Bad Rappenau station is the station of

Bad Rappenau Bad Rappenau (; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Rappene'') is a city municipality in the Heilbronn (district), district of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is situated about northwest of Heilbronn. Geography ...

, a

spa town A spa town is a resort town based on a mineral spa (a developed mineral spring). Patrons visit spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. Thomas Guidott set up a medical practice in the English town of Bath in 1668. H ...

in the German state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

. It is located at kilometre 27.9 on the

Elsenz Valley Railway The Elsenz Valley Railway (''Elsenztalbahn'') or Neckargemünd–Bad Friedrichshall railway is an electrified, partly double-tracked main line in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, running from Heidelberg via Sinsheim to Bad Friedrichshall, t ...

(''Elsenztalbahn'') or Neckargemünd–Bad Friedrichshall railway and is classified by

Deutsche Bahn The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder. describes itself as the se ...

as a category 5 station.

Location

Bad Rappenau station is located in centre of the spa town. The otherwise single track Elsenz Valley Railway has three tracks in the station area. The address of the station is ''Bahnhofstraße 5''.

History

Opening of Rappenau station

The

Neckargemünd Neckargemünd ( pfl, Neggergmin) is a town in Germany, in the district of Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, state of Baden-Württemberg. It lies on the Neckar, 10 km upriver from Heidelberg at the confluence with the river Elsenz. This confluence of the t ...

–

Meckenheim Meckenheim (; ksh, Meckem) is a town in the Rhein-Sieg district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated approximately 15 km south-west of Bonn. Notable people * Norbert Röttgen Norbert Alois Röttgen (born 2 July 1965) is ...

section of the Neckargemünd–

Sinsheim Sinsheim (, South Franconian: ''Sinse'') is a town in south-western Germany, in the Rhine Neckar Area of the state Baden-Württemberg about south-east of Heidelberg and about north-west of Heilbronn in the district Rhein-Neckar. Geograph ...

–Bad Friedrichshall line was opened on 23 October 1862 by the

Grand Duchy of Baden State Railway The Grand Duchy of Baden was an independent state in what is now southwestern Germany until the creation of the German Empire in 1871. It had its own state-owned railway company, the Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways (''Großherzoglich Badische ...

(''Großherzoglich Badische Staatseisenbahnen'') as part of the Odenwald Railway from

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Mosbach Mosbach (; South Franconian: ''Mossbach'') is a town in the north of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the seat of the Neckar-Odenwald district and has a population of approximately 25,000 distributed in six boroughs: Mosbach Town, Lohrbach, N ...

and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg is ...

. The section from Meckenheim to

followed on 25 June 1868. Unlike the neighbouring Bad Wimpfen station, Bad Rappenau station originally had no ''Bad'' prefix and was called ''Rappenau'' station. The closing of the Bad Rappenau–Jagstfeld (

Bad Friedrichshall Bad Friedrichshall () is a town in the district of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is situated at the confluences of the Jagst and of the Kocher into the Neckar, some north of Heilbronn. Bad Friedrichshall arose by the ...

) gap on 5 August 1869 completed the Elsenz Valley Railway.

Other development

After the municipality of Rappenau was designated as a

in 1903 (entitling it to the prefix of "Bad"), Rappenau station was officially renamed Bad Rappenau in 1914. In an order of the Baden Ministry of 4 September 1930, the municipality was renamed from Rappenau (Bezirksamt Sinsheim) to Bad Rappenau with effect from 1 October 1930—about 15 years after the renaming of the station.

Station upgrade and inclusion in the Heilbronn Stadtbahn

As part of the expansion of Heilbronn Stadtbahn northern branch, the Bad Rappenau–

section was closed for upgrading between 7 January 2014 and 1 May 2015. At the same time, Bad Rappenau station was upgraded to make it accessible for the disabled and given a third platform track. The new Bad Rappenau Kurpark station, which is located next to the Bad Rappenau Kurpark (spa park), was also built for the Stadtbahn.

Entrance building

Bad Rappenau station's entrance building is a neoclassical building from around the period of railway's construction in 1868. It now houses the ''BAHNHOFSGALERIE'' ("Station gallery"), which includes a small flower shop, a Schmitt&Hahn bookshop, a customer centre of the AOK health insurance company and a bakery.

Transport services

Bad Rappenau is in the area where fares are set by the

Heilbronner Hohenloher Haller Nahverkehr The ( or ) is a regional transport cooperative that coordinates tickets and fares among all transport operators in the metropolitan area of Heilbronn in Germany. Besides the city of Heilbronn, the H3NV area encompasses the districts of Heilbronn ...

GmbH (HNV) transport association. Passengers can also use transitional fares set by the

Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar (VRN) is a transport association covering parts of the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse in south-west Germany. Founded in 1989, it initially served the Rhein Neckar Area, but ha ...

(VRN).

Passenger services

Bad Rappenau is located on the

, running from

via

. RE 2

Regional-Express In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with average speed at about 70–90 km/h (top speed often 160 km/h) as it calls at f ...

services coming from

Mannheim Hauptbahnhof Mannheim Hauptbahnhof (German for ''Mannheim central station'') is a railway station in Mannheim in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is the second largest traffic hub in southwestern Germany after Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof, with 658 train ...

and S42 Stadtbahn services coming from

normally cross here. The railway line was extensively renovated between 7 January 2014 and 1 May 2015. At this time, replacement buses ran between Sinsheim, Bad Rappenau and

Neckarsulm Neckarsulm () is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, near Heilbronn, and part of the district of Heilbronn. , Neckarsulm had 26,800 inhabitants. The name Neckarsulm derives from the city's location where the Neckar and Sulm rivers ...

. Regionalbahn service RB 74 ran hourly between Sinsheim, Bad Rappenau, Bad Wimpfen and Bad Friedrichshall (some to/from Heilbronn) until the closure of the line in early January 2014. Since the reopening of the line on 1 May 2015, Bad Rappenau has been served by line S42 of the Heilbronn Stadtbahn. Until early January 2014, the

service RE 2 ran between Mannheim, Heidelberg, Sinsheim and Heilbronn every two hours. These mostly crossed RB 74 services in Bad Rappenau. These services were restored in May 2015 and stop in Bad Rappenau.

References

Sources

* * *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bad Rappenau station Railway stations in Germany opened in 1868 Buildings and structures in Heilbronn (district) Railway stations in Baden-Württemberg 1868 establishments in Baden