page_title: Hochspeyer station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hochspeyer station / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Postkarte von Hochspeyer mit Bahnhof, gelaufen 1921
context_page_description: Hochspeyer station – originally officially Neuhochspeyer or Neu-Hochspeyer – is the station of the town of Hochspeyer in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Deutsche Bahn classifies it as belonging to category 4 and it has four platform tracks. The station is located in the network of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar and belongs to fare zone 100. Its address is Bahnhofstraße 1.
  It is located on the Mannheim–Saarbrücken railway, which essentially consists of the Palatine Ludwig Railway. It became a junction station on 29 October 1870, with the opening of the Alsenz Valley Railway to Winnweiler; half a year later this line was extended to Bad Münster. The importance of this line, however, fell with the opening of Kaiserslautern–Enkenbach railway a few years later. Since December 2003, it has also been a stop for lines S1 and S2 of the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn.
context_section_description: Although the selected route for the Palatine Ludwig Railway passed through Kaiserslautern and thus also through Hochspeyer from early in its planning, initially no station was envisaged for Hochspeyer. The then mayor Wilhelm Ritter convinced the Palatine Ludwig Railway Company (Pfalzische Ludwigsbahn-Gesellschaft) of its merits, so that finally a station was developed on the western outskirts. Around 1860, there were initial efforts to build a railway line along the Alsenz. This would have been used in combination with the Palatine Maximilian Railway (Pfälzische Maximiliansbahn, now forming parts of the Neustadt–Wissembourg railway and the Winden–Karlsruhe railway) and the section of the Ludwig Railway directly west of Neustadt as a through route in the north-south direction. The engineers rejected plans for the railway line to run via Otterberg and recommended a route through Enkenbach, which would connect to the Ludwig Railway to the east of Hochspeyer towards Neustadt. A connecting curve to Hochspeyer was built to the south of Fischbach to allow through train to run to Kaiserslautern. A new Hochspeyer station was built to the east of its built-up area. The Hochspeyer–Winnweiler section was opened on 29 October 1870 and on 16 May of the following year it was extended to Münster am Stein.
  The station, which had existed since 1848, now operated exclusively as a freight depot and was given the new name of Alt-Hochspeyer (old Hochspeyer). The newly created junction station was called Neuhochspeyer or Neu-Hochspeyer (both meaning "new Hochspeyer") by the railway company at different times. However, since this caused confusion, it was permanently changed to Hochspeyer. The connection via Hochspeyer was an indirect route to Kaiserslautern. On its initiative, therefore, the Kaiserslautern–Enkenbach railway was built, which meant that Hochspeyer station lost its importance as a junction station. At the beginning of the 20th century, the station came under the management of the Betriebs- und Bauinspektion Kaiserslautern I ("operations and construction inspectorate Kaiserslautern I"). The station was also the location of a Bahnmeisterei (track master's office), which was responsible for the maintenance of the railway along the east-west route almost as far as Frankenstein and including the Heiligenberg Tunnel and the Franzosenwoog Tunnel. Its responsibilities extended over the Alsenz Valley Railway almost to Enkenbach.
  In 1922, the station was integrated into the newly founded Reichsbahndirektion Ludwigshafen (railway division of Ludwigshafen). During the dissolution of the railway division of Ludwigshafen on 1 April 1937, it was transferred to the railway division of Mainz. Within that, it was responsible to the Betriebsamt (operations office) of Neustadt.
caption: Hochspeyer station (below) in 1921
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