Butzbach station is a station in the town of

Butzbach Butzbach () is a town in the Wetteraukreis district in Hessen, Germany. It is located approximately 16 km south of Gießen and 35 km north of Frankfurt am Main. In 2007, the town hosted the 47th Hessentag state festival from 1 to 10 Jun ...

in the German state of

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

on the

Main–Weser Railway The Main–Weser Railway (German: ''Main-Weser-Bahn'') is a railway line in central Germany that runs from Frankfurt am Main via Gießen to Kassel. it is named after the railway company that built the line and also operated it until 1880. It was ...

. The station was formerly the starting point of the Butzbach–Lich railway leading to

Lich In fantasy fiction, a lich () is a type of undead creature with magical powers. Various works of fantasy fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith's " The Empire of the Necromancers" (1932), had used ''lich'' as a general term for any corpse, animat ...

and Grünberg.The station is classified by

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

as a category 4 station.

History

The station was opened along with the Butzbach– Friedberg section of the Main-Weser Railway on 9 November 1850. On 28 March 1904, the Butzbach–Lich railway was opened. This had its own station, Butzbach West station, adjacent to the state station. From here, trains ran via Butzbach Ost, which is still the location of the line's operations, and Griedel to Lich Süd near the

Gießen–Gelnhausen railway The Gießen–Gelnhausen railway (also known as the Lahn-Kinzig Railway) is a single-track, non-electrified mainline in the German state of Hesse. It runs from Gießen via Nidda to Gelnhausen. Operations The line is part of the government-owned ...

(also known as the Lahn-Kinzig Railway). On 1 August 1909, this line was extended to Grünberg, to connect with the Gießen–Fulda railway. Another line opened on 2 April 1910 branched off from Griedel through the Wetter valley to Bad Nauheim Nord. The last section from Butzbach Ost to Oberkleen, then in the

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n district of

Wetzlar Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...

, was completed on 1 June 1910. On 27 May 1961, passenger and freight traffic ended on the section of the line between Butzbach and Lich. The last passenger service between Butzbach and Bad Nauheim Nord ran on 31 May 1975.

Services

Since the cessation of passenger service on the BLE, Butzbach station is no longer a railway junction. However, several

Regional-Express In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (; RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with a top speed of and an average speed of about as it calls at fewer stations than ''R ...

and

Regionalbahn The ''Regionalbahn'' (; lit. Regional train; abbreviated ''RB'') is a train categories in Europe, type of Regional rail, local passenger train (stopping train) in Germany. It is similar to the Regionalzug (R) and Regio (Swiss railway train), R ...

services stop in Butzbach. Most important is the

Mittelhessen-Express The Mittelhessen-Express is a train service operated by Hessische Landesbahn in the German state of Hesse on the Main-Weser Railway and the Dill Railway, using Alstom Coradia Continental sets. Services were operated by DB Regio Hessen, a wholly ...

, which runs from Frankfurt Main Station via Friedberg and Butzbach to

Gießen Giessen, spelled in German (), is a town in the German state () 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 university students. Th ...

. There, it splits into two sections: the front section of the train continues via

Marburg Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...

Treysa Treysa, an independent town until 1970, is the biggest ''Stadtteil'' of the Germany, German town Schwalmstadt. It was incorporated into Schwalmstadt in December 1970. The location around Treysa and Schwalmstadt is called Schwalm (Hesse), Schwal ...

, while the rear section reverses and continues through

and Herborn to

Dillenburg Dillenburg, officially Oranienstadt Dillenburg, is a town in Hesse's Gießen region in Germany. The town was formerly the seat of the old Dillkreis district, which is now part of the Lahn-Dill-Kreis. The town lies on the German- Dutch holiday roa ...

. Regionalbahn services run from Friedberg via

Bad Nauheim Bad Nauheim () is a town in the Wetteraukreis district of Hesse state of Germany. As of 2020, Bad Nauheim has a population of 32,493. The town is approximately north of Frankfurt am Main, on the east edge of the Taunus mountain range. It is a w ...

, Butzbach,

Langgöns Langgöns is a municipality in the district of Gießen, in Hesse, Germany. It is situated 10 km south of Gießen. Due to the town's convenient proximity to several former U.S. military bases; Ayers Kaserne, Giessen Army Depot, and Ray Barr ...

and Großen-Linden to Gießen. During the peak hours Butzbach is served by individual Regional-Express services that run from Frankfurt via Giessen to Marburg. Long-distance services run non-stop through the station. Butzbach station has not been made barrier-free for the disabled. In 2009, the station was equipped with an electronic passenger information system.

Buses

There is a large bus station at Butzbach station, which is served by regional and city buses to the city of Butzbach, the Butzbach suburbs and the surrounding villages and towns. There is also a park and ride facility at the station, which is operated by the city of Butzbach.

Notes

External links

*{{cite news , url= http://www.wetterauer-zeitung.de/Home/Kreis/Staedte-und-Gemeinden/Butzbach/Artikel,-Als-der-Bahnhof-noch-ein-schmuckes-Bauwerk-war-_arid,187885_regid,3_puid,1_pageid,73.html , title= Als der Bahnhof noch ein schmuckes Bauwerk war , newspaper= Wetterauer-Zeitung , language= German , access-date= 2012-06-28 , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140126235840/http://www.wetterauer-zeitung.de/Home/Kreis/Staedte-und-Gemeinden/Butzbach/Artikel,-Als-der-Bahnhof-noch-ein-schmuckes-Bauwerk-war-_arid,187885_regid,3_puid,1_pageid,73.html , archive-date= 2014-01-26 , url-status= dead Railway stations in Hesse Buildings and structures in Wetteraukreis Railway stations in Germany opened in 1850