Koblenz Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the city ofKoblenz in the German state ofRhineland-Palatinate. It is the focal point of rail transport in theRhine-Moselle-Lahn area. It is a through station in southernKoblenz built belowFort Großfürst Konstantin and opened in 1902 in the Neustadt (new city), which was built after the demolition of the city walls in 1890. The station replaced two former stations on the Left Rhine railway, which were only 900 m (3,000 ft) apart, and the formerMoselle line station.Koblenz-Stadtmitte station opened in April 2011 in the old centre of Koblenz. Koblenz Hauptbahnhof is on theWest Rhine Railway and connects to the Moselle line, theEast Rhine Railway and to theLahntal railway. It is used daily by about 40,000 travelers and visitors. In the station forecourt are a bus station and a pavilion.
Since 2002, the station has been part of theUpper Middle Rhine ValleyUNESCO World Heritage site.
TheBonn-Cologne Railway Company opened its line betweenCologne andBonn in 1844, and extended it toRolandseck in 1856. This company was taken over by theRhenish Railway Company in 1857, which extended the line to Koblenz in 1858. On 11 November 1858, the first train, hauled by the locomotiveWindsbraut ("whirlwind") ran over the newly builtMoselle railway bridge on theLeft Rhine line to a provisional station on Fischelstraße. The construction of the bridge and the line was made possible by the first demolition of the Prussian city walls.
In 1859, the route was extended from Koblenz to Bingerbrück and the Rhenish station was expanded. In 1864 thePfaffendorf Bridge was opened over the Rhine in Koblenz. It was initially built for trains only, connecting the Left and theRight Rhine lines. The last trains crossed the Pfaffendorf Bridge at the beginning of theFirst World War in August 1914.
In October 1878 theGüls railway bridge was inaugurated on theMoselle line and a year later this was followed by the completion of theHorchheim rail bridge over the Rhine. In 1879, the Moselle line was put into operation and its station (Moselbahnhof) was opened below Fort Konstantin, near the modern Hauptbahnhof. This line completed the expansion of the Koblenz rail network and was also a section of the strategic railway line between Berlin and Metz, the so-calledCannons Railway (Kanonenbahn).
The Prussian fortifications of Koblenz were abandoned and torn down completely from 1890. The built up area of the city spread outside the small area inside the old walls for the first time. South of the walls a new urban area rapidly grew up along with the southern suburbs. The maintenance of two stations proved to be very complicated, because through trains had to stop twice within 900 m (3,000 ft) and passengers coming fromTrier and wanting to travel on the right Rhine line to the north had to take a horse-drawn cab or walk between the Moselle and the Rhenish station. Thus demands for a central station became louder and planning started on the construction of a new and larger passenger station.
The small Rhenish station on Fischelstraße was abandoned and a magnificent new station was built in the new southern suburbs near the Moselle station from 1899 to 1902 to a design by Fritz Klingholz. TheCentral Station (Centralbahnhof), as it was officially called at that time, was opened on 1 May 1902. The through station was built like a palace with central and side pavilions, although for functional reasons it was not completely symmetrical. The facades were made oftuff and yellowsandstone in aneo-baroque style. The station building has a length of 96 m. A hall was built over the platforms. The northern wing of the royal room (Fürstenzimmer) was richly decorated and had direct access via a flight of stairs to platform 1, on which theEmperor arrived in Koblenz in 1905.
The station building and the railway tracks were damaged in air raids during theSecond World War. Reconstruction began in 1946. The station lost the hall structure over its platforms and its tower building. The reconstructions were different from the original buildings, simply built and without ornamentation. Functional roofs were installed over the platforms. In 1957 the Rhine line was electrified. In 1967 a new railway station signal box was opened and in 1977 the lobby was renovated. The travel centre was opened in 1984. In 1998 renovation of the station began and it is still continuing.
Koblenz station has a total of ten platform tracks on four platforms, seven of which are through-tracks (1 to 5, 8 and 9) and three of which are terminal tracks (104, 105 and 109).
Trains on the Left Rhine line from the north can use almost all tracks (1 to 5, 8 and 104), while Mosel line trains only use the three western tracks (5, 8 and 9). Trains on the Left Rhine line from the south can use only the eastern tracks (1 to 5 and 105), whileLahntal railway and Right Rhine line trains can use all tracks (apart from the northern terminal platform, 104).
