A centrally located concourse runs across and under the railway tracks on two levels, and are connected by stairs and escalators.

The lower level allows passage from central Essen to the north of the station to Essen-Südviertel in the south.

A pedestrian tunnel at the eastern end of the platforms also allows passage from central Essen to the Südviertel district.

[7] The construction of a temporary wooden hall on the station roof and smaller auxiliary buildings did not provide any significant improvement for increasing passenger flows.

An elevated, grade-separated system of tracks was put into operation on 15 June 1899 so that Kettwiger Strasse now passed underneath.

The two island platforms, on the other hand, were spanned by a two-span train shed, the construction of which was carried out by the August Klönne company of Dortmund.

The train shed was 130 m-long, 10.7 m-high and was carried by arch trusses with a span of 21.33 m on cast iron columns spaced 8.6 m apart.

At the outbreak of the First World War, many troop transport trains ran through the station in August 1914 and continued west to the front.

A help centre had been set up in the main station by the Red Cross to receive those arriving by the hospital trains.

The train, the Julius von Waldthausen, named after a member of a patrician family from Essen, had 25 wagons hauled by a Prussian P 8.

Anyone who paid an amount of money could hammer an iron, silver, or gold nail into the smith or one of the side panels.

[16] After the occupation of the Ruhr, a special train brought six hundred police back to Essen on 1 August 1925.

The returning police officers were welcomed at the station by a crowd, who accompanied them on a triumphal procession to their accommodation on Lührmannstrasse in Rüttenscheid.

[8] Allied air raids in 1944 and 1945 destroyed Fritz Klingholz's station building, along with the two-span train shed.

After the war, the station was replaced with a new building in the typical style of the 1950s, partly designed by the architects Kurt Rasenack and Bernd Figge.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia developed a funding package that provided a total of €350 million for stations in the five cities of Essen, Duisburg, Dortmund, Münster and Wuppertal.

This was partly a response to the need for the renovation to be completed by the middle of 2010 at the latest, as Essen was designated as one of the European Capitals of Culture for the year.

Of the total costs of around €57 m, the federal government assumed €35 m, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia €5.1 m and Deutsche Bahn almost €17 m. In addition, the then Essener Verkehrs-AG (EVAG) invested almost €5.3 m in the project.

On 11 February 2008, Essener Verkehrsgesellschaft began to rebuild the approximately one hundred metre-long passage built in 1977 at the first basement level between Willy-Brandt-Platz, which was named after him in 1994, and the street called Freiheit.

The entire concourse of the station building was gutted and rebuilt with 5,700 square metres of retail space.

The Bahnhofsmission (station mission) was given a larger office at the taxi waiting area on the north side, outside the entrance building.

The official opening took place on 16 January 2010 in the presence of Federal Minister of Transport Peter Ramsauer, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia Jürgen Rüttgers, and Deutsche Bahn Chief Rüdiger Grube.

During the renovation of the lobby, the platforms were only accessible via tunnels from the west (station underpass/Freiheit) and east (side entrance opposite the Haus der Technik).

In addition Essener Verkehrs-AG relocated the bus stops from the underpass to the north and south exits.