Goerlitz
country Saxony
Country Germany
Coordinates 51 ° 8 '50 "  N , 14 ° 58' 45"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 8 '50 "  N , 14 ° 58' 45"  E
Height ( SO ) 221.3  m above sea level NN
Railway lines
Railway stations and stops in Saxony
i11 i16

Görlitz station is the central passenger station in the city of Görlitz in Saxony . At the Görlitz railway junction, it links the routes to Berlin , Dresden , Breslau and Zittau .

Until the Second World War , the Görlitz station, which opened on September 1, 1847, was an important hub in German long-distance traffic. The increasing volume of traffic required an expansion of its facilities in the 1860s and the beginning of the 20th century. After the German eastern border was moved to the Oder and Neisse rivers , there was an enormous loss of importance. Today it is only a regional hub for local rail passenger transport . Long-distance traffic in the once important route (Paris -) Dresden - Wroclaw (- Warsaw) has not existed since 2004.

120 trains and 3,600 travelers and visitors are counted here every day. It is Germany's easternmost train station. Görlitz is the border station between Germany and Poland . Until Poland joined the EU or joined the Schengen area , customs and passport control were carried out there on all international trains.

location

Location of the train station in the city center

The Görlitzer Bahnhof is on Germany's eastern border and is a border station to neighboring Poland. The Hagenwerder train station and the stops in Rauschwalde and Weinhübel are further train stations in the city of Görlitz.

The station complex is located in the southern city ​​center on the border with the southern part of the city . The station building is on the extended north-south axis of Berliner Strasse, which connects the train station with the city center. To the north of the station, Bahnhofstrasse and to the south, Sattigstrasse, delimit the station area. In the east, the Neisse Viaduct leads over the Lusatian Neisse , which marks the German-Polish border to Zgorzelec .

The station area once belonged to the Jannakschen Vorwerk and at the time of the construction of the station was far from what was then the gates of the city. The Saxon Elector Johann Georg I set up his headquarters there in 1641 during the siege of Görlitz. Even Frederick the Great struck here during a march in the time of the Seven Years' War his headquarters. Most recently, the property belonged to the building contractor Gustav Kießler , who was involved in the construction of the Neißeviadukt.

Road traffic and trams cross under the railway tracks in the Jakobstunnel east of the station building. To the west, the Brautwiesentunnel passes under the federal highway 99 under the west exit of the station. The Görlitz tram and the regional buses have stops in front of the reception building on Bahnhofstrasse. At the southern exit, the southern stairway from the platform underpass, there is the tram and bus stop of the same name as a transfer stop for local urban transport.

history

The way to the railway connection

The Görlitz Neisse Viaduct

With the use of steam engines and the beginning industrial boom in the region in the middle of the 19th century, a more efficient transport system became necessary to distribute the goods to other sales markets. Horse-drawn vehicles quickly reached their limits on the inadequately developed roads. The new steam train technology from England promised a solution for this. Even before the first railway line in Germany, the Liegnitz government building officer, Krause, proposed a railway line from the Silesian capital, Wroclaw, to Berlin and Dresden. But because the project did not appear profitable, it was not implemented. The Prussian state, to which Görlitz had belonged since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, initially relied on the expansion of roads and waterways.

As in other regions in Germany, a railway association was established in 1841, the association for the protection of the interests of the city of Görlitz when a railway was built between Breslau and the Elbe . As early as January 7, 1842, the Prussian King granted the Berlin-Frankfurter-Eisenbahngesellschaft the concession for the construction of a line from Breslau via Liegnitz and Bunzlau to Görlitz and on to the Saxon-Prussian border. However, the acquisition of the required share capital failed and the license expired on January 8 of the following year. At the end of 1843 the Lower Silesian-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (NME) received the concession for a railway from Frankfurt (Oder) to Breslau and for a branch line from Kohlfurt to Görlitz. In the same year Prussia and Saxony signed a state treaty to build the railway line from Dresden to Görlitz.

The old train station

The view shows the old Inselbahnhof before its westward extension in 1866 with the two octagonal towers and the cast-iron main entrance on the east side (around 1860). To the right of the station building is the platform of the Saxon-Silesian Railway, to the left that of the Lower Silesian-Märkische Railway.
At that time, the railway lines ran along the southern and eastern city limits.

In the Saxon-Prussian State Treaty, Görlitz was defined as the link between the Saxon-Silesian Railway (SSE) and the Lower Silesian-Märkische Eisenbahn (NME). The initial plans of both companies provided for separate freight and locomotive sheds as well as separate reception buildings. However, this was discarded for reasons of cost. They agreed on a common reception building. The client and contractor was the NME. This may also have been a reason why the main entrance with the two towers pointed in the direction of the railway line to Kohlfurt or at that time also in the direction of the Prussian capital Berlin.

The foundation stone for the fort-like station was laid in 1845. On September 1, 1847, it was officially opened at the same time as both railway lines. The neo-renaissance building stood on a floor space of approx. 41.8 × 16.3 meters and had three floors. Its two octagonal towers on the east side of the reception building, which flanked the main entrance, were striking. Today's Polish train station in Węgliniec (Kohlfurt) is similar to this design. The main exit on the east side led across the forecourt onto Jacobsstrasse. The Jakobstunnel did not exist at that time and the railway line to Kohlfurt crossed Jacobsstraße at the same level.

The station was built on an island . The tracks of the Saxon-Silesian Railway ran south of the building and the Lower Silesian-Märkische Railway to the north. Each railway company had its own locomotive , wagon and goods shed on its station side. The turntables and coal shed were also separate. The Saxon route ended in the east of the reception building at the turntable before Jacobsstrasse. To the west of the reception building, a transfer track connected the two railway lines and enabled the continuous transport of goods between Leipzig and Wroclaw. Travelers had to change trains.

The passengers entered the actual entrance hall through a cast-iron vestibule at the main entrance. The doorman, the police, the ticket office and the baggage claim area were located in it. Passages led from the entrance hall to the north and south platforms and to the rear waiting rooms. The station master's offices and official residence were on the first floor. Other senior station employees lived on the second floor. The houses on Packhofstrasse (today: Berliner Strasse) belonged to low-ranking officials and day laborers. The station was managed and used equally by both railway operators NME and SSE (from 1852 transition to the Prussian and Saxon state railways), although the NME remained the sole owner. For this reason, two different addresses appeared in the address book: NME railway station, An der Jacobsstraße 844 and SSE railway station, Salomonstraße 13 . The joint station administration ended with the conclusion of peace after the German war between Prussia and Austria and its allies. The allies also included the Kingdom of Saxony, which now had to allow Prussia to dictate the terms of peace after the defeat. This included that the station administration was only incumbent on the Prussian State Railway . Since the technical facilities of the Saxon State Railways on the station premises, such as B. Locomotive, freight car and wagon sheds, nevertheless remained under Saxon administration, the Saxon officials kept a small office in the station.

Due to the nearby Saxon border near Reichenbach, Görlitzer Bahnhof was already a border station at that time, at which passport controls were carried out until the establishment of the Empire in 1871.

The station extension from 1867 to 1869

The western extension of the station and the Packhof in the background to the left
The station forecourt with the entrance building on Bahnhofstrasse
left: east side of the
central station : Jakobstunnel
right: the BGE locomotive shed
The old Görlitz train station as seen from Sattigstrasse

Due to the rapidly increasing traffic and the two new railway lines that flow into the station, the Silesian Mountain Railway (Breslau – Waldenburg – Görlitz) and the Berlin-Görlitzer Railway , a station extension was necessary. The level crossings at Blockhaus, Jakobstrasse, Salomonstrasse and Rauschwalder Strasse represented an obstacle to inner-city traffic. At the final conference with members of the municipal authorities and the railways on December 8, 1866, the details of the Remodeling. An important decision for urban traffic was the underpass of Jakobsstrasse under the railway tracks east of the station, as the level crossing was often closed due to frequent shunting and train journeys. The excavated earth mass for the 36-foot wide underpass was used to fill the station area and the Brautwiesendamm. The underpass, popularly known as the Jakobstunnel , was inaugurated on November 19, 1868. At around the same time, a road bridge was built on the block house over the tracks in the direction of the Neisse Viaduct . A narrow underpass between the inner (today Bahnhofstrasse) and outer Bahnhofstrasse (today an extension of Sattigstrasse) was built. It was the forerunner of the Brautwiesentunnel. Other rail-like overpasses, such as B. between Biesnitz communication route (today Melanchthonstrasse) and Salomonstrasse were closed. The construction of an additional tunnel failed because there was no agreement on the route from Salomonstrasse or Krölstrasse.

