Essen Hauptbahnhof

Hbf intro|Essen is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Essen in western Germany. It is situated south of the old town centre, next to the A 40 motorway.It was opened in 1862 by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn. However, the station was not the first on Essen soil, as the station "Essen" (today Essen-Altenessen on the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn was opened in 1847.

The station suffered extensive damage in World War II and was almost completely rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s. Over the course of the following years, the Essen Stadtbahn and the A 40 were other construction projects that influenced the station. Today it is an important hub between local, regional and long-distance services, with all major InterCityExpress and InterCity trains calling at the station as well as RegionalExpress and Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn services.

It has, however, fallen into disrepair, and at some point it was proposed to move the station to the area of the current S-Bahn station Essen West. These plans are considered abandoned however, and the station will likely undergo a renovation process similar to Gelsenkirchen Hbf or Bochum Hbf.

Trains of all kind call at the station, from long distance to local services. It used to be one of the Metropolitan stops on the Hamburg to Cologne line before the service was discontinued in 2002. Night services are offered by EuroNight trains to cities such as Moscow or Brussels, and DB NachtZug trains to Zurich and Vienna, among others.

401 trains pass the station each day which makes Essen Hauptbahnhof the third most busiest train station in the Ruhr Area after Dortmund Hauptbahnhof and Duisburg Hauptbahnhof.

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