Deutsche Bahn Celebrates 125th Anniversary of Dresden Main Station with Festival and Laser Show

DRESDEN | On April 15, starting at 8 a.m., Deutsche Bahn (DB) will be celebrating the 125th anniversary of the main station with a station festival.

PTO A multimedia laser show at 8:20 p.m. concludes the all-day celebrations with an entertainment program, prize draws and guided tours of the station. The historical sequence of the commissioning of the station in the heyday of the railways, the destructive war years, the reconstruction and the GDR era, the events in autumn 1989, the complete conversion and repair of the damage caused by the flood of the century in 2002 as well as the commissioning of the modern station are shown shopping station in 2014. From 7 p.m. and after the 25-minute laser show, the band “invisible touch” offers a homage to the music of Phil Collins and Genesis until 10 p.m. An exhibition on the renovation of the hall roof is shown at the information cube on the transverse platform on tracks 5/6. Admission to these events is free.

On April 15th and 16th there will be a shuttle service between Dresden Hauptbahnhof (platform 5) and the Railway Museum in Dresden-Altstadt for the 15th Dresden Steam Locomotive Meeting with a historic train set. In the area of ​​the DB regional workshop directly on the festival site, DB presents modern vehicles, offers in local transport and professional development opportunities, also as part of workshop tours. DB also provides logistical support to the interest group (IG) Bw Dresden-Altstadt in organizing the 15th Dresden Steam Locomotive Meeting, for example in handling shunting work.

On the history of the railway in Dresden, a terminus of the first German long-distance railway

Between 1870 and 1900, Dresden developed into a large and industrial city. In the middle of the 19th century, numerous train stations were built in an uncoordinated manner and without an overall concept: Leipzig train station was built on the right bank of the Elbe as the end point of the first German long-distance railway from Leipzig to Dresden, which went into operation in 1839. The Schlesische Bahnhof in the immediate vicinity of the Leipzig station marked the end of the line to Görlitz, which was built until 1847. Three more stations were built on the left bank of the Elbe: in 1848, the Saxon-Bohemian State Railway put the Bohemian station into operation. In 1855 the Albert station followed as the end point of the line to Tharandt (passenger traffic only up to 1869). It was not until 1875 that the Berlin train station followed to connect the Saxon and Prussian capitals.

This resulted in four separate long-distance train stations scattered far and wide across the city. A lack of connections to each other and street crossings at ground level led to bottlenecks and traffic problems. The steadily increasing volume of passenger and freight traffic called for a reorganization of the track and traffic systems. In 1890, the fundamental redesign of the railway facilities in the Dresden railway junction began. In this context, Dresden’s main station was built, which was inaugurated in 1898 by King Albert of Saxony. During the great air raid on Dresden on February 13 and 14, 1945, the station burned down completely, and subsequent bombing raids completely destroyed the tracks. The flood of 2002 brought serious setbacks for the renovation of Dresden’s main train station, which began in 1997. Since 2006, the “Cathedral of Traffic” has been shining again in its incomparable splendor and effortlessly copes with the demands of the 21st century.

Text source: DB AG

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