Bretten station is the centre of rail transport in the town of Bretten

Bretten

Bretten is a town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on Bertha Benz Memorial Route.-Geography:Bretten lies in the centre of a rectangle that is formed by Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Heilbronn and Stuttgart as corners. It has a population of approximately 28,000. The centre of...

 in the German state of Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

. The Württemberg Western Railway

Württemberg Western Railway

The Western Railway in Württemberg was opened in 1853 and ran from Bietigheim-Bissingen to Bruchsal. It was the first railway link between the states of Württemberg and Baden in Germany and one of the oldest lines in Germany....

 and the Kraichgau line

Kraichgau Railway

The Kraichgau Railway is a 64.8 km long railway line in the region of Kraichgau in northwestern part of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It runs from Karlsruhe via Bretten and Eppingen to Heilbronn and was built in 1880...

 cross at the station.

History

Bretten station was opened on 1 October 1853 as part of the construction of Western Railway from Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 to Bruchsal

Bruchsal

Bruchsal is a city at the western edge of the Kraichgau, approximately 20 km northeast of Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany...

. In the late 1870s, the Kraichgau Railway was opened from Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

 to Heilbronn

Heilbronn

Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 123.000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state....

, creating a railway junction. At the same time the station was moved from near the town centre to its present location at the junction to the west of the town centre.

The Western Railway through Bretten station was electrified in the 1950s. When Karlsruhe Stadtbahn services opened on the Kraichgau Railway to Bretten-Gölshausen on 25 September 1992, along with the electrification of the Kraichgau Railway, this first two-system light railway (tram-train

Tram-train

A tram-train is a light-rail public transport system where trams run both on an urban tramway network and on main-line railways to combine the tram's flexibility and availability and the train's greater speed...

) line was called line B. In May 1994, Stadtbahn line S9 opened from Bruchsal

Bruchsal station

Bruchsal station is the centre of the rail transport in the city of Bruchsal in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.-History :The original station of the baroque town of Bruchsal opened on 10 April 1843 as part of the Karlsruhe–Heidelberg section of the old Baden main line, which eventually...

 to Bretten and it was extended to Mühlacker

Mühlacker station

Mühlacker station is in the town of Mühlacker in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is at the junction of the Karlsruhe–Mühlacker line and the Western Railway. With its five platform tracks, it is the largest station in Enz district...

 in 1999. In 1994, line B was renamed line S4.

In the summer of 2000 the station was modernised. Among other things, the platforms were raised, waiting rooms were enlarged and a toilet was built. Between 2002 and 2004, with the opening of Stadtbahn operations on the Murg Valley Railway

Murg Valley Railway

The Murg Valley Railway is a 58 kilometre long railway line in the northern part of the Black Forest in Germany, that links Rastatt and Freudenstadt. It was opened in stages from 1868 to 1928 being built outwards from both Rastatt and Freudenstadt. The route through the narrow Murg Valley required...

, services were extended to Freudenstadt

Freudenstadt

Freudenstadt is a town in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is capital of the district Freudenstadt. The closest population centres are Offenburg to the west and Tübingen to the east ....

, but through services were discontinued at the end of 2004 due to the route's high susceptibility to delays. In addition Regional-Express trains operate from Heidelberg

Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof

is the central station for Heidelberg. In 2005 it was used by 30,472 passengers daily and is one of the largest passenger stations in Baden-Wurttemberg. The main station entrance opened in 1955 in Willy-Brandt-Platz in the western district of Heidelberg, on the edge of the district. Diagonally...

 to Stuttgart

Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof of the city of Stuttgart, the capital of the Land of Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany. It is the largest regional and long-distance railway station in Stuttgart, the main node of the Stuttgart S-Bahn network, and, together with the halt at Charlottenplatz, the main...

, stopping in Bretten, as does the so-called "Kraichgau Sprinter", which runs twice daily between Heilbronn

Heilbronn Hauptbahnhof

is the main passenger station in Heilbronn in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.-Description :The station is located about 1 km west of the inner city of Heilbronn and the Old Neckar on a 1 km wide island between the old Neckar and the modern canalised Neckar. Southwest of the modern...

 and Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof

is the central railway station in the German city of Karlsruhe. The station is classified as one of the major Category 1 stations in Germany, due to its function as a hub connecting several railway lines with each other.- History :...

 with few stops.

In the station forecourt, there is a bus station served by bus lines 141, 143, 144, 145 and 146, connecting to Bretten and its immediate surroundings.

External links