page_title: Ulm Hauptbahnhof
section_title: 1891–1913: planning and construction of the marshalling yard
hierarchical_section_title: Ulm Hauptbahnhof / History / 1891–1913: planning and construction of the marshalling yard
caption_attribution_description: steam train on the Danube Valles Railway Line (Donautalbahn) in Ulm, Germany, photo was taken around 1905
context_page_description: Ulm Hauptbahnhof is the main station in the city of Ulm, which lies on the Danube, on the border of the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria in the Danube-Iller region.
  Ulm Hauptbahnhof has twelve platforms, of which five are terminating platforms, and forms a major railway junction. Other stations in the city are Ulm-Söflingen to the west and Ulm Ost to the east and Ulm-Donautal in the industrial area. The Ulm marshalling yard is located to the west of the city. Neu-Ulm, which lies across the Danube in Bavaria, has the stations of Neu-Ulm, Finningerstraße and Gerlenhofen.
  Ulm is located on the railway line from Stuttgart to Munich, over which Intercity-Express trains operate, and part of the Magistrale for Europe from Paris to Budapest. European cities such as Amsterdam, Budapest, Paris and Linz can be reached without transfers. Every day, about 29,000 passengers use the station. It is used daily by about 335 trains operated by Deutsche Bahn and Agilis, 75 long-distance and 260 regional trains. The station is served by local trains that are coordinated by the Donau-Iller-Nahverkehrsverbund.
context_section_description: On 1 August 1891, the Ulm general post office established a railway post office in the station forecourt. In March 1892, the duplication of the Maximilians Railway between Augsburg and Neu-Ulm was completed, so that the whole line between Munich and Stuttgart via Ulm was duplicated. On 1 October 1893, platform tickets were introduced for entry to the platforms. On 3 November 1894, the first petrol-powered railcar service ran from Ulm to Blaubeuren; it was powered by a Daimler-Otto engine from Maschinenfabrik Esslingen. On 27 April 1897, an Ordinarischiff (“ordinary boat”, a simple wooden boat, which could convey freight and passengers downstream only and was steered with poles) left Ulm for Vienna down the Danube for the last time, as they could no longer compete against the railway. On 15 May 1897, the Ulm tramway was opened, with the first line running through the station forecourt. In September 1898, a fountain with a crowned Atlas was erected in the forecourt; it was donated by the Schwenk Company, a local cement manufacturer. In one year from 1 April 1898 to 31 March 1899, Ulm station was used by 1,211,199 passengers and was the fourth busiest station in Württemberg. Ulm handled a total of 390,864 tons of freight, which placed it third in Württemberg.
  In 1899 and 1900, the city of Ulm considered lowering the station by four metres in order to solve the traffic problems on the connections between the inner city and Western Ulm. This project was supported by several experts, but was not pursued because of its high cost of at least twelve million marks. Instead, a plan was developed in 1901 and 1902 to relocate the passenger station along with the planned marshalling yard to Blaubeurerstraße so that it was aligned east-west and to redevelop the former railway land. The lines to Augsburg and Friedrichshafen would be connected to the new railway station by a tunnel through the Kuhberg and New Ulm would be bypassed. A new South Station would be built on the new line in the Söflingen district near today's Königstraße. This project was also rejected by the administration of the State Railway due to its high cost.
  The Münster Hotel was opened in 1901 as another station hotel on the station forecourt opposite the station building. The Mohrenkopf bridge, built in 1903 and 1904 over the southern station tracks, was completed on 1 October 1904; it was later renamed after the governor of the fortress, Rudolf von Zingler, as Zingler bridge. The city and the State Railway had disputed for years whether to build an overpass or an underpass. With the opening of the bridge, the level crossing on Ehinger Straße was closed. From March 1906, the city of Ulm planned an underpass under the tracks between Bahnhofstrasse in the east and Schillerstraße in the west of the station, which was never carried out.
  Because the old freight handling facilities could not keep pace with rising freight traffic, a freight yard and marshalling yard situated to the east of Ulm station on the Danube Valley Railway was urgently needed. In 1899, the Royal Württemberg State Railways bought the 67,259 square metres of the fortress lands to use as its yard. On 25 September 1902, Württemberg King Wilhelm II granted the State Railway the right to expropriate the required land, so construction of the marshalling yard could begin in 1903. Operations began on a part of the new rail yard in October 1906. On 28 April 1907, the new Ulm-Söflingen station was opened on the Danube Valley Railway at the western end of the marshalling yard, replacing the previous Söflingen station opened in 1868. The Neutor bridge crossing the Fils Valley and the Brenz Railways to the north of Ulm station was completed in July 1907. It was 112 metres long, 11.6 metres wide and weighed 600 tons. While the iron structures and pillars were built by the State Railways, the roadway was built by the city of Ulm. The first ticket machine was installed in the station vestibule on 7 January 1908. The Bahnhofsmission (a charity that assists with various social problems at German stations) was establish
caption: Steam locomotive in Blaubeurer Tor tunnel about 1905
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