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Sloght nuance here: Hof often means a building with a (court)yard - so can apply to a school playground, a (criminal/royal) court, an hotel (perhaps originally a coaching inn?).....
The presence of a building is a consistent factor, hence (I assume) its adoption for a railway station.
I don't know the history, but did many of these perhaps come into being after World War 2, during which we provided some assistance with the requisite demolition?
Mitte tends to be a halt supplementing the Hbf (or simply Bhf in some cases) - Stadt more likely, but Llandudno might be the Hbf and the Junction literally Ll-(aus)weiche or Ll-Süd; it's definitely a secondary settlement.
(I can't instantly think of an - (aus)weiche in Germany but there's Suhr in Switzerland.)
we can do multiple subject degrees, e.g. Maths Physics German.
Most people running the UK have done Philosophy Politics Economics (do not assume that means they know much philosophy or economics).
Back on topic, this naming is not unique to germany. Further east Hlavni (and Mesto), Glowny etc are normal though these probably were Hbf when built in Prussian or Hapsburg-run days.
A Stadtbahn isn't something we quite have so there isn't really a term for it, but you could imagine us creating one by sticking Metrolink underground through central Manchester, something I'd be surprised if we didn't see in my lifetime albeit towards the end of it. The concept is a bit of a hybrid of Metrolink and either the Tyne and Wear Metro or DLR, and all of those have their own names, whereas Sheffield and Nottingham's systems are more like traditional street tramways.
We'd probably just call it an underground tram or something.
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In the UK it's not unusual (though not that common either) to have Bachelor's degrees in more than one subject. Joint Honours (which the University of Keele specialises in) is typically 50-50 between the two subjects. What I did was a "with" degree which was 2/3 Computer Science and 1/3 German, which in practice meant I did the core language modules and one other (German history one year and a more in depth linguistics course in the other two) and got to drop a couple of the less interesting (to me) CS modules.
The US term for this would be majoring in Computer Science and minoring in German, I guess that terminology would be familiar?
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The latter term isn't really used any more (except a couple of cases where it's deliberately used to be quaint on touristy branch lines, e.g. Coombe Junction Halt - I think modern-day FGW/GWR were quite fond of it so all of them may well be down there) and so the term "station" (or in full "railway station" typically used by those aged roughly 40 up and the slight Americanism "train station" typically used by those under 40, with a bit of overlap) is used for all places where passengers can board and/or alight trains, whether they be one platform with a couple of trains a day in rural Scotland or a major interchange like Clapham Junction.
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One aspect that's interesting of German is translating the compound words literally - it doesn't work in the same way in English but it does give you an interesting insight into the derivation of words. You can do it in Welsh too because that language, like German, tends to string words together to form new nouns, albeit not in quite the same way.
Nonetheless the word "Bahnhof" and the phrase "railway station" don't quite have the same meaning. In the 2020s the term "station" is pretty much exclusively used to describe a place where one can board and/or alight trains (or where you used to be able to if it's closed), and would not be used to describe a shunting yard, a freight yard/terminal/depot or anything like that, whereas in Germany those all come under "Bahnhof" in some way, though if you asked someone "Wo ist der Bahnhof?" I doubt you would be directed to one unless they were being facetious or silly.
When I say everyday speech, I mean that "I'll pick you up at the station" will be something like "Ich hole dich vom Bahnhof ab" whether that is Düsseldorf Hbf or some little wayside single platform Haltepunkt which is not strictly speaking a Bahnhof. Staying in Düsseldorf however, the Bahnhof Düsseldorf-Derendorf (to give an example) is nothing to do with the S-Bahn Haltepunkt of that name - they are entirely separate operational facilities (Betriebsstellen - translation issue again!) and the Bahnhof Düsseldorf-Derendorf has no passenger facilities whatsoever. The thing which we (and your average German) would consider to be a railway station there is not a Bahnhof, but a Haltepunkt.
Light rail is generic and encompasses all sorts of stuff that runs on rails but isn't classic heavy rail (i.e. Network Rail metals plus London Underground which while it's a metro is a heavy-rail one, unlike most German U-Bahn systems - indeed the Germans would probably see the shallow Tube as an S-Bahn, and London Overground probably is too).
