Ravelins Outside the Frauentor before the Changes for the Railroad Buildings

After private companies
initiated both the first rail line between Nuremberg and Fürth, built in 1835,
and the connection between Munich and Augsburg that opened four years later,
the state acted in 1841 to found the Royal Rail Construction Commission in
Nuremberg. Its mission was to organize a rail line from Lindau to Hof by way of
Augsburg and Nuremberg.

Contrary to the wishes
of Nuremberg's municipal authorities, who would have preferred to put the
station in the Johannisfelder area outside the Neutor gate, the state railway
decided on the old Tuchbereitersplatz outside the Frauentor gate – a site that
offered better options for connecting with future train lines to the east. From
the travelers' viewpoint, other vital considerations were the location's
proximity to the Customs Hall and the Post Office on Karolinenstrasse, as well
as its direct connection to the center of town via Königsstrasse.

To document the site's
appearance prior to construction, with the military outworks that had been
installed to defend the city during the Thirty Years' War, the city government
commissioned Georg Christoph Wilder to paint a total of three large views of
the area outside the Frauentor.