The integration of the Berlin-Görlitzer Eisenbahn (BGE) also caused difficulties, as it was a private company. This initially planned a separate station building, but later agreed with the Prussian and Saxon state railways on an extension to the existing station building. Since the track areas were to remain separate, the track systems at the station had to be redesigned. The former Saxon station side in the north with its platform was used by the BGE from then on. The Saxon and Prussian state railways shared the south platform. In order to cope with the increased number of passengers, the entrance building was doubled in floor plan to 1700 square meters by an extension. The new central wing, also known as the vestibule , was given a tunnel for people to cross under the tracks to Bahnhofsstraße in an axis with Packhofstraße (today Berliner Straße). The converted station complex was opened on July 31, 1869.

The entrance to the people tunnel on Bahnhofstrasse was given a representative entrance building. A broad staircase led to the reception hall, the walls of which were decorated with the coats of arms of Berlin, Breslau, Cottbus , Dresden, Görlitz and Hirschberg. At night the building and the pedestrian tunnel were illuminated by more than a hundred spherical gas lamps. A five-armed chandelier provided light in the hall. The former main entrance on the east side was locked. There was now the guard room of the post office, which had meanwhile leased the entire eastern wing. To the west, the BGE offices followed on the north side and the offices of the Prussian State Railways on the south side. The baggage handling area was located on the east side of the new vestibule, the ticket offices opposite the staircase and the waiting rooms and a train station restaurant connected to the west side of the vestibule. In the basement there were storage and utility rooms as well as the restaurant kitchen. The station master, senior officials and the station manager lived upstairs. The platforms received corrugated iron roofs. In 1899 the Zittau platform was also roofed. The railway line from Seidenberg was opened on July 1, 1875. The route branching off in Hagenwerder through the Neißetal to Zittau followed on October 15 of the same year.

With the redesign of the station, new goods sheds were built as type buildings, on the outer Bahnhofstrasse (today Sattigstrasse) for the Saxon and Prussian state railways and on the inner Bahnhofstrasse (now Bahnhofstrasse) for the BGE. After the renovation, no more wagon sheds were planned. Only the locomotives were housed in sheds that were newly built for each railway company. Three roundhouse and a turntable each were built. The NME built its locomotive depot on Bahnhofstrasse at the intersection of Konsulstrasse and Schillerstrasse east of the station. The Saxon State Railways built their depot on the route to Dresden in the eastern station apron on Rauschwalder Strasse. The Görlitz depot is still located on this area. The BGE built its locomotive shed on the corner of Bahnhofstrasse and Jakobsstrasse, roughly where the post office is today. The city administration and the residents criticized the building because of the feared noise and pollution in the vicinity of the houses. As a compromise, the BGE made the smoke ventilation chimneys too long.

The rail post office in the reception building soon reached its capacity limits. In 1886, a new one-story rail post office was built on Bahnhofstrasse between the station lobby and the BGE locomotive shed for 29,000 marks. In 1877, on today's Sattigstrasse between Jauernicker Strasse and Melanchthonstrasse, a railway-owned gas station was built to supply the station and the passenger cars with lighting gas . It had its own siding for transporting coal and removing tar via a wagon turntable. The plant remained in operation until June 1913. In addition to these railway technical facilities, municipal facilities were also built in the immediate vicinity of the train station, e.g. For example, the municipal Packhof on Bahnhofstrasse at the corner of Salomonstrasse, which opened on October 1, 1850 with a storage area of ​​2,892 square meters. Since 1834 the city had the Packhofrecht, i.e. the right to set up a warehouse controlled by the customs administration and destined for the defeat of duty-unpaid merchants. Some merchants soon wanted a new packing yard closer to the tracks, which began operations in 1873 as an extension to the Prussian and Austrian customs sheds. At 2,379 square meters, it was smaller than the old Packhof. The storage space was rented with a three-month notice period. During the station renovation between 1906 and 1917, the Packhof had to return to its original location in 1913.

Second conversion from 1906 to 1917

The reception building on Bahnhofstrasse
The station building from the south and the station halls with the glazed staircases and the PKP SU46 007 diesel locomotive leaving

By the turn of the century, the station's capacity was no longer sufficient to handle 112 passenger trains and 72 scheduled freight trains every day. In addition, there were up to 26 special trains on public holidays and during the holiday season as well as 24 freight trains. The greatest bottleneck was the increasing freight traffic, because individual goods handling areas were no longer allowed to be used, such as the free loading tracks on Äussere Bahnhofstrasse, as the shunting departments would have had to cross the main line. Freight traffic should be stopped before the station expansion. There were considerations to expand the suburban station Posottendorf-Leschwitz (today Görlitz-Weinhübel) in the south as a freight station. Because of the difficult terrain, a location near Schlauroth and Rauschwalde was preferred. Construction work on the Schlauroth marshalling yard in the west of the city began in 1906. In 1909 it was opened to traffic.

In the planning phase of this renovation project, too, there were difficulties in reconciling the wishes of the railroad and the municipal authorities. So should z. For example, after the renovation, the baggage tunnel can be used as a passenger tunnel, since, according to the regulations, the staircase had to end in the middle of the platform. The station building would then have been 16 meters to the west. The city architect at the time raised concerns about this, because the main entrance was supposed to be in line with Berliner Straße. In 1907 an agreement was reached on an eastern passenger tunnel and a western luggage tunnel. Other points of criticism from the city were the lack of access to the southern part of the city in Salomonstrasse, a lack of passage for travelers to the southern part of the city and the goods handling facility that was only on the north side. The passage of people to the southern part of the city in the extension of the people tunnel was implemented with the last plan from March 1908. The other changes requested by the city were not implemented due to the operational flow of the station or for financial reasons.

The renovation began with the tracks, especially in the western area of ​​the station. At the barred level crossing on Rauschwalder Strasse, the level of the track was raised so far that the tracks could be led across the street. The Dresden line was relocated to the new southern bridge girder. The train traffic could be maintained during the construction work on today's freight train route to Schlauroth. The southern part of the bridge for the Dresden line was opened on July 1, 1907 and the northern part of the bridge for the freight train line to the Schlaurother freight yard in 1909. In 1911, despite protests, the Berlin line also had to be relocated to the new bridge, which was expanded to two tracks by 1913 . The railway engineers designed the station apron according to the latest aspects of the time. Entrances and exits to all routes should be possible from all platforms . Instead of the loading street on Sattigstraße, a parking area for passenger trains was created. The new loading street and the ramps were laid out on the former BGE site parallel to Bahnhofstraße up to the Brautwiesentunnel. Further unloading points were created on Rauschwalder Strasse above the railway bridge. Most of the three locomotive sheds were also demolished, but a modern depot was opened on the site of the former Saxon locomotive shed . It had a turntable and a transfer table . In 1912, construction work began on the new platforms south of the reception building. Track 14 was given a makeshift platform with an underpass to platform 12. This was called the military platform until 1945 because the military transports were carried out there and the military kitchen was located. Track 13 served as a freight train pass-through and locomotive track. The fourth new platform could only be built in 1917 after the old station building was demolished.

Two traffic houses were built on the northern station forecourt in 1917. The Görlitz Tourist Office initially rented a room in the west, selling flowers and postcards here. An exchange office has been located here since 1922. The eastern house was used by the tram company as a waiting room for the tram stop. The houses fell victim to the redesign of the station forecourt in 1937.

electrification

The eastern approach to the station after electrification in 1923, the Got signal box on the left

At the turn of the 20th century, electric traction was introduced. The Prussian-Hessian State Railroad decided to test it on a flatland route and a mountain route. The choice fell on the Dessau - Bitterfeld line in Central Germany and the Nieder Salzbrunn - Halbstadt line in Silesia. One argument in favor of the Silesian route was the cheap hard coal from the Waldenburg district , which was well suited for generating electricity. The Prussian War Ministry also agreed on the condition that enough operational steam locomotives were available on the route. With the Credit Approval Act for the electrification of the Silesian Mountain Railway , the Prussian state parliament laid the financial basis for electrification on June 30, 1911 . Construction work began in 1912. As early as April 2, 1914, the Mittelsteine ​​power station supplied the first traction current and the electrical test operation between Niedersalzbrunn and Halbstadt could begin. The First World War delayed electrification because the copper was needed for purposes important to the war effort. After the war, the electrified network in Silesia continued to grow and Görlitz was connected via the Königszelt - Lauban line . On September 1, 1923, the first train pulled by an electric locomotive arrived in Görlitz, the express train 192 from Breslau via Hirschberg to Berlin. In Görlitz, continuing trains had to be transferred to the north, south or west, as Görlitz, or later the marshalling yard, was the western end point of the electrified Silesian network. From March 1924, freight trains from the direction of Lauban could run electrically to the Schlauroth marshalling yard.

