Berlin - Railroad Stations Bahnhöfe
Before the Second World War, Berlin was a center of European rail traffic. With 500 trains entering and leaving every day it was at the head of all German cities. Five large terminals were concerned mainly with long-distance trains and five more with local traffic. In the war the stations suffered badly from bombing raids. After the war ended the former Zoological Gardens Station (Stadtbahnhof Zoologischer Garten) became West Berlin's main station for long-distance trains.
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Must-see attractions nearby:
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In the Eastern sector only the Schlesische Station (Schlesische Bahnhof - now Main or East Station - Ostbahnhof station) and Friedrichstrasse on the border remained in use. Now that Berlin is once more united rail traffic will be reorganized. The main station (Ostbahnhof) is likely to become Berlin's most important station.
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Görlitz Station
Between Wiener Strasse and Görlitzer Strasse in Berlin there is now a park and indoor swimming pool on what had been a desolate piece of land with remains of rails and lumps of concrete here and there. This was the site of Görlitzer Bahnhof, from where trains ran east and southeast to Görlitz, Silesia, into the Spree Forest and the Riesengebirge mountains. The remains of the bomb-shattered station were removed in the late 1980s.
Main Station
The Hauptbahnhof in the south of the Friedrichshain district, known as the Schlesischer Bahnhof until 1950, is the most important main-line station in East Berlin, as well as being a suburban-line station. It was first opened in 1842 as the "Frankfurter Bahnhof" to operate the lines to Frankfurt an der Oder and later to Breslau. Between 1867-68 its buildings were renewed. Having been destroyed in the war, they were rebuilt in a simpler form and then converted again in the late 1980s to the prestigious Main Station (Hauptbahnhof) of East Berlin.
Zoological Gardens Station
Near Hardenbergplatz at the southwest end of the Tiergarten in Berlin lies the Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten (known as "Bahnhof Zoo" for short). It was renovated at the end of the 1980s and now is the major main line station in the western sector of the city, as well as being an underground and suburban line station.
It has a Berlin Tourist Office information desk which provides information daily between 8am-11pm. (tel. 3 90 63/4).
The station acquired a sad notoriety in the early 1980s as a result of the report headed "We children of the Bahnhof Zoo," in which the fourteen-year old author Christiane F. described in depressing terms her youth spent as part of the Berlin drug scene.
It has a Berlin Tourist Office information desk which provides information daily between 8am-11pm. (tel. 3 90 63/4).
The station acquired a sad notoriety in the early 1980s as a result of the report headed "We children of the Bahnhof Zoo," in which the fourteen-year old author Christiane F. described in depressing terms her youth spent as part of the Berlin drug scene.
