Train stations ... the old

Except for Berlin and Hanover, all the other hauptbahnhof stations we experienced, being Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Kiel, had been restored to former glory after the war. They are all roofed, some with extensive areas of glass, no doubt to provide some relief from the savage winters experienced in this part of Europe.

In each station my attention was drawn to the ironwork, rivets, bolts and caste iron roof mountings and other cast components. These stations are huge, with aircraft hanger-like accommodation for trains and a large concourse joining platforms.
  
Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof

Serving the largest city in Germany, this station and its surrounds was heavily bombed but has been faithfully restored. Below are two photos of the front of the building

the main concourse serving the platforms

 and some of the ironwork

The passing parade

There's always something happening other than train movements at a large city railway station. As we were returning to the station after exploring Frankfurt the raucous call of a klaxon alerted us to an ambulance pushing its way through the crowd to park at the front doors.

Always on the lookout for an action photograph I positioned myself where the camera was at waist level, and by fiddling the screen was able to capture the photo below. The patient was a young man of unkempt appearance who seemed to be having trouble with creatures no one else could see. Eventually he was helped to the ambulance by the ambos and policeman while policewoman gathered the evidence. Note the size of the pistol on the policewoman's hip.But no doubt she knows how to use it. 

 

Dresden Hauptbahnhof

Another cavernous station (below) restored after the war. At the time of the bombing of Dresden and subsequent fire storm it's reliably reported that there were several trains in the station packed with German refugees, mostly woman and children, fleeing from the Red Army approaching from the east. Below are photos of the exterior of the station. Straying for a moment, I can't imagine that advertisement on a Melbourne tram.

Train stations ... the new

As assembly points for the transport of men and materials across Germany during WW2, virtually all the major railway stations were severely damaged, if not destroyed by bombing when the RAF and USAAF gained superiority of the sky over Germany.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

Unlike other main stations we passed through that have been restored to former architectural glory, the main station in Berlin is as modern as you could expect with its glass and steel facades and interior and two levels of shops.

The photos below show some of the exterior

and the interior

Above is at the entry level from the front street with escalators down to the Regional, Intercity (ICE) and International trains at the lower level (underground). It was down here where we joined the train to Dresden and where we arrived from Frankfurt on our first day in Berlin.

The up escalators at top right  of the photo (and below) provide access to the above-ground suburban trains. The shops are visible at the centre-right of the photo and there is another level of shops above this level.

and the elevators serving all levels for those dragging their possessions in a heavy case.

Train whistle blowing ...

Before leaving Berlin for other destinations, my view of the German railway system.

While we’ve travelled by train in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England and Switzerland in recent years and found the service highly efficient and comfortable, the Germans excel. Railway tracks crisscross the country and most of them are electrified and seem to be very efficiently operated.

On arriving at Frankfurt, rather than board another aircraft to Berlin, approximately 420 kilometres distant ‘as the crow flies’, we boarded an Intercity Express (ICE) at the airport (the railway station is in the airport, with two levels, one for intercity and international trains and the other below ground level for regional trains) that initially took us into the main station at Frankfurt, then onto Hanover. At Hanover we transferred to another ICE that took us onto Berlin. 

And on efficiency. In Australia our daughter Sarah, using the on-line train schedules information, was able to monitor the train movements on the intercity journeys we undertook and when needing to change trains enroute sent sms messages informing us of the platform to move to and the timeliness of the connecting train.

The photos below are of the concourse with booking office and shops, and the intercity/international level platforms at Frankfurt airport. The train is an ICE powered by overhead electricity. The Europeans have overcome the problem of pantograph ‘bounce’ causing intermittent disruption to the supply of electricity to high speed trains. Note the WiFi 'hotspot' in the carriage.

ICE usually means “high speed”. While rocketing along in excess of 150 kph (above the internal door at each end of the carriage there is an information board that amongst other matters displays the name of the next station and the train speed), between Hanover and Berlin the ICE cruised at 250 kph (see photo below). And, it’s a comfortable journey; a long stem wine glass can sit on its own on a table without the drink slopping over or the glass toppling.

With big windows, comfortable seats, dining car and a steward serving those who prefer to remain in their seats, and lots of room, we prefer to travel between major centres by train. Far better than the hassle of security checks associated with flying, the usual hurry up and wait at airports and cramped aircraft interiors.

This brings me to ‘suburban’ train services. Berlin is, as are the other major cities in Germany, well-served by  city-wide railway networks. We made extensive use of the suburban trains to move around Berlin, some elevated and others below ground. The trains are well maintained that is no graffiti and stations are clean. And stations are largely unattended.

A ‘ticket’ is in the form of a receipt issued by the machine and is stamped with the duration of the validity of the ticket. In my travels I never saw a machine or facility for validating a ticket. The vending machines are very user-friendly in that they offer several languages, including English. And no one asked us to produce our ticket for examination or collection. Imagine that level of honesty by train travellers in Melbourne.