World War II and post-war period

Since the city was located on an important east-west connection, military transports increasingly rolled through the train station eastwards since the beginning of the war. However, the station was largely spared direct effects of the war. British planes flew over the city as early as August 1940 and bombed various targets, but the station was not one of them. It was not until February 20, 1945 at 11:47 a.m. that Soviet front-line aircraft attacked the station, leaving only minor damage: a bomb tore a hole in the roof and wall of the locomotive shed of the neighboring Görlitz depot . The plant had its own air raid shelter . When there was an air raid alarm, other station employees went to the public air raid shelter at the south exit below the St. James' Cathedral .

The approaching front forced the administration of the Reichsbahndirektion Breslau to evacuate the offices. In the early morning of January 27, 1945, the President of the Reich Railway Directorate and his special staff arrived in Görlitz with a command train. Until the Soviet Army closed the ring around the fortress of Wroclaw , a multiple unit train ran daily between the two cities by courier. The train was only reserved for people with a courier ID. In mid-February 1945, the management staff began to move to Erfurt.

There were cuts in operations, especially in the electrical operation on the Silesian Mountain Railway towards the end of the war, where a mixed operation with steam and electric locomotives was carried out again. In February 1945, the Lauban substation was badly damaged during the Soviet advance on the city . The contact line systems were also affected. With the recapture of Lauban by Wehrmacht units on March 9, 1945, operations on the Görlitz – Lauban line were briefly resumed. However, electrical operation was no longer possible due to the destroyed power supply. The remaining running electric locomotives were also transferred to the west in order to bring them to safety from the advancing Red Army . The demolition of the Neisse Viaduct on May 7, 1945 meant the end of electrical operation on the line towards Hirschberg. Three arches of the viaduct collapsed. The catenary was also interrupted. Until the end of 1945 the tracks hung between the two bridge fragments and served refugees from the east to flee to the west side of the Neisse. The currentless overhead line between the viaduct and the Schlauroth marshalling yard was dismantled in autumn 1945. The catenary masts, however, were either given a new function or fell victim to the scrapping campaign between 1968 and 1970. Some masts were used as loading gauges or were used as lighting masts at the western exit until 2011.

On May 8, 1945, the Red Army occupied the city and also took control of the station. Under the city commandant, Colonel Guard Ilyich Nesterov, a Soviet station command was set up which controlled and steered the traffic around the station until mid-August 1945. After the Blasting of the Neisse Viaduct and all other Neisse bridges on the lines to Seidenberg and Zittau in the south, the blown-up Löbauer Viaduct in the west and the line to Cottbus destroyed by the Red Army's Neisse offensive in the north near Kodersdorf , the station was completely isolated. On July 23, 1945 two pairs of trains ran again to Horka, north of Görlitz . Two days later it was possible to drive to Weißwasser again. On August 6, 1945, the shuttle service between Löbau Ost , a provisional stopping point at the eastern bridgehead of the Löbauer Viaduct, and Görlitz was resumed. After the Löbauer and Bautzner Viaducts were provisionally passable again, the first passenger train ran from Görlitz to Dresden-Neustadt on November 10, 1945 . The first train connection to and from Zittau started on September 9, 1945. The Neißetalbahn was thus the first railway line from Görlitz that was continuously passable again. In the following year, the Polish administration closed the sections of the route on their territory to through traffic. Shuttle traffic has now started between Görlitz and Hagenwerder.

During the reconstruction up to and including 1946, the Soviet Union had the second track on all lines that flow into the station and also the station tracks dismantled and the material recovered as a reparation payment .

With an order from the Soviet military administration on August 11, 1945, the railway operations were returned to the German authorities. The station no longer belonged to the Reichsbahndirektion Breslau , but has been under the Reichsbahndirektion Dresden since then . Even when the Reichsbahndirektion Cottbus was founded in 1946, the station initially remained under Dresden administration.

GDR era and political change

A Tatra car of the Görlitz tram in front of the graying railway post office, 1992

With a restructuring on January 1, 1955, the station came to the Cottbus administrative district; he stayed there until the management was dissolved in October 1990. In the 1950s, rail traffic in all directions took place again. Since July 1, 1948, the trains of the Görlitzer Kreisbahn also ended in Görlitzer Bahnhof. Previously, the trains only ran to the Görlitz West district station on Rauschwalder Strasse.

Even during the GDR era, the station was of great importance in long-distance and local transport. In 1952, Polish workers began to rebuild the Neisse Viaduct. The basis for this was the Görlitz Agreement , concluded in 1950 , in which the GDR and the People's Republic of Poland recognized the Oder-Neisse border as the state border between the two states. Cross-border travel to the “socialist brother country” - the People's Republic of Poland - via the rebuilt Neisse Viaduct was ceremoniously started on May 22, 1957. For this purpose, platform IV with tracks 11 and 12 was lengthened and in 1957/1958 a border customs building was built on the west side of the platform by the Hochbaumeisterei (Hbm) Görlitz. In the middle of the platform, a metal fence should make it impossible to cross the border without controls. German border officials and customs officers checked the trains directly on the platform. In the 1960s up to six pairs of international passenger trains stopped in Görlitz every day. The change of locomotives and staff on the trains took place until the last locomotive-hauled cross-border interregional train pairs were discontinued on December 11, 2004 at Görlitz station.

In 1956, with the allocation of wired glass, the damage to the platform hall caused by the war was repaired. From 1985 onwards, microelectronics took hold . All signal boxes, shunting locomotives and all the shunting personnel were equipped with radio technology. The ticket issuance received a computer-assisted ticket printer and access to the electronic reservation system. The first ticket machines with interactive operation also came to the station. With the political change in eastern Germany in 1989, a strong rush for trains to Berlin and the Federal Republic began. From 1991 the number of travelers fell sharply, as more and more citizens preferred private transport.

View of the storage group with the steam locomotive 18 201 ; on the right the large-scale washing plant GWA-4

In 1963/1964, the employees in the technical systems department of the Löbau railroad car depot built the GWA-4 large-scale washing system in the eastern parking area of ​​the station. It was the only stationary outdoor cleaning system in the entire Cottbus Reich Railway Directorate. The car cleaning staff had been housed in the social building on the east side of the station since 1945. In the following years, the employees of the technical systems department also created the compressed air supply (1968) and the chimney for the preheating system (1981) of the station. Since 1953, the wagon masters were no longer part of the local depot. From now on they formed the independent car maintenance post in Görlitz in the technical car service department of the Bww Löbau. The service rooms were initially located in the building next to the station water tower. Later, the employees moved to an expanded building at the west end of platform III between tracks 9 and 10. In the beginning, one wagon master per shift was sufficient, but as a result of the increased passenger and freight train traffic, the manning was increased to three wagon masters per shift from 1966 . The duties of the wagon master included checking the technical condition of the coaches and freight wagons, the brake test and the brake tests. The checking of excess loading dimensions and accident investigations were also part of the duties of the wagon maintenance post. Five years after the start of cross-border traffic to Poland, a wagon border post was set up in Görlitz in 1962, which was responsible for registering incoming and outgoing freight wagons and accounting for wagon rents. At the beginning of the 1970s, Görlitz was home to three train sets for cross-border traffic. Initially, new wagons from VEB Waggonbau Bautzen were used for this purpose, which were replaced at the end of the 1970s by wagons from the new construction program of the Reichsbahn repair shop in Halberstadt . They ran from Görlitz to the West German terminus in Frankfurt am Main , Cologne , Munich and Stuttgart . Furthermore, the handling of six cross-border passenger trains as well as four freight trains to and from Poland and 66 passenger trains in domestic traffic was planned.

Although steam traction was officially given up on the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1988, steam locomotives of the classes 52.80 and 50 could still be observed at the station until the beginning of 1990 . They were used to preheat passenger trains until the introduction of an electric train preheating system.

Development from 1990

View of the Jakobstunnel. The southern part of the underpass was rebuilt. The northern part was demolished.

On November 22, 1991, the first station mission of the new federal states was opened at Görlitzer Bahnhof after it had been closed in the GDR in the 1950s. Until 1995 it was housed in a construction trailer and then moved into rooms at the south exit. For the first time a predecessor organization of today's station mission offered its auxiliary services around the turn of the century in Görlitz. This made the city one of the first in Germany to have such a facility.

