I would have been sitting on top of a big green tricycle with a stripy seat and hitched on to the back of my three-wheeler would have a been a red wagon carrying everything a Trans-Canadian train engineer would need - teddy bear, patchwork security blanket, a couple of Richard Scarry books and maybe tools from the garden shed to lay some extra track.

Our driveway in Winnipeg circa 1971 was a hub of rail activity and, depending on my mood, you could have seen passenger carriages roaring through (I also played conductor) or extra long freight trains if I could find enough extra wagons to tow.

I've always had a healthy interest in rail travel that's come close to, but never crossed the line into, trainspotter territory.

As much as I like the platypus features of the latest Japanese bullet train or the Swiss railway's vintage, dark green, tobacco-scented passenger carriages, I stop short of going out of my way to sample inaugural rail services or to fill scrapbooks with ticket stubs, sugar sachets and other such memorabilia.

That said, I did find myself going to extraordinary lengths on Tuesday to get the press office at Deutsche Bahn to drop everything and give me a sneak preview of their new station in Berlin. Other business brought me to the capital but I managed to find an hour to see what Deutsche Bahn, after 10 years of construction, got for its ?10bn.

The headline is that it buys you a working model of Germany at its best - engineering, logistics, architecture, technology and infrastructure all under a massive glass roof. That the whole station happens to be on the doorstep of the Reichstag, the Chancellor's residence and the Swiss embassy is no accident. For Germany's Federal ministers it's a confident symbol of modernity and public service; for Chancellor Angela Merkel it's a showplace for visiting heads of state to marvel at; and for the Swiss it's a reminder that they're not the only ones in Europe who know how to run a railway network.

Berlin's Hauptbahnhof, which opens officially on May 26, looks more like a temple to transport than a structure that might actually get involved with the gritty business of handling trains, selling tickets and dispensing fast food.

Its slightly stand-offish appearance has a lot to do with the fact that there's nothing around the massive glass and steel structure - no take-away stands offering Wurst, no Porno-kinos, no Sonnenstudios, no two-star hotels, just a dusty, for the moment un-landscaped, plain.

It's this lack of street life or bustle around the station that makes it feel oddly isolated from the rhythm of the rest of city. A master plan will eventually see some much-needed buildings go up around the structure to persuade the sceptics that the station is actually at the heart of the city and not literally in the middle of nowhere.

"It will take a few years to persuade Berliners that this station is exactly where it should be," says Deutsche Bahn.

Built to serve north-south and east-west traffic, the station - designed by architects von Gerkan, Marg und Partner - borrows a considerable amount of inspiration from both Europe's grand railway stations and its better designed airports. There are also more than 80 shops, restaurants and services, suggesting that DB spent a lot of time with managers from Japan Railways looking at mixed-use opportunities in, above and around stations. The station will eventually handle over 1,000 trains a day and will rank as Europe's biggest rail crossing hub with north and southbound traffic using eight tracks on the lower level and east and westbound traffic cutting through the station on suspended tracks that hang above the main plaza and mezzanine for shops and services.

Deutsche Bahn has positioned itself as one of the world's biggest champions of cross-mobility, allowing connections with other forms of transport. At the new station, this means DB bicycles will be available to rent to ensure you can get to a meeting on time, tour boats will have a dedicated jetty, there's a car rental facility and connections to S-Bahns, U-Bahns and buses.

There's a grand gala opening scheduled to launch the station at the end of the month. I hope Germany will use the opportunity to not only impress football fans who'll be putting the station through its paces during the World Cup but also to invite their peers from elsewhere in the railway world. Hopefully Britain's track, rolling stock and station operators will accept the invitation and take home a carriage full of pointers and inspiration.