Bingen Central Station - History

History

The station was opened on 15 July 1858 as Bingerbrück station along with the first section of the Nahe Valley Railway. On the opposite side of the Nahe river was Bingen (now Bingen Stadt) station on the left bank section of the Hessian Ludwig Railway (Hessische Ludwigsbahn).

During the construction of the main railway station a Roman necropolis was discovered, revealing numerous tombstones of Roman military and civil auxilia. The tombstone of Annaius, a member of the cohors IV Delmatarum, shows a detailed aspect of Roman weapons and clothing dating back to the first half of the 1st century.

On 17 October 1859, both stations were connected by a bridge. Bingerbrück station therefore became a border station on the former border between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Hesse. On 15 December 1859, the Koblenz–Bingerbrück section of the left bank was opened by Rhenish Railway Company (Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft). In order to improve the carriage of freight from the Saar region to the region of Wiesbaden and Frankfurt, the Rhine-Nahe Railway (Rhein-Nahe-Eisenbahn, the owner of the Nahe Valley Railway) and the Nassau State Railway (Nassauische Staatsbahn) decided to set up the Bingerbrück–Rüdesheim train ferry for freight wagons. This ferry went into operation on the Rhine between Bingerbrück and Rüdesheim on 1 September 1862. In 1900, operations were discontinued and some years later it replaced by the Hindenburg Bridge. This railway bridge, connecting Bingerbrück and Rudesheim, was built in the years 1913 to 1915 and destroyed during the Second World War. Since then there has been no way for trains to cross the Rhine near Bingen.

In 1960, Deutsche Bundesbahn built a wagon repair shed in the area of the former Bingerbrück harbour. The 3,000 square-metre shed was crossed by three parallel tracks, which were connected at both ends to the rail network. The wagon repair shed was closed after 18 years, in 1978, as a result of the centralisation of maintenance.

Since the municipal reform of 1969, Bingerbrück has been part of the town of Bingen am Rhein. Since then Bingen has had several stations. Because the Nahe Valley Railway connects with the West Rhine line at Bingerbrück and the station is also a stop for long-distance services, it is the most important station in the town of Bingen. For this reason, Bingerbrück station was renamed Bingen (Rhein) Hauptbahnhof in 1993.

The stations’s three signal boxes of Bingerbrück Ostturm (Bot), Bingerbrück Kreuzbach (Bkb) and Bingerbrück Westturm (Bwt) and the nearby Bnb signal box at Bingen Stadt were decommissioned on 3 February 1996 and replaced by the central interlocking Bf on the railway bridge at Bingen Central Station. The mechanical interlocking of Bingerbrück Ostturm was built in 1920 and was responsible for setting the points and signals on the Rhine line and for shunting towards Mainz.

The central station was remodelled for the Rhineland-Palatinate State Garden Show (Rheinland-pfälzischen Landesgartenschau), which took place in Bingen in 2008. The disused marshalling and freight yards, which covered an area of 150,000 square metres and had two humps, were removed and the site was integrated into the Garden Show. In addition, the Bingerbrück Ostturm signal box, which was abandoned in 1996, was renovated for the show and converted into a museum. The 100 metre long, twin-tube, brick tunnel that formerly ran under the tracks to the depot had to be filled due to serious damage. The entrance of the tunnel has been turned into a stage for an outdoor theatre. The old staircase at the entrance has been restored and serves as a seating area for the audience. These works were carried out in preparation for the horticultural show. In addition, an extra bridge, which was equipped with lifts and led to the area of the garden show, was established to provide barrier-free access for the disabled from the station’s platforms to the garden show.