Switzerland - Beautiful Zurich Railway Station

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Zürich Hauptbahnhof (often shortened to Zürich HB) (Zürich Main Station or Zürich Central Station) is the largest railway station in Switzerland. Zürich is a major railway hub, with services to and from across Switzerland and neighbouring European countries such as Germany, Italy, Austria and France. The station was originally constructed as the terminus of the Spanisch Brötli Bahn, the first railway built completely within Switzerland. Serving up to 2,915 trains per day, Zürich HB is one of the busiest railway stations in the world.

The station can be found at the northern end of the Altstadt, or old town, in central Zürich, near the confluence of the rivers Limmat and Sihl. The station is on several levels, with platforms both at ground and below ground level, and tied together by underground passages and the ShopVille shopping mall. The Sihl passes through the station in a tunnel with railway tracks both above and below. The station's railway yards extend about 4 km (2.5 mi) to the west.

The first Zürich railway station was built by Gustav Albert Wegmann (de), on what were then the north-western outskirts of the city. It occupied a piece of land between the rivers Limmat and Sihl, and trains accessed it from the west via a bridge over the Sihl. At the eastern end of the station was a turntable, used for turning locomotives. This basic terminal station layout, with all trains arriving from the west, was to set the basic design of the station for the next 143 years.

The new station was the initially the terminus of the Swiss Northern Railway, more often called the Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn, which opened on 9 August 1847 and linked Zürich with Baden. Initially the railway lines in the station were laid to a gauge of 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in), perhaps because the same gauge was used at the contemperaneous and nearby Grand Duchy of Baden State Railway.[2]

From the opening of the station, the railways of northern Switzerland developed rapidly, and by 1853 the Swiss Northern Railway had been merged into the Swiss Northeastern Railway (Schweizerische Nordostbahn; NOB). Also in 1853, the tracks in the station were regauged to the standard gauge (1,435 mm or 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) that is still used by all lines in the station. In 1856, the NOB completed its line from the station to Winterthur via the Wipkingen Tunnel and Oerlikon. In 1858, the NOB completed its line from Baden via Brugg to Aarau, where it connected with the Swiss Central Railway (Schweizerische Centralbahn; SCB), thus providing connections to Basel, Solothurn and Lausanne.

With further railways planned, it became clear that the 1847 station was not large enough. A rebuild was started to meet Zürich's increased transport needs, albeit on the same site and using the same basic layout.