Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Moabit, Berlin

I do like this station, admittedly its large and set on too many levels with lots of escalators, but its a cross between a station and a shopping mall. So if you have to wait for a train, its a good place to kill time.

A MASSIVE train station on numerous levels with seemingly hundreds of platforms.

But it’s incredibly impressive and well endowed with many many shops, cafes and restaurants so if you have time to kill there is no problem spending time here.

Its also very well located in the centre of Berlin so you can get the Sbahn, Taxi or just walk to where you need to go.

The main station in Berlin, the Hauptbahnhof, has replaced the old train station Lehrter Bahnhof. You can still find a picture of the old "Lehrter Bahnhof" on the side of the wsv - http://www.wsv.de/
Wasserstrassen-Bundeswasserstrassen More Pictures can be found in the internet thanks to Google.

After the Reunion Berlin had two Central Railway Stations.
The central Railway Station in West-Berlin used to be the Zoo Station (Zoologischer Garten).
The central Railwaystation in East-Berlin used to be the Ostbahnhof.
I think these two stations would have been sufficient and the Lehrter Bahnhof should not have been replaced.

Many Tourists will now leave the Train at the Hauptbahnhof and notice the newly Built, huge Station which looks like a Glass case from the outside. There are no remains of the old Lehrter Bahnhof. I don’t really like the new station and think it is far from the real needs of the passengers.

Such Great place! I'll come recording in Berlin again.

it is the first page of my album in Germany. I arrived in Berlin at this station, and got some friends on the way to my flat. later on , it has been the very point for me to catch the ICE to other cities in Germany. Though it is not of the type of architecture, which means to strike you at the first look, I have never deny my liking for this grand building.

Cold. Unfriendly staff, long walking distance. Potential for the future with traffic, too big for today but a few construction companies where happy to make business , who pays? Yeah right...., we pay to make the big criminals up there rich.

it's a great place to visit if you are not in a hurry to go somewhere.
stuff can be Very unfriendly and the futuristic architecture can be confusing. but if you have time to take the place in to walk around at you own leisure, it's great.

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of tourist visits to Berlin kind of skyrocketed and this quickly showed (since Berlin was also a very popular destination for German tourists, most of whom came by train) that the train stations which had been used as central stations during the division of the city (Zoo in West, Ostbahnhof in East Berlin) were just too small and could not meet the needs of the new-old capital anymore.

The new central station was inaugurated in 2006.

The surroundings are the so called "Regierungsmeile" (Mile of the Government): throught the gigantic glass wall of the main entrance you may see their Lower House of Parliament (Reichstag), barely 700 yards away

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or the Residence & Office of the Prime Minister (Kanzleramt), almost across the street:

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The whole building is a gigantic structure of glass and metal.

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The roof is made of glass tiles. They are so many (the builiding is indeed gigantic) that a self-moving machine was developed to clean them:

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Basically, the station has two levels for trains (upper and lower) with railways in 90º (east-west on upper, north-south on lower level); the storeys in between are for shops, banks, restaurants, ticket offices, etc. Escalators, stairs and lifts will allow you to move through the station. And try not to get dizzy when you look down from the upper floor, the views are indeed something.

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And as is said before, trains up & down. Upstairs:
(basically trains moving east-west, to Amsterdam, Hannover, Frankfurt, Warsaw...).

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and downstairs (trains moving north-south, to Rostock, Stralsund, Dresden, Prague....)

The station aroused criticism because -among other reasons- the bad connexion with the city transport system. Not without reason. A subway line has been inaugurated since then providing transportation to the Brandenburg Gate (which does not solve the problem since no other subway lines there...).

At least, loads of buses next:

In the whole, the train station has been well designed although it just does not look like a station but like a shopping mall, which makes you sometimes feel weird. Loads of shops for the last-minute purchases, as well as banks, high-end or budget restaurants, ...

But it's so huge you may need more time than expected to find your train. Take it with time.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main station) is a huge soulless futuristic mess. Try finding your way to platform 8 - not very obvious.

Somehow it doesn't feel very well integrated into Berlin either - you can't walk out of the front door into the city centre. Admittedly the Reichstag is quite nearby, but that's about it. I've never managed to get a U or S bahn from here to anywhere I wanted to go in Berlin. You always have to change or get a bus... It's just not very handy.

I'm writing this while stood on the bland, vast concrete expanse that they call platform 8. It's a pretty cold and depressing place.

The worst designed main station for any city I have visited. It’s designed as a multi-storey shopping arcade with a train station as secondary consideration. Generic, soulless shops whose only redeeming feature is that they are open on Sundays, are the main part of this building. If you ever have to change from S-bahn to RE, you’ll instantly see how poorly the pedestrian traffic routes are designed. The priority is to expose you to as many shops as possible enroute, rather than get you as quickly and efficiently from one platform to the other.

