The plaster is crumbling, graffiti adorns the facade. Someone nailed the windows shut with a few boards. If you travel through Brandenburg by train, you will pass many a station building that was long past its lifetime.
According to Deutsche Bahn (DB), only 28 of the 310 stations in Brandenburg are owned by DB. All others have been sold. It is often not easy to determine where and to whom. “This is organized irresponsibility,” says the managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance, Dirk Flege. Instead of being well-kept entrance gates to the city, many buildings were rotting away. Flege speaks of a “transport policy drama”.
This is organized irresponsibility.
Dirk FlegeManaging Director Pro-Rail Alliance
Many railway stations sold, especially in eastern Germany
Especially in the eastern German federal states, many stations were sold after the railway reform in the 1990s. In Brandenburg, only every tenth building still belongs to the railways. “It was a real sell-out,” said Flege. According to the Pro-Rail Alliance, 2,824 of 3,507 stations have been sold across Germany. That’s 81 percent.
The fact that so many train stations were sold in countries such as Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt was mainly due to the decline in population. Train stations were no longer profitable due to a lack of people boarding and alighting the train there, says Flege.
81
percent Deutsche Bahn has sold its stations since 1999.
Musicians’ boarding house, co-working space, bakery
In order to save station buildings from decay, local authorities and some committed private owners are presenting new usage concepts, also in order to apply for federal and state subsidies to renovate the dilapidated buildings.
If you look around in Brandenburg, you will find some station buildings that are being reused. Architect Simon Breth knows what you are getting yourself into when buying and redesigning a former reception building. In 2016, Breth and his wife bought the old Annahütte train station in the municipality of Schipkau in southern Brandenburg. Price: 27,000 euros.
The fact that the building near a lake and the former glassworks settlement was so cheap was also due to the fact that Breth and his wife first had to draw up an outdoor area statute. This regulates that certain public interests cannot be held against a construction project in the outskirts of a municipality.
“It’s about maintaining the overall picture”
That took a year. “If that’s not approved, the money is gone for now,” says Breth. Nevertheless, the architect couple from Berlin did not stop them from buying the station and converting it into a musicians’ boarding house with a built-in recording studio.
Breth says using such old factory buildings requires a pioneering spirit. The protection of historical monuments also poses challenges for site managers in the old station buildings. According to Breth, for example, no plastic windows were allowed to be installed. Openings should not be enlarged either. “It’s about maintaining the overall picture.” Nevertheless, according to Breth, the interior can usually be designed according to one’s wishes.
In the district town of Herzberg in Elbe-Elster, the municipality bought back the station building and is currently working on developing a usage concept in order to receive funds from the Lusatia economic region’s funding pot for the renovation.
Mayor Karsten Eule-Prütz (independent) has big plans for the 175-year-old building. The station building is to become a place of culture and work. A heater is supposed to be in, WiFi is needed. “It should be available to people as a creative place,” he says on the phone.
Sleeping places are also to be created so that people who come to events in the town can also spend the night there. But the project is still in its infancy. Eule-Prütz says that a sensible usage concept is important. “And then someone has to do it.”
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