Pre-metro (didn't think of that) is I think a term of French/Belgian origin where they have quite a few of them (street tramways with underground city centre sections and the likes), but it could well be the term we end up with if someone does build one. I do think Manchester is the most likely place we'll see one, and parts of the system are quite close to it now albeit without the underground bits. I would expect to see one in Manchester in my lifetime but probably towards the end of it! I don't know if the Dutch use that term for Den Haag where they just stuck the trams underground through a city centre core but most of it is on street?
The Berlin Stadtbahn is a completely different thing from an actual Stadtbahn (pre-metro) and is just the name for a connecting mainline railway across the city (Hamburg's is called the Altonaer Verbindungsbahn if I recall). Castlefield is probably our main example. Thameslink sort of is but is more like an S-Bahn but with particularly long reach because the UK has far longer commutes than Germany tends to due to the ludicrous price of houses in the London area. The Lizzie is basically a textbook S-Bahn*, as is Merseyrail, while stuff like the Snow Hill Lines and Cross City in Birmingham sort of are too but are perhaps a bit underdeveloped for the German context.
* Doesn't stand for Stadtbahn. Doesn't I believe actually stand for anything, though some have "translated" it as Staedteschnellbahn in the past.
As 30907 has now said, 'Hof' does not mean specifically 'yard'. in most Germanic language. It can by extension refer to a building because 'hof' can mean farm, farmstead, estate etc. Bahnhof came about because when first in existence, a railway station comprised a large building resembling a farmhouse and the area containing the tracks resemble a farmyard or courtyard.
However, what must never be forgotten in all discussion like this one, is that language differs across the spectrum, so there are in fact various 'correct' translations' of 'hof' - and of course just as English language varies greatly across the 'English speaking world', so German language varies dramatically right across the Germanic language areas (north German being often much different from Bavarian, Swiss and Austrian German)
Sloght nuance here: Hof often means a building with a (court)yard - so can apply to a school playground, a (criminal/royal) court, an hotel (perhaps originally a coaching inn?).....
The presence of a building is a consistent factor, hence (I assume) its adoption for a railway station.
It started with the westward expansion of Prussia IIRC, as part of the prioritisation of military traffic.
Mitte tends to be a halt supplementing the Hbf (or simply Bhf in some cases) - Stadt more likely, but Llandudno might be the Hbf and the Junction literally Ll-(aus)weiche or Ll-Süd; it's definitely a secondary settlement.
(I can't instantly think of an - (aus)weiche in Germany but there's Suhr in Switzerland.)
Pre-metro? (Obviously not Berlin!)
Light rail (as in DLR) would work - Tram-train suggests to me main-line running.
a lot of the Hauptbahnhofs where created just between 1871 WW1 with after private companies amalgimated into regional state companies KPEV for Prussia ect. In other region railway companies build a joint station to ease operation. Not just for changing trains but also capacity reasons. Leipzig still has a Saxon and a "Bavarian" section in its Hbf. Munich Hbf still has its Starnberger section.
Often those early Hauptbahnhof were known as Central-Bahnhof.
Although military reasons did exist, it also emphasised the unity of the German Reich. The Kaiser often interfered personally on those issues, even choosing design features for what was then German Metz (now Metz-Ville France). In the latter case it was not just military issues but also optical features.
Light rail is generic and encompasses all sorts of stuff that runs on rails but isn't classic heavy rail (i.e. Network Rail metals plus London Underground which while it's a metro is a heavy-rail one, unlike most German U-Bahn systems - indeed the Germans would probably see the shallow Tube as an S-Bahn, and London Overground probably is too).
Pre-metro (didn't think of that) is I think a term of French/Belgian origin where they have quite a few of them (street tramways with underground city centre sections and the likes), but it could well be the term we end up with if someone does build one. I do think Manchester is the most likely place we'll see one, and parts of the system are quite close to it now albeit without the underground bits. I would expect to see one in Manchester in my lifetime but probably towards the end of it! I don't know if the Dutch use that term for Den Haag where they just stuck the trams underground through a city centre core but most of it is on street?