After reunification, the station lost its importance. In 1993 the goods handling facility was closed, and the rail post office two years later. In the mid-1990s, extensive reconstruction of the track system began. The outer platform with tracks 3 and 4, most recently used mainly by the trains in the direction of Zittau, was abandoned in 2000. Tracks 7 and 8 were used for the Zittau railway line. The redesign of the eastern track field made it possible to demolish the northern part of the Jakobstunnel and to replace the southern part, over which all tracks running eastwards, with a new building. Since the Görlitz electronic signal box (ESTW) went into operation on June 25, 2000, the points and signals have been controlled from the operations center in Leipzig. The local signal boxes lost their function and were demolished in the first half of 2004 with the exception of the B5 equestrian signal box in the western track apron. In October 2009, construction work began on installing the passenger elevators from the passenger tunnel up to platforms II (tracks 7 and 8) and IV (tracks 11 and 12). The installation cost 1.3 million euros and was completed in September 2010. At the same time, the doors of the reception hall to the people tunnel and the station forecourt were equipped with automatic door openers.

In 2012, the platform roofing of Platform II at the eastern end behind the elevator to the Post Tunnel was dismantled. The platform on track 8 and on stump track 31 was once used to load mail. The stairs from the passenger tunnel to the open-air platform were also closed. A gate had already prevented access from the stairs to the platform in the years before.

On March 25, 2013, shooting for the film for the book “ Die Bücherdiebin ” took place in the station concourse. For this purpose, platform II with tracks 7 and 8 was closed to traffic. The platform was for this purpose with historical props , such as B. wooden benches and swastika flags and transformed into the train station of the fictional Roman town of Molching in the 1930s. The platform was flanked on both sides by two historic, steam locomotive-hauled passenger trains with so-called blunderbusses .

With the change of operator in the East Saxon network from DB Regio to Vogtlandbahn (today "Die Länderbahn", brand Trilex ) in December 2014, the Deutsche Bahn ticket machines were dismantled in the entire ZVON area, including at Görlitz station. However, the travel center of Deutsche Bahn was retained. In March 2015, Deutsche Bahn had the washing facility on the eastern parking area demolished and 200 m of track removed. In addition, six points were renewed and two completely expanded.

Due to a special permit, Polish locomotives without the German PZB 90 train control system have been allowed to enter Görlitz station since the end of 2015 . However, according to press reports, a German-speaking pilot is required for the section between Zgorzelec and Görlitz. Since the timetable change on December 13, 2015, in addition to the up to three daily train pairs of the Dresden-Wrocław-Express, four train pairs of the Polish rail transport company Koleje Dolnośląskie have been running between Jelenia Góra and Węgliniec.

On September 16, 2017, Deutsche Bahn held a station festival on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the station building. Among others, the Länderbahn, the East German Railway, Bombardier Transportation and the East Saxon Railway Friends exhibited vehicles. The baggage tunnel could also be visited, there was a reading and exhibitions.

future

The station is to be extensively renovated and modernized; the period from 2016 to 2020 was originally planned for this. The reception hall is to be renovated and made lighter, and the south exit is to be converted to make it barrier-free. The platform on tracks 9 and 10 will also have a lift to the passenger tunnel. In March 2013, the first discussions about the renovation work took place between the Verkehrsverbund Oberlausitz-Niederschlesien (ZVON) and Deutsche Bahn. However, the exact scope and financing of the work were still unclear at this point in time. According to estimates by the transport association, the investment costs are in the low double-digit millions. In January 2017 it became known that Deutsche Bahn was putting out tenders for the work on the station concourse. This includes the repair of all steel components, the renewal of the foundations, the drainage and roofing with glazing. The start of construction was meanwhile planned for 2020 and should take around two years. The plans for an elevator to tracks 9 and 10 should be tendered separately. Deutsche Bahn is now assuming that construction to modernize the roof, the window area and the lighting will start in the fourth quarter of 2021.

While the line coming from Poland has been electrified to the border on the Neißeviadukt since 2019, around one kilometer is missing on the German side to the Görlitz station, so that electric trains from Poland still cannot reach the station. A schedule for electrifying this gap does not yet exist (as of May 2020), which has been widely criticized.

German and Polish representatives met on May 30, 2018 in Görlitz for a technical discussion on the electrification of the Görlitz train station. Participants included a. the Saxon State Secretary Hartmut Mangold , the deputy head of department in the Ministry of Infrastructure of the Republic of Poland, the Görlitz Mayor Siegfried Deinege and the Bundestag member Stephan Kühn . The Polish representative pointed to the completion of the electrification of the route from Węgliniec to Zgorzelec by December 2019 and the fact that the Dresden-Wrocław Express will probably have to change trains in Zgorzelec from this date. The electrification gap between Zgorzelec and Görlitz - “the natural goal of electrification” - also stands in the way of the intercity train pair Warsaw – Görlitz planned by the Polish Ministry of Transport. The implementation period of ten years would also not correspond to the importance of this project. The Lord Mayor of Görlitz, the Bundestag member Kühn and the Free State of Saxony as well as the Dolny Sląsk Voivodeship called for a clear commitment to the connection of East Saxony to the electrified rail network.

Due to the lack of prospects for the electrification of the route by the federal government, the Free State of Saxony is now financing the necessary preliminary planning and subsoil investigations. Specifically, it is planned to put the outer platform for tracks 3 and 4 back into operation and to electrify these and tracks 7 and 8 with the Polish power system (3 kV DC voltage). Tracks 9 to 13 are to be electrified with the German AC system. Short system separation points are planned at the eastern end of track 9 and at the western ends of tracks 3 and 8. The replacement of the dilapidated blockhouse road bridge over the Zgorzelec route is planned for 2021; the associated clearance expansion is mentioned as a prerequisite for the electrification of the route.

Buildings

Reception building

View towards the west side of the reception hall with the octagonal station clock and the two impressive ceiling lights

The exterior of the entrance building designed by architect Alexander Rüdell and government builder Gotthard Eckert is based on the former entrance building of Dortmund's main train station . It was inaugurated on September 6, 1917 and cost 600,000 marks. The clock tower sits enthroned on the roof, which is 38.4 meters high to the top and whose dials, pointing north and south, measure 1.85 meters. The tower's platform rises 32 meters above street level. The main hall with its 13.4 meter high barrel vault is the focal point of the station. Daylight falls into the hall through five large hall windows on the north and south sides. The windows on the south side used to be decorated with the coats of arms of Görlitz, Silesia and Upper Lusatia and those on the north side with the coats of arms of Germany, Prussia and Saxony. During the restoration of the hall windows in 1993, the city coats of arms of the cities of the Upper Lusatian Six Cities Association were embedded in the windows . In 1984 the building was placed under a preservation order and the reception hall returned to its original state. After the fall of the Wall in 1991, the toilets were brought up to date; In 1993 a modern travel center was established.

In the reception hall there are some retailers, a Deutsche Bahn travel center with two counters, a car rental company and a small information center. The former southern waiting room will be named Gleis 1 for cultural events, u. a. Readings or celebrations. Initially there were two separate waiting rooms for passengers in 1st and 2nd as well as 3rd and 4th  carriage classes . The waiting room for the 3rd and 4th grade had the rustic character of a farmhouse parlor with a coarse, green-stained wood paneling. The wooden chandelier was decorated with a carved station porter, a servant, a traveling salesman and a woman from the Spree Forest. Above a wall fountain made of clay was the slogan: Confident of Germany's victory, construction took place here despite hardship and war. The saying refers to the First World War when the station building was built. The waiting room for 1st and 2nd class had red-stained wall paneling, lots of jewelry, painted windows and stylish lights.

When it opened, the ticket office was in the middle of the south side of the hall, as can be read above the doors of the newspaper shop. After the fall of the Wall, the travel center was set up there, which later moved to the sales rooms on the north side.

In 1954 the central main entrance was partially closed, from 1958 completely closed. The two side entrances serve as the main entrances to the hall. In 1958, the octagonal hall clock was scrapped and the container structures to the north of the hall for the exchange office of the state bank and a kiosk were built. During the preservation work in the station hall in 1985, a new hall clock in the old style was installed. Roofs and facades were renovated in the city only after the fall of the Wall in 1993 in the run-up to the Saxon Day and cost a total of 5.8 million marks.

Station concourse, platforms and passenger tunnels

View in east direction of platform IV with waiting room and platforms 11 and 12

The fact that the Görlitzer Bahnhof has a station hall is thanks to the Hertzog city council. First of all, each platform should be provided with a separate platform roof. Hertzog took the opinion of the ministry that under the local wind conditions weak and elderly travelers could be caught in a gust of wind and thrown onto the tracks. An agreement was reached on the roofing of the four southern tracks. In the beginning there was only a two-aisled hall. However, the city approved a grant of 60,000 marks in order to be able to add another ship. The completion of the hall construction was planned for 1914. However, the date could not be kept because of the First World War. The southern two halls were completed in 1916. Since platform III was heavily frequented by military trains, the entire hall could not be handed over until 1917.

