Nidda station is a station on 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 ...

in the town of Nidda 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 ...

. It is also at the end of the Beienheim–Schotten railway from Friedberg station. 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 ...

(DB) as a category 4 station.

History

The station was opened on 29 June 1870 with the opening of the end of the second section of the Gießen–Gelnhausen railway ( Hungen–Nidda) by the Upper Hessian Railway Company (). At the end of November 1870, the line was extended to

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 (Main), Kinzig. ...

. On 1 October 1897, the Beienheim–Schotten railway was opened from Beienheim via Nidda to

Schotten Schotten () is a town in the middle of Hesse, Germany. Larger towns nearby include Alsfeld in the north, Fulda in the east, Friedberg, Hesse, Friedberg in the south and Gießen in the west. Geography Location The officially recognised climatic sp ...

. This made Nidda a major railway junction of the

Wetterau The Wetterau (, ) is a fertile undulating tract, watered by the Wetter (river), Wetter, a tributary of the Nidda (river), Nidda River, in the western German state of Hesse, between the hilly province Oberhessen and the north-western Taunus mounta ...

. On 29 November 1959, passenger services on the Nidda–Schotten section were abandoned. Freight still operated until February 1960, when it was closed due to lack of demand. Its track was dismantled a few months afterwards. The station (except the “house” platform, platform 1) was fully modernised in 2008 and 2009. The platforms on tracks 2 and 4 and on tracks 5 and 7 were renewed and raised to a uniform height of 55 centimetres.

Infrastructure

The Nidda station precinct covers a large area. In addition to the numerous parked railcars of the Butzbach-Lich Railway Company (''Butzbach-Licher Eisenbah''n, BLE), which operated services here until 2005, loading sidings, an engine shed and the industrial sidings of a chemical plant are spread over a large area in the southern part of the precinct.

Entrance building

The entrance building is protected as a monument under the Hessian Heritage Act.

Operations

Services on weekends and public holidays were restored on the Gießen–Gelnhausen line at the timetable change on 14 December 2003. Operations on the Beienheim–Schotten railway were managed by the Butzbach-Lich Railway Company until the timetable change of 2004/2005. Since the timetable change of 2005/2006, it has been operated by the

Hessische Landesbahn Hessische Landesbahn (Hessian State Railway, HLB) is a regional transport company owned by the German state of Hesse, based in Frankfurt am Main. It provides bus and rail passenger transport services and, to a lesser extent, rail freight services ...

(Hessian State Railway, HLB), the parent company of the Butzbach-Lich Railway Company. Although the station is unstaffed now, there is a lot of traffic when the trains to and from Gelnhausen, Giessen and Friedberg meet and allow mutual transfers. Trains depart from platform 2 towards Giessen, from track 4 towards Gelnhausen and from tracks 5 and 7 towards Friedberg. Track 1 formerly served trains towards Schotten.

Current services

HLB operates trains every hour on the Gießen–Gelnhausen railway between Gießen and Gelnhausen using GTW 2/6 sets. In the morning peak and after lunch an extra service runs to both Gießen and Gelnhausen, and in the evening peak an extra service runs from Gießen. On the Beienheim–Schotten railway, service runs every hour via Echzell, Reichelsheim and Beienheim to Friedberg. During peak hours there are direct through services to and from

Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof, also called Frankfurt Central Station and Frankfurt Main Station, is the busiest train station in the German state of Hesse. Due to its location near the middle of Germany and usage as a transport hub for long and ...

. Two of these Stadt-Express (SE) services are operated by DB Regio with a class 218 locomotive hauling refurbished

Silberling The n-Wagen ("n-coaches") are a type of passenger coach used by Deutsche Bundesbahn and subsequently Deutsche Bahn. With two double-leafed doors per side to enable a high passenger throughput rate, the coaches were conceived for short dwell ...

carriages. One SE service and the

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 to and from Friedberg are operated by HLB using GTW 2/6 sets. Nidda station is served by some regional and city bus routes.

Notes

External links

* * {{cite web, url=http://www.vergessene-bahnen.de/Ex193k_1.htm , title=Impressions of the Nidda-Schotten railway , accessdate=9 July 2012 , language=German Railway stations in Hesse Railway stations in Germany opened in 1870 Buildings and structures in Wetteraukreis