Design and Location
The station is located between the Frankfurter Kreuz Tunnel—which runs under the Frankfurter Kreuz ("Frankfurt Cross") autobahn interchange—in the east, connecting towards Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof and Mannheim, and Kelsterbacher Spange (Kelsterbach Link) Tunnel in the west, the beginning of the high-speed section of the new line.
The 660 metre long and up to 55 metre wide station building was designed by BRT Architects (Bothe, Richter, Teherani). After nearly four years of construction, it was opened in 1999. The entire station is glazed on the outside and appears to be open. The upper deck is at a height of 12.5 metres and is composed of a 30 centimetres thick reinforced concrete slab with an area of about 34,000 square metres. The slab is supported by steel beams, which transfer their loads on to 4.5 metre thick trusses. These span across the railway station with a maximum span of about 50 metres and are 15 metres apart. The trusses are designed to support a building that is up to eight storeys high. The maximum load capacity of the reinforced concrete slab is 700 kilograms per square metre.
Until early 2007, the station was located in the middle of a large trench covered only by the biaxially curved glass dome. This has a maximum height of 15 metres, a length of 135 metres and a width of 40 metres.
The station has two island platforms, which are each served by two tracks. The platform tracks are numbered "Fern 4" (long-distance 4) to "Fern 7", continuing on from platforms 1 to 3 of the existing regional station opened in 1972. Trains scheduled to use platform tracks 6 and 7 run towards Mainz and Cologne, while platforms 4 and 5 are used for services towards Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, Frankfurt South station or the Ried Railway (Riedbahn) towards Mannheim. In contrast to the regional station, the only scheduled services stopping at the long-distance station are long-distance trains.
The long-distance station is located about 200 metres from Terminal 1, between the A 3 autobahn and the B 43 federal highway, which both run parallel to it on either side of it. A 200 metres long and up to 80 metres wide walkway was constructed to connect the station building to Terminal 1. This supports footpaths and moving walkways, check-in counters, baggage screening and various shops.
On the mezzanine, between the platform and distribution level, there are among other things, a Deutsche Bahn lounge for first class passengers and frequent travellers. This can also be reached by lift directly from the 6/7 platform.
Read more about this topic: Frankfurt Airport Long-distance Station
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