Homburg (Saar) Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the town of Homburg in the German state of

Saarland The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...

. It is a through station with four platforms and seven platform tracks 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 station of category 3. It is located at the junction of the Homburg–Neunkirchen line and the

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...

–

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...

line (

Palatine Ludwig Railway A palatine or palatinus (in Latin; plural ''palatini''; cf. derivative spellings below) is a high-level official attached to imperial or royal courts in Europe since Roman times.

). It has been the western terminus of line S1 of the

Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn The Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn ''(S-Bahn RheinNeckar)'' forms the backbone of the urban rail transport network of the Rhine Neckar Area, including the cities of Mannheim, Heidelberg and Ludwigshafen. The S-Bahn operates over 437 km of route in the ...

since 2006.

Location

The station divides the town into two halves, separating Homburg-Mitte and Homburg-Erbach. It is about 700 metres away from the town centre. In front of the station area is the central bus station (''ZOB''), from which both regional and local buses operate.

History

On 1 July 1848, the line between Kaiserslautern and Homburg was opened. Nine years later, on 7 May 1857, the Blies Valley Railway was opened to

Zweibrücken Zweibrücken (; french: Deux-Ponts, ; Palatinate German: ''Zweebrigge'', ; literally translated as "Two Bridges") is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river. Name The name ''Zweibrücken'' means 'two bridges'; olde ...

. The Homburg–

Rohrbach Rohrbach or Röhrbach may refer to: Places Municipalities in Switzerland *Rohrbach, Switzerland, in the canton of Bern Municipalities in Germany *Rohrbach, Bavaria, in the district of Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria *Rohrbach, Birkenfeld, in the district o ...

line, now part of the mainline between

and

, opened to traffic on 1 January 1904. The electrification of the railway station to Homburg was inaugurated on 8 March 1960. 31 years later, on 6 March 1991, the first

EuroCity EuroCity, abbreviated as EC, is a cross-border train category within the European inter-city rail network. In contrast to trains allocated to the lower-level "IC" (InterCity) category, EC trains are international services that meet 20 criteri ...

service, the EC 56: ''Goethe'', stopped in Homburg. A few days later, on 22 March 1991, the first

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...

(IC), the IC 26 stopped here. In the summer and autumn of 1991 the tracks were adapted for the operation of

Intercity-Express The Intercity Express (commonly known as ICE ()) is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany. It also serves some destinations in Austria, Denmark (ceased in 2017 but planned to resume in 2022), France, Belgium, Switzerla ...

trains, so that in January 1992, the first ICE ( Type 1) ran to Homburg. In the following years, the station and the environment was modernised, including by the installation of electronic noticeboards for outgoing train and bus connections, lifts on all tracks and electronic noticeboards on platforms. Covered bicycle parking was also provided. Various platforms have been upgraded, including platform 1 as the normal platform for Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn services. In 2008, the modernisation of platforms 7 and 8 was completed.

Services

Long distance

Several services each day, classified as

(EC) or

(ICE) services, connect Homburg directly with

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

and

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

. The ICE services on the Frankfurt–Paris route have not stopped here since December 2007.

Rapid transit and regional transportation

Freight

Besides passenger services, eight tracks are allocated for freight operations. Two of the town’s three industrial areas are connected by sidings. There is also a siding on the line to Bexbach connecting to the site of the former army depot in Homburg.

Facilities

The Deutsche Bahn travel centre is open daily. The station buildings have ticket machines, public telephones, lockers, toilets (including for the disabled), a bistro-cafe, a station bookshop, a restaurant and a photo booth.

Notes

External links

* *{{cite web , url=http://www.bahnhof-homburg.de , title=Hauptbahnhof Homburg / Saar , publisher=Private , language=de , access-date=12 January 2011 , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://archive.today/20140112050329/http://www.bahnhof-homburg.de/ , archive-date=12 January 2014 Railway stations in the Saarland

Hauptbahnhof Central stations or central railway stations emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as railway stations that had initially been built on the edge of city centres were enveloped by urban expansion and became an integral part of the ...

Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn stations Buildings and structures in Saarpfalz-Kreis Railway stations in Germany opened in 1848