Rastatt station is the main passenger station in the town of

Rastatt Rastatt () is a town with a Baroque core, District of Rastatt, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located in the Upper Rhine Plain on the Murg river, above its junction with the Rhine and has a population of around 50,000 (2011). Rastatt was a ...

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 an important station for the

Karlsruhe Stadtbahn The Karlsruhe Stadtbahn is a German tram-train system combining tram lines in the city of Karlsruhe with railway lines in the surrounding countryside, serving the entire region of the middle upper Rhine valley and creating connections to neighbou ...

, being served by four of its lines, which are operated by the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft ("Alb Valley Transport Company", AVG). In addition, it is served by regional and long-distance trains operated 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 ...

. The station is located at chainage 96.5 km on the

Rhine Valley Railway ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , sou ...

and at chainage 82.9 on the Rhine Railway (both chainages are based on the original distance from

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 ...

). The station is also the beginning of the

Murg Valley Railway The Murg Valley Railway (german: Murgtalbahn) is a 58 kilometre long railway line in the Northern Black Forest in Germany, that links Rastatt and Freudenstadt. It was opened in stages from 1868 to 1928 being built outwards from both Rastatt and Fr ...

History

The town of

received its first rail connection on 6 May 1844, when 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 ...

(german: Großherzogliche Badische Staatsbahn) opened the

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

–Rastatt section of the Rhine Valley Railway. Since at that time Rastatt was a fortress of the German Confederation and was protected by ramparts and a ditch, the line ran to the east of the town at first. The first Rastatt station was therefore situated in what is now an industrial district. On 31 May 1869, the first section of the Murg Valley Railway was opened and Rastatt station became a junction station. With the abolition of the fortifications in 1890, the station was relocated to the west, nearer the centre of the town, and the current entrance building was built. In 1895 a third railway, the Rhine Railway, was extended for strategic reasons from Karlsruhe to

Haguenau Haguenau (; Alsatian: or ; and historically in English: ''Hagenaw'') is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department of France, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is second in size in the Bas-Rhin only to Strasbourg, some to the south. To the ...

, which had become part of Germany as a result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The section of the line that crossed the border to France, as re-established by border changes in 1918 and 1945, was closed in 1966. The station was electrified in the 1950s as part of the electrification of the Rhine Valley Railway and the Rhine Railway. In 1994 Rastatt was connected to the network of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn. At first Stadtbahn services only operated on the Rhine Railway, in the following years, Stadtbahn services were also extended to the Rhine Valley Railway and the Murg Valley Railway, so the station is now served by four Stadtbahn routes.

Layout of the station

The station has six platform tracks, all of which are through tracks. Track 1 is the main platform next to the entrance building. The other five tracks are on three island platforms. Deutsche Bahn regional and long distance trains and Karlsruhe Stadtbahn services to and from Baden-Baden operate on tracks 3 and 4. Stadtbahn services to and from the Murg Valley Railway and Freudenstadt operate on tracks 5 and 6. Tracks 1 and 2 are no longer regularly used by passenger services; earlier they were used by cross-border trains on the Rhine Railway. North of the passenger station is Rastatt freight yard. To the west of the station is the Rastatt central bus station, which is served by several town and regional bus routes of the ''Verkehrsgesellschaft Rastatt'' (Rastatt Transport Company), operated under the brand name of ''Rastadtbus''.

Operations

Long distance

Regional Transport

Karlsruhe Stadtbahn

Notes

External links

*{{cite web, url=http://ka.stadtwiki.net/Rastatt_Bahnhof , title=Bahnhof Rastatt , publisher=Stadtwiki Karlsruhe , accessdate=17 April 2011, language=German Railway stations in Baden-Württemberg Railway stations in Germany opened in 1890 Karlsruhe Stadtbahn stations Buildings and structures in Rastatt (district) Mannheim–Karlsruhe–Basel railway