Bexbach station
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bexbach  | |
|---|---|
 Bexbach station from the street | |
| General information | |
| Location | Bahnhofstr. 39, Bexbach, Saarland Germany |
| Coordinates | 49°20′44″N 7°15′15″E / 49.345556°N 7.254167°E |
| Line(s) | Homburg–Neunkirchen (km 7.5) (KBS 683) |
| Platforms | 2 |
| Construction | |
| Accessible | Yes |
| Other information | |
| Station code | 609[1] |
| DS100 code | SBX[2] |
| IBNR | 8000941 |
| Category | 6[1] |
| Fare zone | SaarVV: 511[3] |
| Website | www.bahnhof.de |
| History | |
| Opened | 1849 |
Bexbach station is a station in the German state of Saarland. It was opened in 1849 and is the oldest preserved station building in the state, although it has extended in 1872 and 1896. When it was built, Bexbach was in the Circle of the Rhine (Rheinkreis) of the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was put into operation together with Homburg Hauptbahnhof and the Palatine Ludwig Railway (Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn). Homburg station, which was destroyed during the Second World War, received a new entrance building at the beginning of the 1950s, but Bexbach station was preserved. When it was built, it was a border station between Bavaria and Prussia and also the terminus of the historic Palatine Ludwig Railway. Today, it is a through station on the Homburg–Neunkirchen railway. The building and its surrounding area have been given heritage protection.[4]
Land purchases for the railway line and Bexbach station began in 1845. A single-track line was completed to Bexbach in the summer of 1848 and one year later it was extended to the border at Wellesweiler. A year later, the line was connected to the Heinitz colliery on Prussian territory. The most important reason for the construction of the entire line was the transport of coal from the mines located on Bavarian territory in Bexbach, St. Ingbert and (later) also Frankenholz.
For many years coal was transported from the mines to Bexbach station in horse carts and later from Frankenholz by ropeway conveyor. With the closure of the Bexbach and Frankenholz pits in 1959, freight traffic at the Bexbach station drastically declined. Today there are two through tracks, three shunting tracks and a siding with a total of 13 sets of points. The goods shed was built in 1872/73.[5]
In addition, Bexbach station was of great strategic importance as it was the area of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. At the north end of the station, a 500-metre-long loading ramp was built in 1870,[6] which was able to unload more than 50 troop trains a day in the First World War. An equally long loading dock was built in Limbach bei Homburg (Saar) on the Rohrbach–Homburg (Saar) railway and in Blieskastel-Lautzkirchen on the Landau–Rohrbach railway.[7] The line was electrified in 1966.[5]
In the course of the Second World War, work started in 1939 on building a strategic railway from Waldmohr-Jägersburg station on the Glan Valley Railway (Glantalbahn) to Bexbach, bypassing Homburg. This work was abandoned in May 1940.