The Berlin Stadtbahn is a completely different thing from an actual Stadtbahn (pre-metro) and is just the name for a connecting mainline railway across the city (Hamburg's is called the Altonaer Verbindungsbahn if I recall). Castlefield is probably our main example. Thameslink sort of is but is more like an S-Bahn but with particularly long reach because the UK has far longer commutes than Germany tends to due to the ludicrous price of houses in the London area. The Lizzie is basically a textbook S-Bahn*, as is Merseyrail, while stuff like the Snow Hill Lines and Cross City in Birmingham sort of are too but are perhaps a bit underdeveloped for the German context.
* Doesn't stand for Stadtbahn. Doesn't I believe actually stand for anything, though some have "translated" it as Staedteschnellbahn in the past.
There's a tendency among some "transport nerds" to want to separate different systems into clearly defined categories, when in reality every system is slightly different and none of them fit neatly into strict definitions such as "metro" "light rail" or "Stadtbahn". Especially when you consider that a number of systems use "Metro" or derivative words (Manchester Metrolink for example) as branding regardless of any imagined criteria that qualifies a system as a "metro".
Likewise I'm not sure arguments about the literal translation of "Bahnhof" are of much use. If you've done a couple of years of German at high school then you (big air-quotes) "know" that Bahnhof means railway station and that the "Haupt-" prefix loosely means "main". If you use that logic on your weekend in Köln you won't get into too much difficulty. Trying to "well, actually..." at native speakers isn't a great look.
(Okay, maybe Köln isn't the best example, as the Hbf is pretty central!)
I disagree that it does here. Bahnhof clearly derives from what early ones looked like, and is still relevant today in the sense that it is much wider in meaning than "railway station", it's more like "railway facility or premises" taking in stuff like freight depots, though the default if unqualified would be a passenger station. The side discussion on this was to me quite interesting; should you think otherwise there's no requirement for you to read or reply to those posts
And between 1960 and 1999 a suburban station quite some distance from the city centre went under the name "Potsdam Hauptbahnhof". In 1999 it reverted to "Potsdam Pirschheide" and is served hourly by a local train.
I disagree that it does here. Bahnhof clearly derives from what early ones looked like, and is still relevant today in the sense that it is much wider in meaning than "railway station", it's more like "railway facility or premises" taking in stuff like freight depots, though the default if unqualified would be a passenger station. The side discussion on this was to me quite interesting; should you think otherwise there's no requirement for you to read or reply to those posts
It’s also worth remembering that the word has a specific “railway technical”meaning which would almost certainly be a closed book to 99% of native speakers. Totally irrelevant in normal life but entirely relevant here.
Don't forget that the infrastructure operator for stations (in the sense of maintaining buildings, swiping platforms, cleaning bins) calls their stations always "Bahnhof" or "Personenbahnhof", whether or not per the other definition it's a "Bahnhof" or just a "Haltepunkt" (or even a "Haltestelle"!). I hate the meme about Hamburg-Dammtor ("it's not a Bahnhof!!1elf"), because yes, per one definition it may not be. But unless you're a signaller or someone planning train paths or whatever, you don't need to adhere to that definition.
And let's not forget that in other German-speaking countries the official terminology may be different anyway.
Would it be fair to say that one aspect where the UK and Germany are similar is that what counts as an intercity service doesn't have much to do with specifically linking cities in either case? I think the German (and a broader international statistical definition) of a Großstadt is any urban area of 100,000+ people, of which some intercity (express) routes like Berlin – Binz only have one.
And between 1960 and 1999 a suburban station quite some distance from the city centre went under the name "Potsdam Hauptbahnhof". In 1999 it reverted to "Potsdam Pirschheide" and is served hourly by a local train.
Light rail is generic and encompasses all sorts of stuff that runs on rails but isn't classic heavy rail (i.e. Network Rail metals plus London Underground which while it's a metro is a heavy-rail one, unlike most German U-Bahn systems - indeed the Germans would probably see the shallow Tube as an S-Bahn, and London Overground probably is too).
