The small Saxon town of Crimmitschau has had a station building in the style of Italian Renaissance palazzi since 1871. Due to its unusual design for a railway station building, Crimmitschau station is a listed building and was thus able to avoid a demolition discussion despite being vacant for many years. The station is structured by a dominant central building, which symmetrically divides the broad, two-storey structure. A façade structure that was once characteristic of the style, with strong ashlar bands on the ground floor and window axes divided by pilaster strips, was replaced in the early 1960s by a simplified plaster façade. The earlier simpler station building from 1844 is said to still be preserved and could be the yellow rendered structure on the right edge of the picture. If anyone from Crimmitschau can confirm this, please write us a short info by mail.
Railway history of Crimmitschau
As early as 1844, the construction of the railway line from Leipzig to Hof, coming from Altenburg, reached the town of Crimmitschau. Further construction then ended first in Werdau to the south, before continuing over the newly built large Vogtland railway bridges. Due to the early railway connection, Crimmitschau quickly became an industrial centre and, as the “town of a hundred chimneys”, a main location of the Saxon textile industry. From 1908, Crimmitschau station was a separation station with a branch line to the Schweinsburg industrial area and power plant site, which was closed again in 1963. Since 2013, Crimmitschau has been integrated into the Mitteldeutsche S-Bahn network around Leipzig on the Halle-Leipzig-Zwickau line and thus has a direct connection to Leipzig Markt station and Leipzig-Halle Airport.
Conversion and redevelopment
Crimmitschau station has been empty since the early 2000s and is no longer open to the public; access to the railway facilities is around the side of the building. For years, various ideas, plans and investors have been discussed for the subsequent use, including a discotheque use or a medical centre. In the course of the upcoming redevelopment of the neighbouring Old Main Post Office for residential use, there should also be some movement again on the conversion of the station.
