With an average of 550,000 passengers a day, it is Germany's busiest railway station and the second-busiest in Europe after the Gare du Nord in Paris.

The first railway line (between Hamburg and Bergedorf) was opened on 5 May 1842, coincidentally the same day that the "great fire" (der große Brand) ruined most of the historic city centre.

Built between 1902 and 1906, the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof was designed by the architects Heinrich Reinhardt and Georg Süßenguth, modeled after the Galerie des machines of the World's Fair of 1889 in Paris, by Louis Béroud.

The emperor personally changed the Art Nouveau style elements to Neo-Renaissance, giving the station a fortification-like character.

Several areas needed to be rebuilt completely, including the baggage check and the eastern ticket counters.

[7] In 2021, the City of Hamburg announced a competition to design an expansion of the station as well as the redevelopment of the surrounding area.

It is located on the northern bridge and includes restaurants, flower shops, kiosks, a pharmacy, service centres and more.

[7] Since 2008, in an effort to disperse drug dealers and users from the area, Deutsche Bahn has been playing classical music (e.g. Vivaldi's Four Seasons).

In 2012 they started producing Terra Preta in the basement by filtering the excrement and mixing it with charcoal and microbes.

To the north ICE trains connect Hamburg with Aarhus and Copenhagen in Denmark and Kiel in Schleswig-Holstein.

There are numerous RegionalExpress and RegionalBahn services to Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Bremen.