Not enough ticket machines, not enough seats, not enough timetables available.

The Hauptbahnhof should be a showcase of modernity and efficiency, instead what we have is a 1990s style shopping arcade. Berlin’s planners should be ashamed of themselves.

Controversial building in the centre of Berlin. Architecturally inspired despite not being fully realised. The glass hall lends the building a certain timelessness. A further advantage is that it’s very bright everywhere. Travellers can boost the domestic economy in over 80 shops. Unfortunately the station is not well integrated into the city’s traffic infrastructure, and this is likely to be the case for another few years.

Really find the train station efficient and compelling every time I travel by train to Berlin. Don’t understand why some people find it confusing. I like that so many vendors have set up shop in the train station and I can grab an S’Bux coffee, a Kebab, hit the bank, eat some sushi or whatever while waiting for a train or shortly after arriving and before heading to meetings. I like it “cold” as this usually means it’s clean. I can’t stand trying to make modern transportation live in the past. Modernization of train stations is a benefit! Nothing is too far from the train station and you easily get everywhere with the U- or S-Bahn. I wish every train station in Germany were so modern and inviting. At the same time, I am sure that Berlin will be a template for many future renovations in Germany.

I often feel like I’m living in the future when living in Germany. That is one of the reasons I like it so much. Part of this emotion is connected to the sometimes brutally, but always fantastically modern architecture, that is so popular here. Berlin Hauptbahnhof does not disappoint on that front. A triumph of towering glass and steel, with tracks above your head seemingly impossibly supported, and also below your feet, at different angles. The mainline platforms are so straight, that trains make no noise entering and exiting the station. There are numerous escalators to traverse your way up and down between myriad levels.

Of course, the other advantage of living in the future, compared to just thinking you live in the future, is that everyone would be clever enough to navigate round a building like this. If only I’d wanted a kebab at 7am and not a coffee eh? Still, small price to pay, for the future.

Remember the guy who went crazy here and stabbed a bunch of people?
Well, it turns out that is a perfectly natural reaction to the Hauptbahnhof.
After spending a certain amount of time here, anyone can be transformed into a raging maniac.
But seriously, if you can avoid this station, definitely try to do so.
There are hardly any signs, everything is labelled terribly.
There are huge crowds of people wandering around in a fog of confusion.
It’s a terrible, terrible station.

This is probably one of the worst planned train stations I’ve even been through. I’ve been here multiple times on way way in from Hamburg on the ICE, needing to take the S-Bahn to Berlin Center. In principle, this should be simple, because both trains come and go from the same station. Unfortunately, the Berlin central train station is built like a multi-level labyrinth with barely any floor maps or information desks. I speak German, so I was able to navigate myself to the proper platform after only about 20-25 minutes of walking in circles. I can’t imagine what this experience must be like for tourists.

The train station opened with much fanfare, but truth be told, I find it to be badly planned, confusing and disorienting.

This station is a nightmare! The lifts don’t help but confuse the first-time visitor. The exit is concealed. Met one couple who were tearing their hair out because they couldn’t leave the station. Like normal people they expected the sortee to be on the ground floor!
The circle line and the platform signs seem to mix and confuse. And I only saw on map of the lay out!
This station is light and airy but has far too much glass for my liking. The shopping is great though.

Yeah, point taken it looks nice and it’s also pretty open, and there are some stores there that are open on Sundays. But the openess totally sucks when you are picking up people during the winter. I wonder if any of the architects ever had the pleasure of doing so - standing in the cold and wind, but you are inside a building.

Really, I try to avoid this place whenever possible. I rather leave from Ostbahnhof for example. Also, reaching this place is like impossible at some times - why is it so far away from everywhere (unless you live in Moabit/Wedding)? ;-)

What also annoyed the hell out of me. What is it with opening hours in general at this place. I had to leave at 4:30 AM on Monday, and there is like nothing open except for a bakery and a Saft Bar (see other review). Can’t they have at least a coffee shop and a news stand open that early or are there stupid-ass German regulations that forbid opening those places that early?

Architecturally interesting, but not well-planned. The 8 or so elevators all run in separate, isolated shafts spread throughout the station. This means each elevator is serving 5 floors alone (algorithm-wise), making them horribly inefficient. This seems like a clear victory of form over function.

The one real plus, and this may be a helpful tip for visitors, is that it’s really a shopping mall, with trains running through it. Since train stations are allowed to have their shops open on Sunday, it is by default the best shopping mall open on the day of rest. When all other shops are closed, you can still get there easily and stock up on clothes, housewares, books and music, groceries, etc.

I don’t like this station. Whenever I’m there I have to change trains from the underground line to the overhead line. That means escalators, escalators,escalators :-( Besides that there is a terrible draught in the underground part.