Gelnhausen station is the station of the town of

Gelnhausen Gelnhausen () is a town, and the capital of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located approximately 40 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main, between the Vogelsberg mountains and the Spessart range at the river Kinzig. It is one o ...

on the Kinzig Valley Railway in the German state of

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Dar ...

History

The station was built by the

Frankfurt–Bebra railway The Frankfurt–Bebra railway runs from Bebra to Frankfurt am Main via Fulda, Gelnhausen, Hanau and Offenbach am Main in south central Germany. The southern section between Fulda and Frankfurt is known as the Kinzig Valley railway (german: Kin ...

as the station of the former county town of the district of Gelnhausen. Services commenced on the Hanau Ost– Wächtersbach section on 1 May 1867.

Buildings

The entrance building and the rest of the station buildings are now mostly classified as cultural monuments under the Hessian Monument Protection Act.

Entrance building

The entrance building was built in a

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

style of

Buntsandstein The Buntsandstein (German for ''coloured'' or ''colourful sandstone'') or Bunter sandstone is a lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Buntsandst ...

(coloured sandstone) and so added to the historic buildings of the

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynast ...

town of Gelnhausen, which include the most famous Romanesque building in the city, the Imperial Palace (''

Kaiserpfalz The term ''Kaiserpfalz'' (, "imperial palace") or ''Königspfalz'' (, "royal palace", from Middle High German ''phal ne'' to Old High German ''phalanza'' from Middle Latin ''palatia'' luralto Latin ''palatium'' "palace") refers to a number of ...

Gelnhausen''), but also the romanesque Marienkirche and other buildings from this time. The architect Paul Rowald also designed

Bad Hersfeld station Bad Hersfeld station is a through station in Bad Hersfeld in the German state of Hesse on the Bebra–Fulda railway. The first station was opened in 1866 and the current station building was completed in 1883. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn a ...

with the same layout and style. The building was built in 1882/83 and is therefore a structure of the "second generation" of structural engineering on the line. The station building is symmetrically designed on an H-shaped floor plan. On the street side the facade is dominated by three pointed gables; the middle gable is omitted from the design of the facade on the track side. A "princely pavilion" (''Fürstenpavillon'') was built to the west of the main building with three bay windows; there is also a detached toilet block built in the Romanesque Revival style east of the main building.

Other buildings

The buildings in the station area are the house of the track supervisor (''Bahnmeister'') from 1868 (a building of the "first generation" of structural engineering on the line), a freight-handling facility from the period around 1870, and a water tower—architecturally out of harmony with the towers of the Gelnhausen town wall—from 1937.

Operations

The station has a home platform (a single-sided outer platform next to the station building) and a two-sided island platform. At the western end of the home platform, there is a bay platform, where services on the Lahn-Kinzig Railway to and from

Büdingen Büdingen is a town in the Wetteraukreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is mainly known for its well-preserved, heavily fortified medieval town wall and half-timbered houses. Geography Location Büdingen is in the south of the Wetterau below the Vogels ...

and

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

start and end. The other three platform tracks can be used only by trains on the Kinzig Valley line, which can run from here to Hanau-Wolfgang at 200 km/h. Local trains are often held at Gelnhausen station so that

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, Switzerl ...

and

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 ...

trains can pass them. Gelnhausen station is now only used by local and regional services and has great importance for commuter traffic from the

Vogelsberg The is a large volcanic mountain range in the German Central Uplands in the state of Hesse, separated from the Rhön Mountains by the Fulda river valley. Emerging approximately 19 million years ago, the Vogelsberg is Central Europe's largest ...

and

Spessart Spessart is a '' Mittelgebirge'', a range of low wooded mountains, in the States of Bavaria and Hesse in Germany. It is bordered by the Vogelsberg, Rhön and Odenwald. The highest elevation is the Geiersberg at 586 metres above sea level. Ety ...

hills of the Rhine-Main region. Previously two more lines operated to Gelnhausen station: *The standard gauge Freigericht Light Railway of the Gelnhäusen District Railway started here from 1904 until 1963. *The

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

Spessart Railway also began here and operated from 1895 to 1951. The railway facilities of both trains were immediately south of Gelnhausen "state station”. From 1930, both railways had a common platform, which was connected by an underground passage to the platforms of the state railway. The infrastructure for the lines at the station has been demolished and has been replaced by parking lots.

Notes

References

* * {{cite book, title=Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland (German railway atlas) , edition= 2009/2010 , publisher= Schweers + Wall , year= 2009 , isbn= 978-3-89494-139-0 Railway stations in Hesse Romanesque Revival railway stations in Germany Railway stations in Germany opened in 1867 Buildings and structures in Main-Kinzig-Kreis