The Bahnbetriebswerk Erfurt, short BW Erfurt, was a locomotive workshop near the main station of Erfurt. Shortly after the founding of the Thuringian Railway Company in 1844, before the completion of the railway connection to Erfurt, the first steam locomotives were ordered, which required a place for storage and maintenance. In connection with the construction of the reception building of the Erfurt main station within the Erfurt city walls, areas along Thomasstrasse were acquired for this purpose west of the station. The first locomotives were delivered in 1846. In 1847, the first locomotive shed, coke shed, water supply facilities and a workshop building were built. In 1853, a new locomotive shed with 22 stalls was built on Rosengasse, whose turntable was already renewed in 1856. In 1873, another large ring locomotive shed was built west of Löbertor. The main workshop was also renewed and expanded several times, in 1856, 1862 and 1873.
The symmetrical, multi-winged complex, which is still shown in the city map of 1881, was replaced by the large workshop halls with their typical brick facades from 1876 onwards. Between 1888 and 1894, a new railway depot was built in the area of the new goods station on Weimarische Straße. It was called BwG and consisted of a large rectangular shed with 59 locomotive and repair stands, six hall ships, a push-pull track, two turntables, a 320-meter-long coal bunker, and a water tower, which was later supplied by the Lütschetalsperre, built in 1935. At that time, BwG was considered the largest and most modern railway depot of the Erfurt Railway Division. The old workshop at the passenger station was now called BwP (the one which can be seen in the pictures below). The repair of locomotives was discontinued in 1925. The depot still housed locomotives for express and passenger trains as well as shunting locomotives for the passenger station.
In 1968, both railway depots were finally dissolved as part of a rationalization process. Part of the workshop halls and service buildings were rented out to postal authorities and motor vehicle companies until the 1990s. On February 29, 2012, the Erfurt city council decided to initiate preparatory investigations for the development measure ‘Bahnhofsquartier (ICE-City)’. The future use of the old BwP railway depot to the west of the station remained undecided.
On June 13, 2017, the preserved industrial halls of BwP were the subject of a symposium on industrial culture in Thuringia, attended by representatives from several universities and institutes and the Erfurt monument protection authority. Among other things, the demand was made to preserve and reuse the halls as a cultural heritage site. On December 20, 2017, the Erfurt city council, at the request of the SPD faction, decided to initiate talks with the state of Thuringia with the aim of having the former “Königliches Bahnbetriebswerk” listed as a monument to Erfurt’s industrial and transportation history. In April 2019, sufficient historical, technical, and urban reasons were identified to justify the inclusion of parts of the recent construction of the railway depot in the monument book. The BwG railway depot on Weimarische Straße, between the railway line to the south and Am Wasserturm street, is still in operation as “DB Regio Werk Erfurt.
A fire took place in the west halls of the BwP in 2023, but it was extinguished and the damage was relatively small.
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