View from the edge of the platform on track 7 of the outer platform

The three-aisled station hall spans platforms II to IV with tracks 7 to 12. Only platform I with tracks 3 and 4 is outside the platform hall and has a separate platform roof. This platform was closed in June 2000. Tracks 3 and 4 were dismantled in April 2006, so the platform can no longer be used for passenger traffic.

The station now has six operating platform tracks, tracks 7 to 12. The numbers of tracks 1 and 2 as well as 5 and 6 do not appear on the track displays. These tracks, which were allocated for shunting and transit, were located between the outer platform and the station concourse or the reception building. Track 6 has probably already fallen victim to Soviet reparation claims. It extended the second track from the marshalling yard and repair shop in Schlauroth.

Access from the reception hall to the pedestrian underpass
South exit on Sattigstrasse with a tram stop

In September 2010, a lift was opened from the passenger tunnel up to the platform platform on the platforms of tracks 11/12 and 7/8. The platform on tracks 9/10 has had an inclined stair lift for a long time . During the construction of the elevator on the east side of the pedestrian tunnel, the two outer double doors from the pedestrian tunnel to the main hall and the two doors on the east side from the main hall to the station forecourt were equipped with electric door openers. The pedestrian tunnel leads from the station hall past the platform entrances to the so-called south exit, a small building that protects the 21 steps leading east and west to Sattigstrasse from the weather. In the middle of the building there are offices at street level. The passenger tunnel is nine meters wide, but narrows to four meters on the southern section between the entrance to the platform of tracks 11/12 and the southern exit. The underpass is 2½ meters high. In the middle of the pedestrian tunnel opposite the stairs to the platforms there was a medical room of the German Red Cross until 1962 . In 1962, an Intershop moved into these rooms , which, however , moved into the reception building with Mitropa in 1970 . In the meantime there was a bistro in the former medical room , today the service rooms of the East German Railway (ODEG) are housed there.

The postal tunnel runs east parallel to the passenger tunnel. It is three and a half meters wide, begins in the post office and leads south to the platforms. Five elevators connect the Post Tunnel with platforms I, II and IV as well as the supply platforms between tracks 8 and 9 as well as 10 and 11. To the west of the passenger tunnel is the baggage tunnel. It is four and a half meters wide and leads from the reception building to the express goods shed on Sattigstrasse. Elevators also lead from the baggage tunnel to the platforms.

A platform ticket was required to use the pedestrian tunnel . In three passimeter cabins on the reception building and two on the south side, also known as bathtubs because of their appearance , railway officials collected the fee for the tickets. In 1920 they cost 20 pfennigs. The price rose to one mark in 1922 and, as a result of inflation, the price increased a thousandfold. During the Second World War, the tunnel could be passed free of charge because it led directly to the air raid shelter on Sattigplatz. However, a chain link fence was set up in the middle of the tunnel, which blocked pedestrians from accessing the platforms. The fence existed until around 1960.

The following table lists the platform tracks of the station and assigns them, among other things. a. the formerly common platform number, its usable length, its platform height and the main destinations served (2010 and before 1945).

Platforms
track former
platform no.		 place Usable length
(in m)		 Platform height
(in cm)		 Current usage Original usage
3 I. Open platform - - currently no use from / to Zittau and Seidenberg
4th I. Open platform - - currently no use from / to Zittau and Seidenberg
7th II Station concourse 287 55 from Cottbus / to Zittau from / to Berlin and Hirschberg
8th II Station concourse 343 55 from Zittau / to Cottbus from / to Berlin and Hirschberg
9 III Station concourse 324 55 from / to Hoyerswerda and Bischofswerda from / to Dresden and Breslau
10 III Station concourse 324 55 to Breslau and from / to Bischofswerda from / to Dresden and Breslau
11 IV Station concourse 385 55 from / to Dresden from / to Kohlfurt (local traffic) and Hirschberg
12 IV Station concourse 385 55 from / to Dresden from / to Kohlfurt (local traffic) and Hirschberg

Railway Post Office

The railway post office forms the eastern wing of the station complex.

As early as September 15, 1847, the post office opened a branch in what was then the station building. Their main task was to exchange mail between NME and SSE. The office was closed in 1850 due to insufficient mail volume and reopened on December 1, 1863. The post office now used the entire eastern wing of the old reception building. During the German war between Prussia and Austria and Saxony as an Austrian ally, the border post office ceased its service until January 1, 1869. After German unification in 1871, the now imperial received Reichspostamt the official name on April 1, Goerlitz 3 . The strong population increase in the residential areas around the train station required larger premises. The post office built its own domicile between the station building and the BGE locomotive shed for 29,000 marks. This building also had to give way to the new station building in 1913. On May 15, 1915, the main post office 1 was opened after about two years of construction despite the outbreak of war in 1914. It was one of the first new buildings in the station complex on Bahnhofsstraße and cost the post office more than 660,000 marks from the purchase of the property to the completed building. There are wrought iron bars on the building with pictures from postal history. The office of the post director was next to the counter on the first floor. His living quarters were on the first floor, where the postman's room, the debiting room and the rooms for the chiefs of the postman, the money postman and the postal order clearing office were. On the second floor there were large storage rooms and other service apartments for low-duty officials. In total, the former railway post office has a net floor area of 4028 square meters.

Gable and tower of the railway post office
The six scenes from postal history on the window bars

In the gable triangle of the central risalit there is a relief of an eagle over which a crown towers. This was the insignia of the Imperial Postal Service . The eagle is flanked by three waving flags on each side, an iron cross above and oak leaves below. This is supposed to remind of the time it was made during the First World War. Under the three windows of the gable the inscription "Post Office" was once to be read. However, the lettering is currently hidden by the Deutsche Post logo . The windows on the first floor are decorated with bars. Typical scenes from postal history are depicted on six grids at the height of the skylights. They come from the Görlitz master locksmith Kalle. The large letters above the three street-side entrances marked the various halls and counters. Entrance A led to the post office hall and entrance C to the parcel counter hall. Entrance B again led to the mail sorting room and administration offices.

The pneumatic tube system operated by compressed air was a curiosity . The brass pipes led from the station post office to the post office on Postplatz in the city center. The system is no longer operational. The post also had its own post tunnel east of the passenger tunnel. Two platforms still have elevators from 1914 at their eastern end. The other three elevators were renewed in 1957. The rail post office was closed on December 30, 1995.

The former railway post office was sold in 2008 by Deutsche Post to a Luxembourg investment fund , which resold the building, including the 3,613 square meter property, to Senioren-Wohnen Görlitz in 2015 . The company would like to set up 33 small rental apartments with a size between approx. 30 and 75 square meters and a service facility with a supervisor in the former post office. The first apartments should be completed in spring 2019.

Administration building

The administration building forms the western wing of the station complex.

The administration building in the same style adjoins the reception building to the west. However, the western part of the building is in contrast to the reception building directly on Bahnhofstrasse. The eastern part is set back a few meters in one axis with the reception building. After completion, it was the seat of the works offices I and II - later the Reichsbahnamt Görlitz I and Reichsbahnamt Görlitz II . The operation Office II moved to the consul Straße 57 1918th The machine office and the traffic office moved into the house from Krölstrasse 45. The Reichsbahnämter were the administrative middle authorities of the Reichsbahndirektion Breslau. The Görlitz station, the Schlauroth marshalling yard, the railway maintenance depots I and II and the office I were subordinate to the Reichsbahnamt I. The National Railroad Office II were under the Bahnmeisterei Moys that Bahnbetriebswerke Görlitz and Schlauroth and the Office II. The office was also responsible for the station office, the ticket office as well as the baggage and freight handling. After the dissolution of the Reichsbahndirektion Breslau as a result of the Second World War, the Görlitz station became part of the Reichsbahndirektion Dresden . The Reichsbahnamt Görlitz I and II were dissolved and the offices previously subordinated to the Reichsbahnamt Bautzen.

After the reunification, a branch of Sparda-Bank Berlin moved into the building for a short time . Today the building houses a branch of DB Services Südost and non-rail commercial tenants.

Cargo handling

The loading line of the goods handling near the Bahnhofsstraße

At the location of the former NME freight shed on the south side of the platform hall behind the through tracks, a freight shed for express goods was built after the second station redesign. He had an underground connection to the express goods acceptance in the reception building. Companies from the south of the city wanted loading facilities on the south side, but this was refused for operational reasons. They were put off to the early expansion of the suburban train station in Posottendorf-Leschwitz into a freight yard.

