The new Berlin’s main station opened

On 26 May 2006 the station Berlin Hauptbahnhof was inaugurated and two days after the first regular trains stopped there. It means that (two weeks before start of the FIFA World Cup 2006) one of the largest railway constructions in the united Germany, which had been started ten years ago, was finished. The new junction arose on the place of former station Lehrter Bahnhof, which had been constructed in 1871 as the end of railway line from Hannover.

Analogous to other modern stations there comes into being a commercial zone and whole neighbourhood should change from a periphery of communistic Berlin to living centre of the integrated city. The underground car park offers places for 900 cars and there is also reserved a place for possible construction of Transrapid, the monorail system using magnetic levitation. The interesting thing is that the station should use the former name Lehrter Bahnhof, but because of better orientation of passengers the name Hauptbahnhof was enforced.