the first to use the new Marienbrücke, which was built for railway traffic only. Passenger train 642 from Bautzen began passenger services at 5:29 AM. In addition to the traffic from Leipzig and Görlitz, the station handled the long-distance traffic from Berlin, which used the last few kilometres of the Leipzig–Dresden railway, and allowed these trains to connect directly with Dresden Hauptbahnhof, which had been opened three years earlier. The construction costs amounted to 4.1 million marks. Under the timetable at the opening of the station, 162 trains a day departed from Dresden-Neustadt, as follows: 77 trains towards Dresden-Hauptbahnhof, 33 trains on the Arnsdorf–Bautzen–Görlitz route, 28 trains on the Meissen–Döbeln–Leipzig route, 14 trains towards Riesa–Leipzig route 10 trains towards Berlin. Until the end of World War II Only one luxury train ever operated through Dresden-Neustadt. From 1916 to 1918 a section of coaches of the Balkans Express from Berlin to Istanbul ran via Dresden with a stop at Dresden-Neustadt. On 22 September 1918, a serious train crash occurred during the entry of Dresden-Neustadt station with the loss of 18 lives. After the abdication of the king of Saxony in 1918, the rooms originally used for royal apartments were used as a railway museum from 1923 to 1945. Exhibits from this collection are now in the Dresden Transport Museum. From 1936 to 1939, the Henschel-Wegmann Train operated from Dresden Hauptbahnhof to the Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin, covering the route in about 100 minutes. In between the train stopped only in Dresden-Neustadt, which underlines the importance of the station for long-distance passengers. Also diesel multiple units of the Leipzig design briefly operated on the Dresden–Hamburg route via Dresden-Neustadt from 15 May 1939. During the Second World War, in addition to the civil traffic, extensive military traffic had to be handled. An average of 28 military trains, carrying about 19,600 members of the Wehrmacht passed the station each day in October 1944. A care centre was set up by the National Socialist People's Welfare. At the end of the war, the baggage tunnel was used as shelter for 1,425 civilians and 735 decorated Wehrmacht troops. It was divided by temporary splinter bulkheads and equipped with sanitary areas in wooden crates. The last heavy bombing of Dresden on 17 April 1945, which was mainly aimed at transport facilities that were still intact after the 13 February raid, caused severe damage to the station, particularly