In 1906 a two-part goods shed with a separate receiving and dispatch part was planned on Bahnhofstrasse, but the pressure from the Görlitz companies, who wanted suitable storage space near the train station, was given in. Storage rooms with 18 loading hatches were created between the receiving and shipping parts. The eastern end was formed by the two-storey goods clearance building, the western end by the customs clearance with customs shed. Other buildings were the smaller storage shed u. a. for military equipment and the Austrian customs as well as the lounge of the shunting personnel. A loading gantry crane as well as road and track scales were also available on the site. There were individual loading ramps for wood, furniture and cattle on Rauschwalder Strasse. The freight yard and the loading streets took up almost the entire area between the tracks of the Dresden line, Bahnhofstrasse, Brautwiesenplatz and Rauschwalder Strasse. In 1988 the Tatra KT4 D were unloaded at the furniture loading ramp for city tram operation and transferred to the tram route on Rauschwalder Straße via a temporary narrow-gauge track. After 80 years of operation, the freight yard was closed on December 31, 1993. The freight hub for East Saxony was Bautzen from 1994 onwards.

Signal boxes

View from Lutherstrasse to the side of the command signal box B5 facing away from the track

All points in the station were locally operated until the station was rebuilt for the second time. There were more than 20 turnout booths for the manual turnout keepers. After the signal boxes were built, they disappeared except for a few in low-traffic shunting areas. The remaining points were operated remotely with electric drives. Up until the 1960s, the Görlitz train station was regarded by the Friedrich List University of Transportation in Dresden as a prime example of efficient operations.

The dispatcher worked in the command control center Gt (from 1960: B5 ) west of the station hall and controlled all train journeys from there. In the abbreviation Gt , the G stands for Görlitz and the t for tower. Any letter in between indicates the direction of the signal box. The signal boxes Gt and Got (from 1960: W2 ) are so-called equestrian signal boxes , i.e. H. they span one or more tracks with their bridge-like signal box. The signal box B5 spanned tracks 13 and 14. The signal box W2 crossed under the tracks 15 and 16 at the eastern exit to the parking group. Further signal boxes were located north of the open platform between tracks 1 and 2 (signal box  W3 ) and on the Dresden line west of the Branch to the Görlitz depot (signal box  W8 ). All signal boxes were electromechanical signal boxes of the Siemens & Halske design .

When the signal boxes were renamed in 1960, the direction-related names of the signal boxes were replaced by an abbreviation for their function and a serial number. The numbering of the signal boxes began in the east and ran continuously to the west. The command signal box was the abbreviation  B and guards interlocking the abbreviation  W . The Handweichen- and barriers items were given the abbreviation  R . R1  was located south of track 21 in the eastern parking group and was thus the easternmost parking post. The parking post R4 was responsible for the barrier at W3 and the control yard . Signal box  post R6 was located on the southwest freight tracks and was responsible for the tracks to the loading streets and storage areas on Rauschwalder Straße. These items had already been out of service for a number of years in 2004. Only posts R7 and R9 were still in operation in 2004. R7  was assigned to the turntable of the depot and R9 to the switches in the area of ​​the depot.

In 1993 the facade of the B5 command station was renovated and the roof was re-covered. The gravity heating was also replaced by gas heating . 1995 began planning for an electronic signal box (ESTW), u. a. as the Federal Railway Authority (EBA) only granted interlocking technology a limited operating permit with conditions. Construction work began in 1998. After the Görlitz electronic interlocking went into operation on June 25, 2000, the previous interlockings were demolished in the first half of 2004. Only the former command signal box B5 (Gt) remained in the changed station image. In autumn 2008 there were a maximum of nine tracks next to each other in the station, which were connected by 30 electrically operated points.

Water tower

The water tower on Sattigstrasse. The neighboring building was once the seat of the car master’s post in Görlitz .
The locomobile in the building on the Neisse Island pumped water at station level for several years

The water tower on Sattigstraße at the junction with Melanchthonstraße comes from the second phase of renovation of the station area. It was built in 1913 and held 200 cubic meters of water. The stored water was used both to fill the steam locomotives using the water cranes and to supply the entire station area with water. The supply to the water cranes was via pipes with a diameter of 20 centimeters. At the western end of the platform track 7 there is still a water crane.

Until 1903 a locomobile pumped Neisse water at station level and supplied the steam locomotives with heating water. The pumping station was located near the viaduct in a two-story brick building with a magnificent wooden roof structure. In a flat annex there were two furnaces with one boiler each. The exhaust gases were discharged through a long chimney on the side of the one-story extension. The steam drove the pistons, which in turn started the piston pumps via a crank drive.

The tower at the station was fed by the 300 cubic meter water tower in Schlauroth. This in turn also supplied the railway facilities there, including the Schlauroth depot (later: Görlitz repair shop) and the marshalling yard. The water pipeline ran from the higher Schlaurother water tower along the Görlitz – Dresden railway line to the water tower at the western exit of the station. The Schlaurother water tower was in turn fed by three wells, the pumps of which were regulated by a water attendant. He could read the fill level and adjust the pump output accordingly. In the event of a failure of the railway's own water management, the station area could also be supplied via the public ring line. The daily water consumption was between 800 and 1000 cubic meters.

With the construction of a water treatment plant, the water could finally be treated chemically in order to prevent the formation of scale on the boiler walls of the locomotives. With the cessation of the steam traction, the water consumption dropped drastically.

Function of the traffic structure

and display information about the image
Track plan of the station (as of July 1, 2011)

Railway lines

The west exit of the station with the former command signal box B5 (formerly Gt ) and two Siemens Desiro railcars (left: DB Regio Südost , right: East German Railway)

The following five railway lines meet in Görlitz: Berlin - Görlitz , Görlitz - Dresden , Görlitz - Hagenwerder (- Zittau) , Węgliniec (formerly Kohlfurt) - Görlitz and Wałbrzych (formerly Waldenburg-Dittersbach) - Görlitz (Silesian Mountain Railway) . The two last-mentioned routes already merge west of the Zgorzelec train station (formerly Görlitz-Moys train station ) in front of the Neißeviadukt, then run together over the viaduct and have been on Polish territory since the end of the war in 1945. According to the German line section between the viaduct and the train station, the line from Węgliniec flows into Görlitz and thus follows the line from before the war. After the re-kilometering after the war on the Polish side, however, the Silesian Mountain Railway runs to the viaduct and not the Węgliniecer route.

The line from Zittau - Hagenwerder also joins the eastern station apron after it has crossed the line from Zgorzelec through the blockhouse tunnel. In the western area, the lines from Berlin and Dresden unite at about the level of the underpass of Rauschwalder Straße. Passenger traffic on the Görlitzer Kreisbahn to Königshain was stopped on May 22, 1993 and the line closed on December 31, 1994. After dismantling the tracks and sleepers, a cycle path was opened on April 30, 2009 on the former embankment.

On the Görlitz – Seidenberg railway line , only individual sections of the route are used. After the Neißebrücke south of Hagenwerder was blown up, no through traffic was possible. The void was never closed. The branch remaining on the German side to Hagenwerder station is also used by the trains on the route from Görlitz to Zittau . The second track to Hagenwerder, which was dismantled after the Second World War, never got the line back due to the lower utilization. Since the end of the war between Cottbus and Görlitz, the once double-track railway line to Berlin has only been accessible on a single track.

passenger traffic

When the station opened on September 1, 1847, four pairs of trains ran daily from Görlitz to Dresden and Kohlfurt. About five years later, the number of continuous passenger train connections rose to five in each direction. A little later in 1854 the first express train connection to Dresden followed. With the opening of the Berlin-Görlitzer Railway in 1867, two passenger and a mixed pair of trains were added to Berlin. Another strong increase in passenger traffic came with the opening of the lines to Seidenberg and Zittau in 1875. Initially, four pairs of passenger trains ran to Seidenberg and five to Zittau. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, one pair of express trains was already running to Breslau and Hirschberg, as well as two pairs of express trains to Berlin and three to Dresden.

The 1920s and 1930s were the station's heyday. Six pairs of express trains, two pairs of express trains and 14 pairs of passenger trains drove daily via Kohlfurt, for the most part to Wroclaw, seven pairs of express trains, two pairs of express trains and nine pairs of passenger trains to Dresden, two pairs of express trains, four pairs of express trains and nine pairs of passenger trains to Berlin as well as a maximum of seven passenger trains to Seidenberg or Zittau. An express train between Berlin and Vienna, the D 293, also stopped in Görlitz, as did the winter sports trains to the Giant Mountains , the tourist trains to Oberschreiberhau and the so-called bath trains from Berlin to Bad Kudowa . During the Second World War, the number of train connections on some routes fell by almost half.