In long-distance traffic, Koblenz is served byIntercity-Express,Intercity andEuroCity trains. Thus, almost every major city in Germany can be reached directly from Koblenz. Some services on lines 32, 35 and 55 are operated with ICE rolling stock and are therefore considered to be ICE services. In due course, DB intends all IC services to be operated by ICE trains, some limited to 160 km/h, the maximum operating speed of the West Rhine line.
| Line | Route | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| ICE 19 | Berlin Ostbahnhof –Berlin Hbf –Berlin-Spandau –Hanover –Bielefeld –Hamm –Hagen –Wuppertal –Cologne –Bonn –Koblenz (–Bingen –Mainz –Mannheim –Stuttgart) | 3 train pairs |
| ICE 32 | Cologne – Bonn –Andernach –Koblenz – Bingen – Mainz – Mannheim – Heidelberg – Stuttgart –Ulm –Friedrichshafen Stadt –Lindau –Bregenz –St. Anton –Innsbruck | 1 train pair |
| IC 35 | Norddeich Mole –Lingen –Rheine –Münster – Duisburg – Cologne – Bonn – Andernach –Koblenz (– Mainz – Mannheim – Stuttgart) | Some trains |
| IC 37 | Düsseldorf – Cologne – Bonn – Remagen – Andernach –Koblenz – Cochem – Bullay –Wittlich –Trier –Wasserbillig –Luxembourg | 1 train pair |
| ICE 55/ IC 55 | Dresden –Leipzig –Halle –Magdeburg –Braunschweig – Hanover – Bielefeld – Dortmund – Hagen – Wuppertal –Solingen – Cologne – Bonn –Koblenz – Mainz – Mannheim – Heidelberg –Vaihingen – Stuttgart (–Plochingen –Reutlingen –Tübingen) | Every 2 hours |
| ICE 62 | Duisburg – Düsseldorf – Cologne – Bonn – Remagen – Andernach –Koblenz – Bingen – Mainz –Worms – Mannheim – Vaihingen – Stuttgart – Ulm –Augsburg –Munich –Salzburg –Villach –Klagenfurt | 1 train pair |
| ICE 91 | Dortmund – Duisburg – Düsseldorf – Cologne – Bonn –Koblenz – Mainz –Frankfurt –Würzburg –Nuremberg –Passau –Linz –Vienna | Every 2 hours |
Regional services consist ofRegional-Express andRegionalbahn trains to cities within 200 kilometres towardsSaarbrücken,Cologne and theRuhr,Emmerich /Wesel,Giessen andMainz-Frankfurt am Main. Only 3 of the 12 lines continue through the station, theVIAS-operatedRheingauLinie (RB10), thetrans regio-operatedMittelrheinbahn (RB26) and theDB Regio-operatedLahn-Eifel-Bahn (RB23); the rest start or finish there.
| Line | Line name | Route | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| RE 1 | Südwest-Express (SÜWEX) | Koblenz – Treis-Karden – Cochem – Bullay –Wittlich –Trier Hauptbahnhof – Saarburg –Saarbrücken –Homburg –Landstuhl –Kaiserslautern –Neustadt –Ludwigshafen Mitte –Mannheim | Hourly toHomburg orKaiserslautern, every 2 hours toMannheim |
| RE 11 | Südwest-Express (SÜWEX) | Koblenz – Treis-Karden – Cochem – Bullay – Wittlich – Trier Hbf – Wasserbillig – Wecker – Munsbach – Sandweiler-Contern –Luxemburg | Hourly |
| RE 2 | Südwest-Express (SÜWEX) | Koblenz –Boppard –Bingen –Mainz –Rüsselsheim –Frankfurt Airport (regional) –Frankfurt | Every 2 hours |
| RE 5 | Rhein-Express | Koblenz –Andernach –Remagen –Bonn –Cologne –Köln Messe/Deutz –Düsseldorf –Duisburg –Wesel | Hourly |
| RE 8 | Rhein-Erft-Express | Koblenz –Koblenz Stadtmitte –Neuwied –Bonn-Beuel –Porz (Rhein) – Köln Messe/Deutz – Cologne –Rommerskirchen –Grevenbroich –Mönchengladbach | Hourly |
| RB 10 | RheingauLinie | Neuwied –Koblenz –Rüdesheim –Wiesbaden – Frankfurt | Hourly |
| RE 17 | Koblenz – Boppard – Oberwesel – Bingen –Bad Kreuznach –Kaiserslautern | 120 min | |
| RB 23 | Lahn-Eifel-Bahn | Mayen – Mendig – Andernach –Koblenz – Niederlahnstein –Bad Ems – Diez –Limburg (Lahn) | Hourly |
| RE 25 | Lahn-Eifel-Bahn | Koblenz –Limburg – Weilburg – Wetzlar – Gießen | Every 2 hours |
| RB 26 | Mittelrheinbahn | Köln Messe/Deutz – Cologne – Bonn – Remagen – Andernach –Koblenz – Boppard –Oberwesel – Bingen – Ingelheim – Mainz | Hourly |
| RB 27 | Rhein-Erft-Bahn | Koblenz –Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein –Engers – Neuwied –Bonn-Beuel –Cologne/Bonn Airport – Köln Messe/Deutz – Köln –Rommerskirchen – Grevenbroich – Mönchengladbach | Hourly |
| RB 81 | Moselbahn | Koblenz – Cochem (Mosel) – Bullay – Wittlich – Trier | Hourly |
