Wittenberge station is the railway station for the Brandenburg

Brandenburg

Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

 town of Wittenberge

Wittenberge

Wittenberge is a town of twenty thousand people on the lower Elbe in the district of Prignitz , Brandenburg, Germany.-History:...

 in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. About 5000 passengers use the station daily and it is served by around 100 trains per day.

Infrastructure

Following an extensive rebuild in 2004, the station now has a 55 centimetre high and 340 metre long home platform as well as two island platform

Island platform

An island platform is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange...

s 405 metres in length and 76 centimetres in height. A 65 metre long subway links the platforms to the station building. All platforms are barrier-free and accessible by means of stairs and lifts.

History

The station was built in 1846 at kilometre post 126 on the Berlin-Hamburg Railway

Berlin-Hamburg Railway

The Berlin–Hamburg Railway is a roughly long railway line for passenger, long-distance and goods trains. It was the first high-speed line upgraded in Germany to be capable of handling train speeds of over...

. In 1851 the Wittenberge–Stendal line was opened. That made Wittenberge station into the most important railway hub between Berlin and Hamburg. The station building of this Keilbahnhof ("wedge station", i.e. situated between the two converging lines of a junction) was located between the western approach tracks of the Magdeburg route and the eastern approach tracks on the Berlin-Hamburg Railway.

From 1870 trains also ran from here on a branch of the Berlin-Hamburg Railway, that led over the river Elbe

Elbe

The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...

 near Dömitz and via Dannenberg to Buchholz.

Upgrade

Wittenberge station was comprehensively refurbished as part of the upgrade of the Berlin-Hamburg Railway in 2000. It lost its status as an island station, as all the tracks are now on the eastern side of the station building. The so-called Magdeburg Side lost its tracks, the line from Stendal being re-routed south of the building on the Berlin Side. The number of tracks was also significantly reduced.

The refurbishment required 280,000 tonnes of earth to be moved, around 22 kilometres track to be replaced, 120 points to be removed, 42 points to be installed and 32 kilometres of catenary to be replaced. The running speed through the station was raised from 30 to 160 km/h; an increase to 197 km/h, which was also considered, would have required the control of active tilting technology by the train safety system, LZB

Linienzugbeeinflussung

Linienzugbeeinflussung is a cab signalling andtrain protection system used on selected German and Austrian railway linesas well as the AVE in Spain.In Germany, the system is mandatory on all lines where trains exceed speeds of...

, but this was not put into practice. A total of seven million euro

Euro

The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

s was invested.

The opening of the rebuilt station took place on 24 August 2004 in the presence of the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor...

.

Transport links

In the 2007 timetable only passenger trains operated by Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

 stopped in Wittenberge. Long-distance services are provided by five InterCity

Intercity (Deutsche Bahn)

Intercity is the second-highest train classification in Germany, after the ICE. Intercity services are loco-hauled express services, usually over long-distances. There are Intercity routes throughout Germany, and routes generally operate with a two-hour frequency, with multiple routes giving a more...

/EuroCity

EuroCity

EuroCity, abbreviated EC, denotes an international train service within the European inter-city rail network. In contrast to trains with the "IC" label, "EC" trains are international trains that meet certain criteria. The EuroCity label replaces the older Trans Europ Express name for...

 pairs of trains between Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

/Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 or Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 on workdays and an IC train pair between Rostock

Rostock

Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...

 and Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

. One or two ICE trains

InterCityExpress

The Intercity-Express or ICE is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany and neighbouring countries. It is the highest service category offered by DB Fernverkehr and is the flagship of Deutsche Bahn...

 stop at the station during the daily rush hours, but most pass through without stopping.

Local rail services in Wittenberge are provided by two Brandenburg Regional-Express services: line RE 4 (Ludwigsfelde/Luckenwalde–Wittenberge/Wismar) and line RE 6 (Berlin-Spandau–Hennigsdorf–Pritzwalk-Wittenberge). In addition RB/RE trains, ordered by the state of Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

, run on the Wittenberge - Magdeburg route.

External links

• Information about the upgrade at the Deutsche Bahn website.
• platform information at the Deutsche Bahn website.