After the war, rail traffic quickly started up again due to the severe damage. Initially, there were only a few pairs of trains, but the numbers for train connections soon stabilized at a higher level. In the 1960s and 1970s, up to six pairs of cross-border express trains ran to and from Poland, three pairs of express trains, three pairs of express trains, and three pairs of express trains, and three pairs of express trains, one express train and four pairs of trains going through to Dresden. Overall, however, the numbers were far below those of the pre-war years. Passenger trains on the cross-border routes since the end of the war were not reintroduced. Even to Zittau, only five pairs of passenger trains ran through the Neisse valley. However, other trains to Zittau ran via Löbau and Ebersbach .

Koleje Dolnośląskie railcars in the station concourse

After the fall of the Wall, most express train connections were converted into interregional connections . The Interregios ran to Dresden every two hours and in the 1990s there were also interregional connections to Aachen , Berlin, Erfurt , Karlsruhe , Kassel , Kiel , Hanover , Rostock , Oberstdorf im Allgäu or Wilhelmshaven . From the era of express trains, only the pairs of trains D 450/451 and D 452/453 remained on the Warsaw  - Wroclaw - Görlitz - Leipzig  - Frankfurt am Main  - Saarbrücken  - Paris route and, for a short time, the pair of trains D 2352/2353 from Zittau via Görlitz to Rostock exist, on the other hand, for example, the long-standing express train connection to Cologne via Hanover was discontinued. But the time of interregional connections also ended with the 2000/2001 timetable. The two-hour interregional connections to Dresden have been replaced by five regional express trains hauled by locomotives, other connections have been canceled without replacement. The three remaining pairs of interregional trains Dresden - Görlitz - Breslau were given a brief delay in abolishing the interregional line in Germany. On December 11, 2004, the last interregional trains between Dresden and Breslau were also discontinued. In addition to a pair of InterCity trains from Görlitz to Nuremberg, they were the last three long-distance train pairs with a stop in the Neisse city. Until March 1, 2009, only the Polish State Railways provided cross-border passenger traffic. However, the trains all began and ended in Görlitz. In March 2009 the Dresden-Wrocław-Express went into operation. He connected the Saxon state capital with the Lower Silesian voivodeship capital. With the timetable change on December 9, 2012, the three pairs of trains on the regional express line 100 to Wroclaw were canceled. For this purpose, three pairs of trains on regional express line 1 were extended to Wroclaw. After six years, the connection was discontinued on March 1, 2015 due to government funding cuts to the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office. With the timetable change in December 2015, the through trains to Wroclaw were offered again. Some Polish regional trains, which previously only went to Zgorzelec , have since been tied through to Görlitz. On February 3, 2018, the Polish railway company Przewozy Regionalne started the new rail connection from Görlitz to Zielona Góra (Grünberg) .

Since the timetable change in December 2014, the regional train and regional express lines to Dresden have been operated by Vogtlandbahn under the name Trilex . It won the tender for the East Saxony network. With the timetable change in December 2019, the 120 minute intervals on regional express line 1 were reduced to 60 minutes. However, some trains only run to Bischofswerda, where they offer a direct connection to regional express line 2 from Zittau to Dresden. With the timetable change and the start of electrical operation on the Polish route between Węgliniec and Zgorzelec, the regional express trains to Węgliniec were no longer connected. For this purpose, a larger number of regional express trains or some regional trains are now connected to Zgorzelec and offer connections to the trains to Wroclaw.

line Line course Cycle (min) EVU
RE1 ( Dresden Hbf  ) - Bischofswerda  - Bautzen  - Löbau (Sachs)  - Görlitz (-  Zgorzelec ) 060 Trilex
RB60 Dresden Hbf - Bischofswerda - Bautzen - Löbau (Sachs) - Görlitz (-  Zgorzelec ) 120 Trilex
RB64 Görlitz - Niesky - Hoyerswerda 120 ODEG
RB65 Cottbus central station - Weißwasser (Upper Lusatia) - Görlitz  - Zittau 060 ODEG
D19 Görlitz  - Zgorzelec - Lubań  - Jelenia Góra (- Wałbrzych Główny ) 7 pairs of trains daily Koleje Dolnośląskie
Zielona Góra - Żary - Węgliniec - Zgorzelec - Görlitz 3 pairs of trains daily Przewozy Regionalne

(As of December 15, 2019)

Transport links

Public transport

City bus line B in the direction of Rauschwalde and a tram line 3 to Königshufen and Weinhübel

The train station is a hub for regional public transport. There are five bus platforms on the north side of the train station. The regional bus routes of Regionalbus Oberlausitz (RBO) and Kraftverkehrsgesellschaft Dreiländereck (KVG) run from bus platforms 1 to 4 and connect the train station with the surrounding area; bus platform 5 is reserved for rail replacement services .

The tram has been running to the station since June 1882 . Initially, travelers took a horse-drawn tram from the train station to the city, but as early as December 1897, the AEG had switched the lines to electrical operation.

Today the tram from Berliner Straße, coming from the city center, turns east in front of the main entrance. The Bahnhof tram stop is located there . As it continues south, it crosses under the station tracks in the Jakobstunnel and splits into the lines to Biesnitz and Weinhübel before reaching the southern exit . The south exit stop is on the south side of the station at the south entrance of the passenger tunnel. It is an important transfer stop in the urban local transport network of the Görlitzer Verkehrsbetriebe (GVB). In the urban late-night traffic between 7 p.m. and midnight, late-night traffic line 1 meets there and alternates every half hour with lines B and N, to enable transfers in all directions. The south exit stop , like the Bahnhof stop, is served by tram lines 1 and 2 during the day. City bus routes B and N only stop at the south exit.

For a long time, the city and the Upper Lusatia-Lower Silesia Transport Association have intended to set up a local transport interface between bus and train at the train station. Initial plans to do this at the location of platform I (track 3 and 4) next to the platform hall failed. The new bus station was finally opened on December 11, 2015 on the north side of the station at the point where the former local freight facilities were connected.

Two long-distance bus routes operated by Deutsche Post Mobility have been running from the Bahnhof Süd Exit stop since May and June 2015 . They led to Cologne via various routes. This was followed by long distance buses of different companies to Berlin, Breslau, Munich, Prague and Warsaw. With the takeover of the Postbus company by Flixbus , the Postbus routes were discontinued at the end of 2016 or replaced by Flixbus routes. Since the completion of the new bus station, long-distance buses have been running at the bus station on the northern side.

Private transport

Bahnhofstrasse and Zittauer Strasse connect the station with Bundesstrasse 99, which runs not far to the west and south. There are some parking spaces for cars on the station forecourt in the north. There is also a taxi rank there. A private operator's car park was built east of the Jakobstunnel after the fall of the Wall.

In the GDR era there were plans by the building construction master of the Deutsche Reichsbahn to free the station forecourt from vehicle traffic. Bahnhofstrasse was to undercut the forecourt between Salomonstrasse in the west and Jakobstrasse in the east. The pedestrian zone along Berliner Straße should have ended directly in front of the central entrance of the reception building. Only the tram was supposed to turn from Berliner Straße onto the station forecourt. However, the plans were never implemented due to a lack of financial resources.

literature

  • Wilfried Rettig : Görlitz railway junction . 1st edition. Bufe-Fachbuch-Verlag, Egglham 1994, ISBN 3-922138-53-5 .
  • Wilfried Rettig: Railway in the three-country corner. East Saxony (D) / Lower Silesia (PL) / North Bohemia (CZ). Part 1: History of the main lines, operating points, electrification and route descriptions . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2010, ISBN 978-3-88255-732-9 .

