Aachen Hauptbahnhof (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

for Aachen main station) is the most important

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

for the city of

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

, in the far west of

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

near the Dutch and Belgian border. It is the largest of the four currently active Aachen stations, and is integrated into the long-distance network.

History

A station at Aachen was first opened in 1841, when the Rheinische Eisenbahngesellschaft opened its line from Cologne. The line first was extended to Herbesthal (near the Belgian border) and on 15 October 1843 to

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

. The first station was built outside of the city walls, however the city soon grew and the station eventually became surrounded by new buildings. The

Prussian state railways The term Prussian state railways (German: ''Preußische Staatseisenbahnen'') encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the state of Prussia. The words "state railways" are not capitalized because Prussia did not have a ...

deemed that rather impractical and decided to build a new station situated on a hillside. Embankments and new bridges were built from 1901 onward, and on 21 December 1905 the station opened at its new location. The station remained largely undisturbed until suffering from damage in 1944, when German troops were retreating. However, since the rail link was highly valued by the Allied forces, damage was cleared up rather quickly and in 1950 all war damage had been removed from the site. Since 2002 the

Cologne–Aachen high-speed railway The Cologne–Aachen high-speed line is the Germany, German part of the Trans-European transport networks project ''high-speed line Paris–Brussels–Cologne''. It is not a newly built railway line, but a project to upgrade the existing railway l ...

line allows connections to Cologne with speeds up to 250 km/h (160 mph).

Electrification

In 1966, Aachen Hauptbahnhof was electrified. Due to its proximity to

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, it was decided to implement the switching point from the

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

's 15 kV AC to the 3000 V DC used by the

NMBS/SNCB The National Railway Company of Belgium (, NMBS; , SNCB; ) is the national railway company of Belgium. The company formally styles itself using the Dutch and French abbreviations NMBS/SNCB. The corporate logo designed in 1936 by Henry van de V ...

in the station. Tracks 6 to 9 therefore have a switchable

catenary In physics and geometry, a catenary ( , ) is the curve that an idealized hanging chain or wire rope, cable assumes under its own weight when supported only at its ends in a uniform gravitational field. The catenary curve has a U-like shape, ...

and are used for international

Thalys Thalys (French: ) was a brand name used for high-speed rail, high-speed train services between Paris Gare du Nord and both Amsterdam Centraal and German cities in the Rhein-Ruhr, including Aachen, Köln Hauptbahnhof, Cologne, Düsseldorf Hauptba ...

ICE Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

and

Regional-Express In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (; RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with a top speed of and an average speed of about as it calls at fewer stations than ''R ...

services.

Renovations

The station hall was renovated from 2000 to 2006. In 2007 a new electronic

signal box A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

was built, enabling more streamlined operations and automatic switching of the correct voltages. The cost estimate for the revamp was around €40 million. The main changes were: *Construction of 400m long platforms for international traffic, replacing the old 250m platforms that did not allow economic usage due to their limited length. *Special through tracks (tracks 3 and 4) for freight trains to the Netherlands and Belgium (via Montzen) to Aachen West. *Constructional changes to the system changeover point to Belgium; a new track layout, which allows the smooth changeover of electric locomotives and is capable of handling the increasing number of through carriages. *Improvement of the layout to remove operating problems, especially in the sidings.

Train services

The following services currently call at Aachen Hbf:

Operational usage

Aachen Hauptbahnhof is served by the following lines: * Cologne–Aachen (KBS 480) * Aachen–Brussels * Aachen–Mönchengladbach (KBS 485) * Liège–Aachen line (KBS 480a/L 37)

References

External links

* * * * {{Authority control Railway stations in North Rhine-Westphalia Hauptbahnhof Art Nouveau architecture in Germany Railway stations in Germany opened in 1905 Art Nouveau railway stations