The steel vaults
Three spans, the middle about 56 metres.
Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de โ CC BY-SA 3.0 de ยท Chabe01 โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Chabe01 โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Chabe01 โ CC BY-SA 4.0
At a terminus the tracks end, so a train enters and leaves from the same side after the driver changes ends โ which costs time and complicates scheduling. Trains pass through a through station without a long stop. Frankfurt is a terminus, which is a cause of its frequent delays, and many proposals have suggested converting it to an underground through station as Stuttgart did โ but nothing has been carried out.
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Frankfurt Central is among Europe's largest and busiest stations: twenty-four terminating platforms under three vast steel vaults, with around half a million passengers a day. It opened in 1888 and was then the largest railway station on the continent. The vaults are the architecture: three adjacent steel spans, the middle one about fifty-six metres wide, with two side vaults added later as traffic grew. The front facade is neoclassical, topped by a figure of Atlas carrying the globe โ a deliberate emblem of the city's commercial ambition. The terminus design โ the tracks end inside the station rather than passing through โ means every train enters and leaves from the same direction, which makes it operationally complex but gives the concourse a rare openness. You will pass through it inevitably if you arrive in Frankfurt by train, and looking up at the vaults from the platform ends costs nothing.
Three spans, the middle about 56 metres.
Tracks ending inside, opening the concourse.
Am Hauptbahnhof, 60329 Frankfurt