Web links

Commons : Bahnhof Görlitz  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clever thoughts on the anniversary . In: mobile . No. 6 , June 2017, ISSN  0949-586X , ZDB -ID 1221702-5 , p. 96 .
  2. ^ Richard Jecht: History of the City of Görlitz, Volume 1, Half Volume 2 . 1st edition. Verlag des Magistrates der Stadt Görlitz, 1934, p. 704 .
  3. ^ CG Th. Neumann: History of Görlitz . E. Remer, Görlitz 1850, p. 712 .
  4. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 7 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 14 .
  6. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 16 .
  7. ↑ a b Richard Jecht: History of the City of Görlitz, Volume 1, Half Volume 2 . 1st edition. Verlag des Magistrates der Stadt Görlitz, 1934, p. 705 .
  8. ↑ a b c Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 18 .
  9. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 100 .
  10. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 19 .
  11. ↑ Magistrate zu Görlitz (ed.): Plan of the city u. of the urban district of Görlitz . CA Starke, Görlitz 1891 ( online ).
  12. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 20 .
  13. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 144 .
  14. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 20th f .
  15. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 24, 30 .
  16. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 39 .
  17. ↑ War damage in Görlitz in 1945 . In: Stadtverwaltung Görlitz - Lower Monument Protection Authority (Hrsg.): Preservation of monuments in Görlitz . No. 11 . Verlag Gunter Oettel, Görlitz / Zittau 2002, p. 31 ff .
  18. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 234 .
  19. ^ Ralph Schermann: Railway workers without a return ticket . In: Sächsische Zeitung - Görlitzer Nachrichten . May 2, 2015 ( sz-online.de ).
  20. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 9 .
  21. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 89 .
  22. ↑ Wilfried Rettig: Railway in the three-country corner, part 1 . 2010, p. 103 .
  23. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 70 .
  24. ↑ Wilfried Rettig: Railway in the three-country corner, part 1 . 2010, p. 28 .
  25. ^ Hans von Polenz: Railways in the Bautzener Land . 1st edition. Lausitzer Druck- u. Verlagshaus, 2006, ISBN 3-00-018243-8 , pp. 146 .
  26. ↑ Wilfried Rettig: Railway in the three-country corner, part 1 . 2010, p. 155 .
  27. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 88 .
  28. ↑ a b c Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 43 f .
  29. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 49 .
  30. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 181 .
  31. ^ Renate Riccius, Peter Emrich: 70 years of the Löbau company car factory 1918–1988 . Reichenbach 1988, p. 30th ff., 34 f., 39, 43 ff .
  32. ↑ fotogalerieseiten.de: Bahnbetriebswerk Görlitz. Archived from the original on January 1, 2015 ; Retrieved January 15, 2011 .
  33. ↑ Refuge on the border. In: dradio.de. Retrieved October 1, 2013 .
  34. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 221 .
  35. ↑ a b c d Wilfried Rettig: Railway in the border triangle, part 1 . 2010, p. 17 .
  36. ↑ Christine Marakanow: Passengers can reach platforms more easily . In: Saxon newspaper . February 23, 2011 ( online [accessed June 10, 2012]).
  37. ↑ a b Bahn celebrates installation of the elevators . In: Saxon newspaper . September 3, 2010 ( online [accessed June 10, 2012]).
  38. ↑ The shooting of "Die Bücherdiebin" begins . In: Saxon newspaper . March 23, 2013 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
  39. ^ Matthias Klaus: Görlitz loses 200 meters of track . In: Sächsische Zeitung - Görlitzer Nachrichten . March 11, 2015 ( sz-online.de ).
  40. ↑ In future, trains will run from Görlitz to Jelenia Gora . In: Sächsische Zeitung - Görlitzer Nachrichten . October 10, 2015 ( sz-online.de ).
  41. ^ Station festival on September 16 for the 100th anniversary of the station building in Görlitz. In: deutschebahn.com. Archived from the original on September 18, 2017 ; accessed on September 17, 2017 .
  42. ↑ Bahn plans million investment for Görlitz station. In: radiolausitz.de. Archived from the original on April 12, 2013 ; Retrieved March 13, 2013 .
  43. ↑ Ralph Schermann: Bahn plans million dollar investment in Görlitz . In: Saxon newspaper . March 21, 2013, p. 15 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
  44. ↑ Ralph Schermann: Roof over the track . In: Saxon newspaper . January 25, 2017, p. 14 ( online [accessed January 30, 2017]).
  45. ↑ a b Deutsche Bahn construction projects . In: Bahn-Report . No. 3 , 2020, p. 62 .
  46. ↑ Two-track and electrified . In: signal . No. 2 , 2020, p. 8 ff .
  47. ↑ Connect Görlitz and Lausitz to the electrical rail network - strengthen Görlitz station as a hub for cross-border rail traffic! In: goerlitz.de. Accessed May 31, 2018 .
  48. ↑ Connect Görlitz and Ostsachen to the electrical rail network - strengthen Görlitz station as a hub for cross-border rail traffic! (PDF) Explanation on the occasion of the technical discussion on the electrification of the Görlitz train station on May 30, 2018. Accessed on May 31, 2018 .
  49. ^ Saxony - short news . In: Bahn-Report . No. 4 , 2020, p. 62 .
  50. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 23 ff., 38 .
  51. ^ C. Cornelius: Dr. Ing.Alexander Rüdell † . In: Ministry of Finance Prussia (ed.): Central sheet of the building administration with news of the Reich and state authorities . No. 41 . Berlin January 1, 1921, p. 3 ( online [accessed September 6, 2011]).
  52. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 23 ff .
  53. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 21 .
  54. ^ The Görlitz train station and its further development. Archived from the original on March 23, 2010 ; Retrieved January 4, 2011 .
  55. ↑ Bahn will soon build a third elevator in the station . In: Saxon newspaper . March 7, 2011 ( online [accessed June 10, 2012]).
  56. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 24, 38, back cover .
  57. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. back cover .
  58. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 38 .
  59. ↑ a b Görlitz - station of the DB Station & Service AG. Retrieved February 17, 2020 .
  60. ↑ a b c Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 216 .
  61. ↑ a b Attractive and versatile monument - Bahnhofstr. 75 02826 Görlitz. (PDF; 2.0 MB) In: agora-lausitz.de. Retrieved January 10, 2016 .
  62. ↑ Susanne Sodan: The silent post is no longer silent . In: Sächsische Zeitung - Görlitzer Nachrichten . April 5, 2018 ( saechsische.de ).
  63. ^ A b Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 30th ff .
  64. ↑ a b c Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 35 .
  65. ↑ Track plan at Görlitz station. In: oberlausitzer-eisenbahnen.de. Retrieved December 2, 2011 .
  66. ↑ a b Steffen Reitinger: grace period for electric riders . In: Saxon newspaper . April 22, 2004 ( online [accessed December 21, 2012]).
  67. ↑ Matthias Klaus: Leipzig is now switching for Görlitz . In: Saxon newspaper . June 27, 2000 ( online [accessed December 21, 2012]).
  68. ↑ a b c Erich Feuerriegel: When the railroad still managed its own water supply . In: Saxon newspaper . August 6, 2008 ( online [accessed February 6, 2012]).
  69. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 9 .
  70. ^ Eduard Römer: Pump station at the train station, Görlitz . Side view, section GH, section J K. In: v. G. Erbkam (Hrsg.): Atlas for the journal for construction . No. 20 . Berlin 1870 ( online ).
  71. ^ Eduard Römer: Pump station at the train station, Görlitz . Ground floor plan, 1st floor In: v. G. Erbkam (Hrsg.): Atlas for the journal for construction . No. 20 . Berlin 1870 ( online ).
  72. ↑ a b c d Wilfried Rettig: Railway in the border triangle, part 1 . 2010, p. 11 ff., 29 ff., 76, 102 f., 125 ff., 153 ff .
  73. ↑ Long-distance transport database. In: grahnert.de. Retrieved December 23, 2017 .
  74. ^ DB Regio AG regional area Saxony (Ed.): RE 1 . 5 times a day Görlitz - Dresden and back. Dresden 2000.
  75. ^ Cessation of traffic from Dresden - Görlitz - Wrocław / Breslau on March 1st, 2015. (PDF) ZVON and VVO , February 20, 2015, accessed on February 26, 2015 .
  76. ↑ Connection to the European Capital of Culture 2016 seems secure. (PDF) In: vvo-online.de. Retrieved November 7, 2015 .
  77. ↑ In future, trains will run from Görlitz to Jelenia Gora . In: Saxon newspaper . October 10, 2015 ( online [accessed June 10, 2012]).
  78. ↑ Trains run to and from Grünberg three times a day . In: Saxon newspaper . February 2, 2018 ( online [accessed February 5, 2018]).
  79. ↑ Vogtlandbahn will be serving the train lines in the East Saxony network from December 2014. (PDF; 40 kB) In: zvon.de. Retrieved October 20, 2013 .
  80. ^ Andreas Riedel: The chronicle of the Görlitzer tram . Schweers + Wall, 1997, ISBN 3-89494-106-5 , pp. 10 ff .
  81. ^ Görlitz transport hub: New bus station and train to Poland. In : kreis-goerlitz.de. Retrieved October 1, 2016 .
  82. ^ Wilfried Rettig: Görlitz railway junction . 1994, p. 30 .
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on September 27, 2011 in this version .