The series of photos below are of trains that run above and below ground serving Greater Berlin. The tiled walls of Spittelmarkt underground station, a short walk from our apartment, displays scenes of old Berlin. The first underground and elevated lines were opened in 1902 and resulted in Berlin being the fifth European city after London, Budapest, Glasgow and Paris to have an underground railway system.

Bicycle friendly, too.

Dresden and the mighty Elbe

The Elbe, one of the major rivers of Central Europe, passes through Dresden on its 1,094 kilometre journey from its headwaters in the Czech Republic to the North Sea. During the journey the waters from seven other rivers spill into the Elbe.

As can be seen from the photos (below) the river is wide and deep enough to carry ships the size of the paddle steamer and river cruisers of the size of the one photographed (below) on the Main River, in Frankfurt, last Saturday.

Able to carry large barges, the Elbe and linking canals provide important trade links as far inland as Prague.

Other notable survivors of the Dresden bombing and fire storm

Kathedrale St. Trinitatis

The Dresden Roman Catholic Cathedral (below), originally known as the Hofkirche (Church of the Court) but renamed Kathedrale St. Trinitatis when elevated to cathedral status in 1980. Again, the extent of repairs or restoration is indicated by the variation in the colour of the stonework.

The blackened covered bridge is visible down the left side of the church in the penultimate photo above.

The heat from the fires must have been extreme to blacken the stonework to the extent where it is so ingrained to be visible nearly 70 years later.

Frauenkirche

The protestant Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), located just beyond the porcelain fresco, survived the bombing and firestorm but collapsed a couple of days later when the fires finally reached the building and ignited the timber pews and other flammable materials, and the heat-affected crumbling sandstone eventually failed under the weight of the very heavy dome roof.

The blackened stonework in the first photo below is all that remained of the original building after it collapsed.

The division of Germany following WW2 left Dresden deep with the communist East and controlled by an administration that had little interest in restoration of damaged churches and some public buildings it considered important only to the bourgeoisie at that time. Consequently, it was many years before restoration of the two churches commenced and it was as recent as October 2005 when the consecration to mark the conclusion of the Frauenkirche reconstruction was celebrated.

Semper Opera House

Located to the right of and behind the Kathedrale St. Trinitatis is the Semper Opera House (below).

In 1678 an opera house was first erect on the land. A replacement opera opera house was was completed on the land in 1841, after which it hosted many premiers of works by a resident of Dresden, Richard Wagner.

Straying momentarily from the program, the little Austrian corporal with the toothbrush mustache was a fan of Wagner, and his "Ride of the Valkyries" was the music behind the helicopter assault ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning") in the motion picture "Apocalypse Now".

The building was destroyed by fire in 1869, and again destroyed in the February 1945 bombing and fire storm. It was reconstructed forty years later and symbolically reopened in February 1985 with a performance of Carl Maria von Weber's "Panther Quadriga Der Freischutz", the opera last played before the bombardment in 1945.

The Dukes of Saxony

Reputed to be the world's longest porcelain fresco, 24,000 small tiles over a distance of 102 meters and 10 metres high depict the 35 Princes of the Wettin House that ruled Saxony from 1127 to 1904.

The original fresco was done with paint during the period 1872 - 1876, but the painting was transferred to porcelain tiles in 1907 to resist weathering.

Mercifully, the tiles suffered little damage from Allied bombing of Dresden in WW2, with less than 200 needing to to be replaced.

Transparent VW factory

Imagine the joy of our relatively new VW Golf owner and enthusiast when she spied the glass-sided Dresden VW factory from the passing bus. Too late to raise her camera to capture the round multi-story exhibition building visible in the background of the first of the two photos below, but quick to record the glass-walled assembly line (second photo) with cars in the process of being assembled.

With each nosed-up to the glass wall, on its several floors the exhibition building displayed many if not all of the VW products over the post-WW2 years.

Market place

Another indicator of the destruction of Dresden is the absence of old buildings in the city centre. The photos below are of the market square where the surrounding buildings are all obviously post-WW2, while the building in the background in the first photo bears the black scar of the firestorm.















On the day of our visit the market consisted of a number of stalls selling products of the area, including flowers, takeaway food and beer, all enthusiastically presented.

Rain, rain, go away ...

Shortly after we arrived in Dresden it began to rain, causing us to retreat to a hop-on-hop-off bus that took us on an extensive tour of the city and part of the surrounding suburbs.

As we were limited to four hours before we needed to catch a train back to Berlin, the visit looked to be very limited as the rain set in. Miraculously, the rain cleared when we stepped off the bus, giving us two hours to visit some of the surviving pre-WW2 buildings.

The following photos taken from inside the bus and slightly rain-affected show some of the dwellings and other buildings outside the city-proper.