Bochum Station

In the early 1860s, a branch of the Witten / Dortmund-Oberhausen / Duisburg railway section was laid in Bochum. The station was in the Bochum-Ehrenfeld area . The site was chosen for reasons of proximity to the steelmaking plants and coal mines of Bochum. After the nationalization of private railway companies and their unification into a single railway network of Prussia, the station was renamed "Bochum-Yuzhny".
Bochum's new station was opened on the Royal Avenue ( German: Königsallee ) in 1870 . During the Second World War, during the numerous bombardments of British aviation, almost the entire central part of Bochum was destroyed, and the station building was severely destroyed.
After the war ended, Bochum’s master plan did not provide for the restoration of the old station building. In June 1953, the city ​​council decided to build a new station 650 meters northeast of the old one. Construction began in February 1954 . On the site allocated for construction, there was a hill on which there was an old Christian-Jewish cemetery. In preparation for construction work, the hill was demolished, and approximately 800 graves were moved.

The first step was the creation of a new 2.1 km long railway embankment, for which 250,000 m³ of soil was imported. Prior to the construction of the main building, the issues of communications and transport infrastructure were solved: 2 overpasses, 10 railway bridge bridges, a tunnel for people, a luggage tunnel, a mail tunnel and a supporting wall between the platforms and the building were built. The shelters of the bomb shelters that were on the construction site were filled with concrete.
On October 12, 1955, the construction of the station building was solemnly initiated by the architect Wilhelm Bangen. It was planned to build an elongated four-story reinforced concrete glazed building with a glass roof and a helipad, which, however, were subsequently abandoned. In the left part of the building, with a volume of 34,000 m³, there are not only the offices of the railway administration, but also a hotel, cafe and cinema. In the right part of the building, which has the same volume, freight departments are located. An extensive lobby was built in the central part of the station, similar to that of Rome Termini Station . The vestibule roof is a one-arch ceiling with an area of ​​46.5 × 24 m. Despite its weight of 600 tons, the roof seems light and elegant.
The grand opening of the station took place on May 30, 1957 . On May 26, 1979, the Bochum Hauptbahnhof light rail station was opened.
In 2004 - 2006, large-scale modernization works were carried out both on the station building and on the station square. The official opening of the renovated station took place on May 29, 2006 .

IC and ICE

RE , RB, and S-Bahn

• The page of the Bochum station on the site of the regional project "The path of industrial culture" of the Ruhr region (German)
• Photos of the old Bochum station (German)
• Scheme of the tracks of the Bochum station (German)
• Bochum Station page at International Database and Gallery of Structures