The station itself is bordered to the south by the Flutgraben (flood channel) and to the north by Willy-Brandt-Platz.

In the adjacent Kurt-Schumacher-Straße there is car access to the station, parking lots, taxis ranks and the InterCityHotel.

The Erfurt Mayor, Philippe Dressel, however, argued in favour of a location within the 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.

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.

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.

The Nordhäuser Bahnhof served freight traffic from then on and its entrance building is now used as a residential house.

The Sangerhausen–Erfurt railway also originally ended at its own station, the Sangerhäuser Bahnhof, after the opening of the section to Erfurt on 24 October 1881.

[11] The three-storey entrance building of the first Erfurt station is still preserved and is now used by Deutsche Bahn AG.

Previously, with the low buildings on Bahnhofstraße (station street), its tower was widely visible.

The western bay platforms 2 and 6 mostly served trains to and from Arnstadt and towards Suhl, Ilmenau or Saalfeld.

In addition, on the south side, there was the island platform 7, with through tracks for trains heading east to Weimar, which was built in 1940/1941.

In 1992, Deutsche Bundesbahn finally changed to using the term Gleis (track) instead of Bahnsteig (platform).

The Zentrale Hauptverwaltung (ZHvDR—central headquarters) of Deutsche Reichsbahn was given the task of carrying out preliminary planning work at the Erfurt node on 18 August 1992.

They proposed a new electronic signalling centre, the renewal of 44 km (27 mi) tracks and 143 sets of points.

[16] In the autumn of 1995, an eleven-member jury selected the winning plan for the station from a total of 123 submissions.

[18] An electronic interlocking for controlling the Erfurt rail node was put into operations before the start of the large-scale construction work on 14 March 1999.

Conceptually, the plan provided for a safety-related longitudinal separation of the station, in order to be able to carry out the rebuilding in stages.

[22] In October 2001, Vieselbach and Hopfgarten stations and three block posts were also connected to the Erfurt electronic interlocking.

A comprehensive redesign of the track layout was carried out as well as the demolition of part of the existing entrance building and the underpass of Bahnhofstraße.

As a result of the rebuilding, Erfurt Hauptbahnhof will be able to operate as a junction between the Nuremberg–Erfurt and Erfurt–Leipzig/Halle high-speed lines.

In the meantime, the construction work was suspended for two years, when it was unclear whether the two high-speed lines projects connecting with Erfurt would be realised.

The north side of the main station was officially put into operation at the timetable change in December 2005.

[24] It consisted of a "half" glass hall on the upper floor, which spans the newly opened northern island platform with tracks 1 and 2 and partly the middle platform, as well as a shopping arcade on the ground floor and an underground car park.

These funds were supplied by the state of Thuringia, the city of Erfurt and Deutsche Bahn.

At the end of May 2012, in a 64-hour possession, additional tracks for the high-speed lines were integrated east and west of the station with a length of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi).

A crossing structure was built east of the station in Daberstedt to allow trains on the high-speed to Leipzig to pass over the tracks of the lines from Sangerhausen and Wolkramshausen.

The following tables show the status of 2022 timetable: Due to the central position, Erfurt has connections to all regions inside Thuringia.

With the trams you can reach the university in the north of the city and also the international airport in the western district called Bindersleben.