The first Hildesheim station was opened by the Royal Hanoverian State Railways as the terminus of the Lehrte–Nordstemmen line—the southern arm of its Cross railway—on 12 July 1846 to the north of the present Kaiserstraße, near the current Bahnhofsallee.

[5] The Hanover-Altenbeken Railway Company (German: Hannover-Altenbekener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, HAE) was planning to build a rail line from Löhne to Vienenburg, through Hildesheim.

Only after the nationalisation of the HAE and its parent the MHE did trains begin to stop at the main railway station on 20 May 1880.

In 1888, the single-track line to Brunswick was opened for long-distance trains running east to Magdeburg and Berlin.

The station is served by the following services: Since December 2008, Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof has been connected to the Hannover S-Bahn.