Graben-Neudorf station

Apart from Graben-Neudorf station, Graben-Neudorf is also served by Graben-Neudorf Nord station. It lies on the Bruchsal-Germersheim line (Bruhrain Railway) in the northwestern suburb of Neudorf on Molzaustraße. It was opened in May 1994 with the launch of the integrated regular interval timetable by the Karlsruher Verkehrsverbunds (Karlsruhe Transport Association) and the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The planned Graben-Neudorf Sud station will not be built in the foreseeable future. It was proposed to build it on the Rhine Railway near Adolf-Kußmaul School in the southeastern district of Graben in association with the construction of a small residential development. The funding (€42 million) required from the municipality of Graben-Neudorf is currently too high.

The history of the station began with the opening of the Mannheim–Schwetzingen–Graben Neudorf–Eggenstein Karlsruhe line on 4 August 1870. On 23 November 1874, the Bruhrain Railway was opened to Rheinsheim and extended on 15 May 1877 to Germersheim.

In 1895, the strategic railway was opened on the Graben-Neudorf–Blankenloch–Karlsruhe–Durmersheim–Rastatt–Haguenau route, so from then on the line now designated as the Hardt Railway from Graben-Neudorf to Eggenstein and Karlsruhe became a branch line.

The first long-distance trains ran in about 1890 on the Bruhrain Railway on the Munich–Stuttgart–Bretten–Bruchsal–Germersheim–Landau–Biebermühle–Zweibrücken–Saarbrücken route, as well as on the Rhine Railway between Karlsruhe and Mannheim. After the Second World War, the east-west long-distance services on the Bruhrain Railway became insignificant and were eventually abandoned. Despite the fact that the station was a junction of two interregional lines, it was never a stop for long-distance services.

In 1967, operations on the Hardt Railway were abandoned and the line between Graben-Neudorf and Leopoldshafen was dismantled. Between 1987 and 1989, the Hardt Railway was reactivated with some re-routing through the centres of towns to Hochstetten. Today it is operated by Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG) with high passenger loadings as part of Karlsruhe Stadtbahn lines S 1 and S 11. An Extension of the Stadtbahn to Graben-Neudorf on the old line has been considered, but does not seem feasible, especially as Graben-Neudorf is on the Rhine Railway and so is directly connected to Karlsruhe. In the long term, continuing the lines running over the Hardt Railway from Hochstetten via Dettenheim to Philippsburg appears promising.

In 1972 there was dangerous accident at the station. A barrel containing plutonium fell off a freight train on its way to the Nuclear Research Center Karlsruhe (Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe) and rolled on to the track in Graben-Neudorf station. It was knocked off the track by passing trains. The barrel was found by searchers in protective suits after hours of searching. The plutonium had not escaped from the barrel.[2]