Frankfurt Airport regional station

Frankfurt (Main) Airport regional station S
Underground through station
Underground platforms
Location	Frankfurt, Hesse Germany
Coordinates	50°3′7″N 8°34′14″E / 50.05194°N 8.57056°E / 50.05194; 8.57056Coordinates: 50°3′7″N 8°34′14″E / 50.05194°N 8.57056°E / 50.05194; 8.57056
Line(s)	Frankfurt Airport loop (645.8, 645.9) S8 S9
Platforms	3
Other information
Station code	1849
DS100 code	FFLU
Category	3[1]
Website	www.bahnhof.de
History
Opened	14 March 1972

Rail connections

Escalators to railway platform

Frankfurt (Main) Airport regional station (German: Frankfurt (Main) Flughafen Regionalbahnhof) is an underground railway station at Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt, Germany. It provides local S-Bahn and Regionalbahn services to the city and the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. The station opened on March 14, 1972 together with a new passenger terminal (Terminal Mitte, now called Terminal 1). At the time it was only the second railway station serving an airport in Germany (after Berlin Schönefeld Airport Station).

In 1999, a second train station opened at Frankfurt Airport (Frankfurt Airport long-distance station) which is primarily used by long-distance trains, mostly ICE services.

Name

Prior to the commissioning of the airport's second train station this station was called just Frankfurt am Main Airport station (German: Bahnhof Frankfurt am Main Flughafen). Both regional and long-distance trains ran from this station until 1999.

Station layout

The regional train station is located underneath Terminal 1, concourse B. It is designed as an underground through station and has three platform tracks (called "Regio 1" to "Regio 3"), of which tracks 2 and 3 are on either side of a central platform. The central platform is 410 m long and the outer platform is 210 m long.^[2] Vehicles with diesel traction may enter the regional station only when the level of their exhaust emissions are below set limits. Currently class 612 diesel multiple units operate hourly through the regional station on the Frankfurt Central Station–Saarbrücken Central Station route.

History

Class 403 EMU of the Lufthansa-Airport-Express in 1988

A three-track underground station was already envisaged when a new and larger passenger terminal was planned at Frankfurt Airport in the mid-1960s. In April 1969, Deutsche Bundesbahn (today called Deutsche Bahn) and the airport operator FAG (today called Fraport) signed a funding agreement on connecting the airport to the rail network. The costs for the station and the 7.5 km long airport loop line amounted to 100 million Deutsche Mark (approximately 51 million Euro), with Deutsche Bundesbahn funding half and the other half split between FAG and the federal government. The station was opened on March 14, 1972. It served initially as a station for regional trains, but its 410 m long central platform was ready from the beginning to handle also long-distance trains.^[2]

Between 1982 and 1993 the station was used by the Lufthansa Airport Express, which ran to and from Düsseldorf and Stuttgart.^[3] As part of the enhancement of the Intercity (IC) network in 1985, the station was served hourly by IC services. With the opening of the long-distance station on May 30, 1999, most long-distance traffic operated via the new station.^[4] Occasional long-distance trains still stopped at the regional station, since the long-distance station was closed overnight. Since the annual timetable change in December 2010, the long-distance station is also open at night, so no more scheduled long-distance trains stop at the regional station.

In the late 1980s, it was planned, as part of the construction of the airport's eastern terminal (Terminal 2) and the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed line, to build a fourth (long-distance) platform track and to upgrade the rail infrastructure, including building a tunnel to connect with the Ried Railway (Riedbahn) towards Zeppelinheim. Despite the high cost that would have been required for the reconstruction of the existing building, it was expected that capacity would not have been sufficient in the medium term. Another proposal considered was to build an additional station in the existing building. Although a feasibility study found that would have had positive returns, this option was rejected due to its high cost.^[4][5] Next to the platform provision had been made for the building of another track, which has never been built.

From July 9–30, 2007, the regional train station was closed for the complete replacement of the 30-year-old tracks.

Work has been under way since early 2010 to give a new, lighter design to the distributor level and the connecting corridor to Terminal 1.

Services

Class 420 EMU of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn on line S 8 in Frankfurt Airport Regional station on its way to Wiesbaden Hbf.

The following Regional-Express and S-Bahn services stop in Frankfurt Airport regional station:

Preceding station		Rhine-Main S-Bahn		Following station
Kelsterbach toward Wiesbaden Hbf		S8		Stadion toward Hanau Hbf
		S9
Preceding station		Deutsche Bahn		Following station
Rüsselsheim toward Koblenz Hbf or Saarbrücken Hbf		RE 80 Mittelrhein-Main/Rhein-Nahe-Express		Frankfurt-Niederrad toward Frankfurt (Main) Hbf

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frankfurt Airport Regional station.

Rhine-Main S-Bahn Services S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 Routes Frankfurt City Tunnel Offenbach City Tunnel Frankfurt Airport loop South Main S-Bahn Homburg Railway Kronberg Railway Limes Railway Main Railway Main-Lahn Railway Main-Neckar Railway Main–Weser Railway Offenbach-Bieber–Dietzenbach railway Riedbahn Rodgau Railway Taunus Railway

Airport stations in Germany Stations with ICE connection Cologne/Bonn Düsseldorf Airport Frankfurt long-distance Leipzig/Halle Stations with RE or RB connection Berlin Brandenburg Berlin Schönefeld Frankfurt regional Friedrichshafen Lübeck Stations with only S-Bahn connection Dresden Düsseldorf Airport Terminal Hamburg Hannover Munich Stuttgart Station with U-Bahn connection Nuremberg Station with Tram connection Bremen Erfurt–Weimar