Postbahnhof
Railway stations that are only used to send and receive mail by rail are referred to as post station (also railway post office ) .
In Germany, until 1996, mail was collected and transported by rail to the next city or region and from there distributed to individual destination addresses. For this purpose, rail mail cars were used between larger cities with a correspondingly larger dispatch volume, which were coupled to regular express or through trains with a suitable route . The rail mail cars were often loaded and unloaded in independent post stations, which were usually equipped with several tracks and loading platforms as well as appropriate internal means of transport.
Dissemination and placement
In some cities with several large train stations there were also several post stations. In Berlin there were originally five "railway post offices", three of which were still in operation in 1935.
In the times of high mail transport by rail , when the mail items were still processed and sorted at these stations and on the trains, these systems had to cope with extensive traffic. In particular, at the large railway junctions, post stations were created, some of which had the same number of tracks as the neighboring passenger stations ( Leipzig Post Station , Hamburg Hühnerposten ) or a slightly smaller size ( Frankfurt / Main ). The proximity to passenger stations also resulted from the purpose of achieving a quick connection to the planned train routes.
Successor use
After the end of mail transport by rail in 1997, the post stations in Germany were no longer needed, as mail transport was shifted to road and air transport. Some of the facilities with their large halls are used for other purposes today:
- In Berlin the facilities of the Postbahnhof am Ostbahnhof and the Postbahnhof am Gleisdreieck are under monument protection and are now used as event locations.
- The Leipzig Postbahnhof is also a listed building, but is currently not in use.
- The Postbahnhof in Freiburg im Breisgau was used to store and maintain vehicles from EK-Verlag until it was demolished .
- A letter and parcel distribution center is now located on the site of the former post station Hamburg-Altona , which is served by truck.
- The former post station in Frankfurt am Main has been used as a workshop for the railcars of the Rhein-Main S-Bahn since 2006 .
- The central library of the Hamburg public library has been housed in the former post station Hühnerposten in Hamburg since 2004 .
- The freight mail center in Munich was built in 1965–69. At the end of the 1990s, the tracks were shut down in order to set up a mail distribution center there.
Former Postbahnhof at Ostbahnhof Berlin
Postbahnhof Berlin Luckenwalder Strasse am Gleisdreieck, 1986
Hamburg railway post office chicken post after expansion in 1924, photo from 2007
Former rail hall of the central parcel post office in Munich
Location of the former Munich railway post office 1910–1988
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ in the list on the website "Berliner Postämter"
- ↑ Helmut Roggenkamp: Yearbook Rail Transport 16 - Current Issues from German Rail Transport in 1996 , Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn, 1997, ISBN 3-927587-78-8 , p. 13
