Zürich is a major railway hub, with services to and from across Switzerland and neighbouring countries such as Germany, Italy, Austria and France.

The station was originally constructed as the terminus of the Spanisch Brötli Bahn, the first railway built completely within Switzerland.

[2][3] The station can be found at the northern end of the Altstadt, or old town, and east of the Europaallee in central Zürich, near the confluence of the rivers Limmat and Sihl.

The first Zürich railway station was built by Gustav Albert Wegmann [de], on what were then the north-western outskirts of the city.

The new station was the initially the terminus of the Swiss Northern Railway, more often called the Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn, which opened on 9 August 1847 and linked Zürich with Baden.

A rebuild was started to meet Zürich's increased transport needs, albeit on the same site and using the same basic layout.

The magnificent sandstone neo-Renaissance building features richly decorated lobbies and atriums, restaurants and halls.

In 1902, the year in which the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) took over the Schweizerische Centralbahn and the NOB, the tracks inside the eastern end of the train shed were lifted, due to a lack of space.

On 18 February 1916, the SBB decided that electrification of its network would be by the high-tension single-phase alternating current system that is still used on all routes.

In 1933, the station's simple concourse and the iron and glass train shed were created with seven and a half arches to cover 16 tracks.

In the following year, the SBB introduced its first four-system electric trains under the Trans Europ Express banner, and thereby increased the Zürich Hauptbahnhof's international importance.

It was designed by SBB architect Max Vogt [de], and it has been the home of the Zentralstellwerk Zürich (central signalling control) since 1966.

The then state-of-the-art relay-controlled interlocking system replaced the decentralised mechanical and electro-mechanical signal boxes in the station throat, including the Stellwerk «Seufzerbrücke» ("Bridge of Sighs" signal box), which had spanned the entire station throat just east of the Langstrasse.

Although the people voted against it in 1962, the city's Civil Engineering Department had already started to convert the Bahnhofplatz for the purpose of a possible underground line.

Contrary to expectations, ShopVille did not capture the support of the people, who, in 1973, voted even more emphatically to reject a subway system.

Its low point was reached at the end of the decade, when travellers avoided all parts of it other than the concourse and the tram stop.

The 2.1 km (1.3 mi) long Hirschengraben Tunnel was built for the S-Bahn from the Hauptbahnhof to Zürich Stadelhofen.

Black and white striped marble walls and granite floors are the main design features of what is one of the largest shopping centres in Switzerland.

In 1997, the train shed was fitted on both sides with pitched roofs on sloping concrete supports, designed by local architects Marcel Meili and Markus Peter.

The planning of the S-Bahn and the Rail 2000 long-haul project raised the idea of building the Weinberg Tunnel, a through route from Zürich Hauptbahnhof to Oerlikon.

That proposal was initially postponed, but the great success of the S-Bahn led to an expansion of services and, consequently, to capacity constraints.

As an alternative the construction of the Weinberg tunnel and four additional underground tracks in the railway station was suggested and confirmed by a referendum.

In 2002, an architectural competition was held for the new Löwenstrasse transit station, won by the architect Jean-Pierre Dürig [de].

On 22 December 2006, the Federal Office of Transport approved the building of the tunnel and a third underground four-track Löwenstrasse station.

The Haupthalle is surrounded on three sides by station buildings, whilst to the west it opens onto the Querhalle (lit.

[9] At the subterranean middle level, the station site is crossed north to south by four pedestrian passageways (Passage).

The station also has its own chapel, jointly run by the Evangelical Reformed and the Roman Catholic churches, but open to travellers of all denominations or religions.

On 12 September 2006, to commemorate the station's 150th anniversary, the ETH Zürich installed the NOVA, a three-dimensional, bivalent display, which consists of 25,000 individually addressable light balls.

[21][22] Some 50 kilometres (31 mi) upstream of the station lies the Sihlsee, Switzerland's largest artificial lake, which is impounded by a 33-metre (108 ft) high dam.

Studies showed that a failure of this dam could lead to an 8-metre (26 ft) high flood wave reaching the Hauptbahnhof within 2 hours.