Lübeck Hauptbahnhof (German for Lübeck main station) is the main railway station serving the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is a through station at the western edge of the city centre. With around 31,000 travelers and visitors each day, Lübeck Hbf is the busiest of all the railway stations in Schleswig-Holstein. It is classified by the Deutsche Bahn as a category 2 station. The present station building was built in 1908 by the Lübeck-Büchener Eisenbahn (LBE). At that time, the LBE operated most of the railway connections around Lübeck, including the express trains. The station building was designed by Fritz Klingholz, and replaced the previous, outdated building. Lübeck Hbf is a Reiterbahnhof, or station with a reception building laid out as a bridge "riding" over the tracks. Its reception building spans a total of 10 tracks with four platforms. A special feature is its wide wooden steps leading down to the platforms. The station was recently modernised and completely electrified, and is now fully connected with Germany's electric railway network. History The old Hauptbahnhof The forerunner of today's Hauptbahnhof was built by the LBE in 1851, on the wall peninsula near the Holstentor. Initially, it had only one platform, but due to later expansion work, ended up with four platforms. With increasing traffic, operations became problematic, as the trains crossed a main road directly after leaving the station, and the tracks needed to pass over several small streams. Upon the commissioning of the new Hauptbahnhof in 1908, the old station building finally lost its function. After being put to various other uses (including the housing of the Harbour Railway administration), the old station building was demolished in 1934, as part of the transformation of the Holstentorplatz. The origins of today's Hauptbahnhof As was evident by the turn of the 20th century, the old station building was too small, so a new location was sought. The problematic layout of the Lübeck inner city, which is situated on an island, had already caused great difficulties for the construction and operation of the original station. Thus, the new station site needed to be just outside the inner city to be able to solve these problems. A suitable location was finally found in the Rethteich Meadows, a few hundred metres west of the inner city, near the St. Lawrence Church. The new station, built to a design by