Gießen station
Gießen railway station () is the main railway station in Gießen, Hesse, Germany. The station is a Category 2 station is used by 20,000 passengers daily. The station was opened on 25 August 1850 and is located on the Main-Weser Railway (Kassel – Frankfurt (Main)) and Dill railway (Siegen – Gießen). The current station reception building was built between 1904 and 1911. The main original station building is a historic landmark and has been protected. Outside the station is a bus station and a taxi rank . Parking garages are located nearby. History. The first Gießen station was a temporary station  built in 1850 on the Main-Weser Railway at Oswaldsgarten. This temporary arrangement was replaced in 1853/54 with a new station further south at the present site with an appropriate station building. This was built in a neoclassical style with a symmetrical E-shaped plan. Between 1869 and 1871, the Upper Hessian Railway Company ("Oberhessische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft") built the Vogelsberg Railway from Gießen towards Fulda and the Lahn–Kinzig Railway towards Gelnhausen. Its railway facilities in Gießen were on the other side of the station forecourt to the station building of the Main-Weser Railway. The only entrance to the  station building was on Liebigstraße (then called Universitätsstraße). It was not until 1893 that a pedestrian bridge was built over the tracks leading to the Vogelsberg Railway and the Lahn–Kinzig Railway to Alten Wetzlarer Weg. Station building. The current station building was built from 1904 to 1911, reconstructing the old station building of the Main-Weser Railway in a romanesque revival style. It is built at a focal point on the visual axis of the urban extension of 1880. The cast-iron pillars supporting the platform roof were part of the station precinct of 1854. The "new" station building  is a three-story building made of red sandstone with a distinctive clock tower and built on an asymmetrical floor plan. The Herborn architect, Ludwig Hoffmann was in charge of planning and executing the station. The station building is now built in the wedge between the Main-Weser Railway and the branch to the east towards the Vogelsberg Railway and the Lahn–Kinzig Railway. During the Second World War the building was damaged and the "Fürstenbahnhof" (princely station) located in the northern wing was destroyed in 1944. In November 1968, the station lobby and the north wing of the station  building were renovated, extending to the area of the former princely station. The facade was renovated in the early 1970s. The station building is listed as a historic landmark under the Hessian Monument Protection Act. At the station there is a "ServicePoint", a ticket office, a station bookshop and retail outlets for food and travel needs. The station building still houses the station management including the "3-S-Zentrale" office of DB Station&Service and the train announcement office, a "Bahnhofsmission" (a charity operating at major German stations) and the equipment of DB Services. Between 2008 and 2010, the facilities for  passenger service were rebuilt. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on 16 July 2008. The main objective of the work was the building of a new pedestrian underpass and the provision of barrier-free access to all platforms. After delays due to the long and severe winter, the new building was opened on 21 July 2010, when platform tracks 12–15 could be reached by the new underpass. Because some work was still not finished it was not officially inaugurated until the autumn of 2010. Layout. The Giessen train station has eleven station platform tracks in its two sections: Giessen is not  part of the German Intercity-Express network, but ICE trains sometimes operate on the Main-Weser Railway during disruptions on the Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe–Frankfurt am Main high-speed route. Southwest of the passenger station is the freight yard, which was the central marshalling yard for freight for central Hesse until December 2006. At that time local freight trains operated from here to several stations in the area (e.g. Frankenberg (Eder), Dillenburg and Nida). The majority of these freight operations have now, however, been relocated to Wetzlar freight yard. Rail services. The following services currently call at Gießen: Long distance. The  station is served every two hours by services on the ICE 26 line from Karlsruhe to Stralsund. However, one train pair of this line runs as an Intercity to Westerland due to the lack of overhead line in Schleswig-Holstein.