Pre-metro (didn't think of that) is I think a term of French/Belgian origin where they have quite a few of them (street tramways with underground city centre sections and the likes), but it could well be the term we end up with if someone does build one. I do think Manchester is the most likely place we'll see one, and parts of the system are quite close to it now albeit without the underground bits. I would expect to see one in Manchester in my lifetime but probably towards the end of it! I don't know if the Dutch use that term for Den Haag where they just stuck the trams underground through a city centre core but most of it is on street?
The Berlin Stadtbahn is a completely different thing from an actual Stadtbahn (pre-metro) and is just the name for a connecting mainline railway across the city (Hamburg's is called the Altonaer Verbindungsbahn if I recall). Castlefield is probably our main example. Thameslink sort of is but is more like an S-Bahn but with particularly long reach because the UK has far longer commutes than Germany tends to due to the ludicrous price of houses in the London area. The Lizzie is basically a textbook S-Bahn*, as is Merseyrail, while stuff like the Snow Hill Lines and Cross City in Birmingham sort of are too but are perhaps a bit underdeveloped for the German context.
* Doesn't stand for Stadtbahn. Doesn't I believe actually stand for anything, though some have "translated" it as Staedteschnellbahn in the past.
Given the watering-down of the S-Bahn “brand” over the last few years I would have no hesitation in counting the Snow Hill / Cross City lines as an S-Bahn (albeit lacking those oh so useful route numbers). The network would surely even give us Europe‘S shortest S-bahn line in the Stourbridge shuttle.
Given the watering-down of the S-Bahn “brand” over the last few years I would have no hesitation in counting the Snow Hill / Cross City lines as an S-Bahn (albeit lacking those oh so useful route numbers). The network would surely even give us Europe‘S shortest S-bahn line in the Stourbridge shuttle.
They certainly by far exceed the Swiss definition of S-Bahn, but SBB often use that (or RER in the French speaking bit) for what DB would call a RegionalExpress* - it just means a regional network with consistent calling patterns and a clockface timetable (i.e. "im Takt") - quite a lot of them are just hourly.
It's interesting, actually, that we tend not to talk about this sort of system as a metro and complain about not having them, whereas they do exist in our larger cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool (even in addition to Merseyrail), Glasgow, Leeds and the likes (the Bradford lines are clearly S-Bahn in a sense). We're maybe more like India than Germany is - we have these things, they're just a bit haphazard, not separately branded and operated by the mainline railway rather than the city. You've also got an extensive network of S-Bahn like services south of the Thames where the Tube mostly doesn't go.
* RE can be used for all stations stoppers - RB is normally only used for services that are *not* "im Takt", unless that has changed.
They certainly by far exceed the Swiss definition of S-Bahn, but SBB often use that (or RER in the French speaking bit) for what DB would call a RegionalExpress* - it just means a regional network with consistent calling patterns and a clockface timetable (i.e. "im Takt") - quite a lot of them are just hourly.
It's interesting, actually, that we tend not to talk about this sort of system as a metro and complain about not having them, whereas they do exist in our larger cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool (even in addition to Merseyrail), Glasgow, Leeds and the likes (the Bradford lines are clearly S-Bahn in a sense). We're maybe more like India than Germany is - we have these things, they're just a bit haphazard, not separately branded and operated by the mainline railway rather than the city. You've also got an extensive network of S-Bahn like services south of the Thames where the Tube mostly doesn't go.
No other network has ever been blessed with a Frank Pick to unify it and make it stand out. Even something as simple as consistent stopping patterns and associated route numbers seems beyond us but they are things which contribute to a network acquiring a pattern instead of being a jumble. But “not invented here”!
However, branding and route numbers will only take you that far. A true S-Bahn (of the unwatered-down West German variety) requires dedicated tracks and platforms and is thus very expensive to set up.
Given the watering-down of the S-Bahn “brand” over the last few years I would have no hesitation in counting the Snow Hill / Cross City lines as an S-Bahn (albeit lacking those oh so useful route numbers). The network would surely even give us Europe‘S shortest S-bahn line in the Stourbridge shuttle.
As an extreme example, the hourly S1 in Rhein-Neckar (Homburg – Kaiserslautern – Mannheim – Heidelberg – Osterburken) is a similar length and duration to Gloucester – Weymouth (or, admittedly, Peterborough – Horsham).
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