Limburg Süd station

Limburg Süd is a station in the town of Limburg an der Lahn, in the German state of Hesse. It is located in the Eschhöfer Feld ("Eschhofen field") in the district of Eschhofen at the 110.5 kilometre point of the Cologne–Frankfurt high speed railway. Limburg Süd is the only station in Germany that is served solely by Intercity Express (ICE) services.

The entrance building, which has of usable space, is located on platform 1 (used by trains to Frankfurt) and houses the Deutsche Bahn travel centre, waiting benches and vending machines for beverages and confectioneries. There are no public toilets in the station itself, but there are some in the adjacent parking garage. Alternatively, there is a coin operated toilet cubicle in the forecourt. The area on the second floor has been largely empty since the opening of the station. However, it is now planned to establish a control room of DB Energie there.

The station has four tracks. The two middle tracks serve as through tracks and are built as slab tracks. ICE trains can pass through the station without decelerating at up to , while stopping trains running to the two outer platforms can pass over the turnouts at Platform 4 (serving trains to Cologne) is reached over a bridge spanning the track, which has a staircase and a lift at each end. The and platforms have canopies over a length of An

North of the platform a crossover allows a track change from the western to the eastern track. towards Frankfurt (113.0 km point), at the Lindenholzhausen crossover, it is possible to change tracks from the east to the west track. The crossovers are passable at while changing tracks. A sub centre of the electronic interlocking system and an electric sub station (which is also linked to the public network) have also been established in the area of the station.

Limburg (Lahn) station in central Limburg is connected to Limburg Süd by bus and taxi service. In the beginning, a shuttle bus service between both stations was provided, and its timetable was co ordinated with the arrivals and departures of the ICE service. However, the low demand caused the service to be stopped and replaced with several local bus lines, which offer passengers more options than the shuttle bus service. Several long distance bus operators also stop at Limburg Süd. DeinBus, Flixbus, and OneBus offer the connections to Aachen, Bonn, Cologne Bonn Airport, Frankfurt am Main, Heidelberg, Heilbronn, Stuttgart Airport, and Tübingen. Despite its proximity to the district of Eschhofen, no direct road link to Eschhofen has ever been built.

On the west side of the station is a 306 space car park for short term parking. Adjacent to the station in the east is a six storey parking garage with 573 spaces for vehicles, 24 for bicycles, a charging station (for electric vehicles), and public toilet facilities. It was opened in 2011 after 19 months of construction. Because of the parking fees, many commuters prefer to park on the streets rather than pay to use the parking garage.

The planning of a Cologne–Gross Gerau high speed railway in the 1970s envisaged a station between Limburg and Diez on its right bank (east of the Rhine) route option. The station would have been located south of the Lahn and west of the existing station and above the Lahntal railway. Trains on the existing line from Wetzlar would have connected to services to Cologne and trains from Niederlahnstein would have connected to services towards Frankfurt. The four track infrastructure would have had, in addition to the two central through tracks, two external platform tracks connected by scissors crossovers (with four sets of points) at each end of the station. The proposed station was assessed as having "predominantly regional importance", which justified "only a limited number of train stops". After the completion of the route selection process, Federal Cabinet decided on 20 December 1989 that the line would be built on the route of the high speed line along the A3, as built. It also agreed to the building of a station at Limburg. An option running through the Rhine Valley was now finally off the table. In the same way that the state of Rhineland Palatinate demanded a station at Montabaur, the state of Hesse demanded a station on its territory. In an agreement of March 1990 the premiers of the two states as well as the federal transport minister noted that there was consensus that "a stop was required in the Limburg area".

The regional planning approval process of the Giessen region was commenced for the section in January 1991 and completed in July 1994. Thus the position of the station in Limburg was established. The Eschhofen variation, which provided for an eastern curve around the city, was introduced into the planning approval process. At the end of 1994, the facility was designed with five tracks. Deutsche Bahn, the town of Limburg and the State of Hesse ran a competition for the design of the station and its environment in 1997. In early 1997, the jury chose from 35 proposals received The design was modified in some respects before the start of construction. On 13 July 1998, Limburg council agreed to fund DM 1.5 million of the planned construction costs of DM 36 million (€18 million). This was linked to two conditions: the future of the station must be guaranteed in the long term and Limburg would become part of the Rhein Main Verkehrsverbund (Rhine Main Transport Association, RMV). The actual design of the station and its associated costs had still not been finalised, but it was expected to cost DM 36 million. The construction and financing agreement for Limburg Süd station was signed in mid 2000 by representatives of Deutsche Bahn, the state of Hesse and the city of Limburg. It was planned that one train per hour in each direction would stop at the station; at other times trains would stop every two hours. In addition, it was intended to allow the tickets of the RMV to be used on the trains. On 31 January 2001, representatives of Deutsche Bahn and the mayor of the town of Limburg, Martin Richard, signed a contract for the development of the area surrounding the station. It regulated the exchange of land and changes to land use planning in this area. The more elaborate scheme that was initially planned at a cost of DM 42 million was reduced to half that cost. In the course of preliminary archaeological explorations more than fifty archaeological monuments were discovered in the area of the future station. The discoveries, which were up to 7,000 years old, showed that significant trade had been carried out for centuries in the area of today's station. The construction of the station began with a groundbreaking ceremony on 24 September 2001. The station building was completed in November 2003.

The passenger traffic had gradually increased since its opening in 2002. The robust increase of 32 per cent from 2003 to 2005 assured that Limburg Süd would remain utilised after an operational review in 2007. The daily passenger count has remained stable between 2,500 and 2,700 ever since. A survey done in 2004 showed 96 per cent of passengers boarding the trains between 5 and 9 o'clock in the morning were commuters. The majority of passengers are commuting to Frankfurt am Main. A 2010 study by the University of Hamburg and the London School of Economics and Political Science showed the small economic growth of 2.7 per cent from 2002 to 2006 in the surrounding area of Limburg Süd and Montabaur stations.