page_title: Frankfurt–Offenbach Local Railway
section_title: Further developments
hierarchical_section_title: Frankfurt–Offenbach Local Railway / Further developments
context_page_description: The Frankfurt-Offenbach local railway was a former railway in the Frankfurt am Main area, which developed from the state-owned Frankfurt-Offenbach Railway. The line opened in 1848 and was one of the oldest railways in Germany. It was the first railway line between the Frankfurt and the nearby city of Offenbach and operated until 1955.
context_section_description: With the annexation of Frankfurt by Prussia after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Frankfurt's share of the Frankfurt-Offenbach Railway was taken over by Prussia. On 31 December 1871, Prussia became a party to the treaty with Hesse-Darmstadt, retrospectively to 12 June 1868, and it became part of the Prussian State Railways.
  The construction of the Frankfurt–Bebra railway from Hanau to Frankfurt via Offenbach significantly increased the importance of the line. On 16 November 1873, a new line was opened from the existing line of the former Frankfurt-Offenbach Railway in Oberrad to connect the line to the Main-Neckar Railway station in Frankfurt. As early as 1874 two more tracks were laid in order to cope with the increased traffic. On 2 December 1875, Bebra Station in Frankfurt (now called South station) was finally opened southwest of the old Sachsenhausen station. At the same time the previous connection to the Main-Neckar bridge was abandoned and removed. The former Frankfurt-Offenbach Railway line became the Lokalbahn (Local Railway) and now operated only as a shuttle service between Offenbach and Frankfurt Localbahn station (Lokalbahnhof), as it was now renamed.
  In 1881 Frankfurt Lokalbahn station was connected to the network of the Frankfurter Trambahn-Gesellschaft, the Frankfurt tram company. From 1884 the Lokalbahn was affected seriously by competition from the Frankfurt-Offenbach Tramway Company (Frankfurt-Offenbacher Trambahn-Gesellschaft, FOTG), the first electric tramway in Germany and the fourth in the world. Although the Lokalbahn offered lower fares and faster journey times, the tram ran to the centre of Offenbach and Oberrad. Patronage on the Lokalbahn fell from 1,601,826 in 1883 to 1,405,519 persons in 1884, while the FOTG had 440,000 passengers in its first year. The Frankfurt Forest Railway (Frankfurter Waldbahn), a steam tramway, had used the Lokalbahnhof as its terminus since 6 February 1889.
  From 1885, the Lokalbahn carried a significant volume of goods for the first time: the Sachsenhausen slaughterhouse was connected by a siding to Frankfurt Lokalbahn station and had its own "cattle yard" station, which handled cattle shipments. In 1900, however, the siding was replaced with a branch off the Bebra Railway at Oberrad, ending the transport of goods on the Lokalbahn.
  A serious decline in the number of passengers came in 1906 with the integration of the former FOTG line to Offenbach into the Frankfurt tram network, allowing a direct service from Offenbach to central Frankfurt. As a consequence, the number of passengers on the Lokalbahn was reduced by a quarter, while the aging infrastructure of the railway had an increasing impact on costs.
  The line made its first major losses, so the Prussian State Railways contemplating a sale of the line to the cities of Frankfurt and Offenbach. These were planning the electrification and modernisation of the line and a connection to Frankfurt South or Hauptbahnhof. At times, the conversion of the line into an electric underground railway was planned according to the Berlin model. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914, however, prevented the implementation of these plans. In the summer 1914 timetable, trains ran from Frankfurt to Offenbach at twenty-minute intervals from 5.40 to midnight.
  Like the Wars of 1866 and 1870/71, the First World War also affected operation of the Lokalbahn considerably. Passenger numbers halved and coal and spare parts shortage repeatedly closed the line. The timetable was thinned until 1918, when it was completely closed. In 1920, Monday to Saturday trains recommenced at 40-minute intervals. After an attempt to close the line in 1921, which was abandoned after protests from local residents, operations were limited from 1925 to 6 to 9 AM and 4 to 8 PM on Monday to Saturday and 1 to 8 PM on Sundays and public holidays. Luggage and parcel services were abandoned and staff reduced to a minimum.
  The Second World War affected rail service only slightly at first. Early in 1942 the schedule was temporarily reduced to hourly operations, but 
caption: Frankfurt Lokalbahn station in 1900
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