city fortification and the Prussian authorities and the military also demanded that the route of the railway line pass through the fortress ramparts, so that they could stop railway operations in crisis situations. In July 1845, the decision was finally taken to build the station within the fortifications, north of the hohen Batterie (high battery). The first railway station was built in 1846 during the construction of the Thuringian Railway by the Thuringian Railway Company (Thüringische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft). The location chosen meant that the construction of two double tunnels through the fortress wall and several wooden bridges across the moat would be required. It was opened with the Weimar–Erfurt line on 1 April 1847 with all buildings finished except for the entrance building, which was completed in 1852. Apart from the unfinished entrance building, the station had at its opening a locomotive building, a goods shed, a carriage shed, a coke shed, a shed for reserve locomotives and an operations workshop. Within a few years of its opening, the infrastructure was no longer sufficient for the growing needs. Two buildings, an additional goods sheds and a carriage shed, were planned in 1850 and completed in 1854. An enlargement of the locomotive shed was necessary in 1852 and the freight yard was expanded from 1855. One year later, the side wing of the workshop received another floor; the coke shed was converted into a locomotive shed together with a large turntable after the conversion of locomotive operations to coal. A further expansion of freight transport facilities followed in 1860. The two existing freight sheds were expanded and a third was built. However, the lack of space within the fortifications grew increasingly noticeable, and the Thuringian Railway Company purchased a large area in front of the Schmidtstedter gate in 1865 to erect a freight yard. Due to the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the start of construction was delayed and work only began in the following year. Freight sheds were built in 1871, allowing the freight yard to be opened in 1872, but it was only finally completed five years later in 1877. The timetable at the opening of Erfurt Hauptbahnhof showed four trains running daily between Halle and Erfurt with a journey time of three to three and a half hours. Ten years later, in the summer of 1857, two express trains, three ordinary passenger trains, and one mixed train ran daily between