Lüdenscheid station

Lüdenscheid
Terminus
Former station building (demolished in 2009)
General information
Location	Bahnhofstraße 26, Lüdenscheid, North Rhine-Westphalia Germany
Coordinates	51°13′14″N 7°37′44″E / 51.22054°N 7.6289°E / 51.22054; 7.6289
Owned by	Deutsche Bahn
Operated by	DB Netz DB Station&Service
Line(s)	Lüdenscheid-Brügge–Lüdenscheid (KBS 434)
Platforms	1
Other information
Station code	3828[1]
DS100 code	ELS[2]
IBNR	8003782
Category	6[1]
Fare zone	Westfalentarif: 48511[3]
Website	www.bahnhof.de
History
Opened	6 September 1874 [4]
Services
Preceding station DB Regio NRW Following station Lüdenscheid-Brügge towards Köln Hansaring RB 25 Terminus Lüdenscheid-Brügge towards Dortmund Hbf RB 52
Location Lüdenscheid Location in North Rhine-Westphalia Show map of North Rhine-Westphalia Lüdenscheid Location in Germany Show map of Germany Lüdenscheid Location in Europe Show map of Europe

Lüdenscheid station is the terminus of a single-track branch line from Lüdenscheid-Brügge to Lüdenscheid in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It branches in Brügge from the Hagen–Dieringhausen railway. It is classified by DB Station&Service as a category 6 station.^[1]

The station is on the edge of the centre of the district town of Lüdenscheid. The only platform extends up to Bahnhofstrasse (station street) and is at ground level. Central Lüdenscheid is easily accessible within a few minutes. Around the station the Lüdenscheid suburb of Grünewald also extends to the north and west and Knapp extends to the south.

The railway line between Lüdenscheid-Brügge station and Lüdenscheid station opened in 1880 by the Prussian state railways. Five years later, the metre-gauge Altena District Railway (Kreis Altenaer Eisenbahn, KAE) was opened, which had its station near the state station. Even today, there is a narrow road in Lüdenscheid that follows the route of the Altena District Railway from the current Altenaer Straße to the Lüdenscheid station of the KAE. Lüdenscheid had 20,000 inhabitants in 1894 and, according to archive reports, it was the most industrialised city in Germany in 1895. Thus, traffic at Lüdenscheid station had been increasing rapidly and has been further enhanced by freight traffic fed by the KAE.^[5][6]

In 1963, a concept of the urban management of Lüdenscheid was presented in which the current Sauerfelder Straße would be rebuilt on 2 levels and the Brügge–Lüdenscheid railway would be placed underground running from Lüdenscheid station at a grade of only one percent. The railway line would then have terminated at a second underground station in the central transport hub of Sauerfeld in central Lüdenscheid. In addition, 500 parking spaces would have been built below the square in front of the current town hall. At the time this project was considered to be a utopian idea, but it was rejected.^[7]

The formerly important station building of Lüdenscheid station, which had been built in 1960, was demolished in 2009. Located in this building there was a ticket office, a restaurant and a waiting room. In place of the old station building a four-storey building has been built with a driving school, a newsagent, a taxi company, a bakery and toilets. This will offer rail passengers an attractive waiting room.^[8][9] On 27 July 2012, a report appeared in the Lüdenscheider Nachrichten that a new building will be completed in 2013 with a DB service centre, waiting room and toilets for passengers. In addition, there will be apartments for students at the local university and commercial space such as for medical services.^[10]

On the precincts of the former station are now located the Lüdenscheid tax office and a wood trading company. In addition, a new campus of the Fachhochschule Südwestfalen (University of Applied Sciences of South Westphalia) for up to 600 students was built by February 2012.^[11] In addition, some service companies have relocated on the site.

The adjacent Bahnhofallee has been recently connected via the street of Zum Weißen Pferd to Altenaer Straße and can be used by both cars and buses. In addition, a walkway now connects Bahnhofallee to the upper end of Zum Weißen Pferd. Until then, Bahnhofallee had been a dead end for vehicles and pedestrian and could only be reached from the station area.

The station is served by two Regionalbahn lines:^[12]

Bus services are operated the Märkische Verkehrsgesellschaft (Märkische Transport Company, MVG) and Busverkehr Ruhr-Sieg (Ruhr-Sieg Bus Transport, BRS) on several routes. Since the timetable change in August 2010, the station has been the second central bus station (ZOB) in Lüdenscheid) with Lüdenscheid Sauerfeld. The station consists of five bus bays, 4 of which connect directly with the platform, and is served by 18 bus routes:^[12]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lüdenscheid station.

• "Bahnhof Lüdenscheid (photos)" (in German). Riedelfoto. Retrieved 29 October 2013.