From today, Marburg’s residents can read it for themselves engraved on a brass plaque: their station is among the best in Germany.
Transport experts and friends of the railways joined the German Pro-Rail Alliance in Marburg on Tuesday to properly celebrate the city’s award for Train Station of the Year 2015. In the presence of Marburg station manager Roland Meuschke (Deutsche Bahn) and Marburg’s mayor Egon Vaupel (SPD), the jury members unveiled the commemorative brass plaque on the entrance to the winning station. On behalf of the jury, the managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance, Dirk Flege, praised the exemplary joint efforts made by the city and Deutsche Bahn in the reconstruction of the station building, making it customer friendly and accessible for blind people.
The jury of six members is made up of representatives from the rail customer groups Pro Bahn and DBV, the transport club VCD, the Autoclub Europa ACE, the German cyclist association ADFC and the Pro-Rail Alliance. Alongside the award for Marburg station in the state of Hesse (city category) awards were also made to the two mountain railway stations Obstfelderschmiede/Lichtenhain in the state of Thuringia (category tourist station).
Marburg: The King
“People who travel to Marburg by train are in for a pleasant surprise: the dark train station surrounded by thunderous traffic has vanished. Under the tarpaulin covering the scaffolding, the station building has been transformed into light and tranquil everyday beauty,” praised jury member Karl-Peter Naumann from Pro-Bahn. “To crown this transformation into a homestead of intelligent mobility, the city has conjured up a generous forecourt at the foot of the station,” said the station expert. “Since the reconstruction of the building was completed in 2014, the forecourt offers equal access to all travellers, whether pedestrians, cyclist, bus passengers and car drivers. Only through traffic now has now been excluded.” Naumann sees in Marburg the “first signs of a renunciation from the primacy of a car-friendly city. If all train stations in Germany could be redeveloped like this university city then public transport would be a real winner.”
Out and about with the checklist
The Pro-Rail Alliance has made the awards for the ‘Train Station of the Year’ competition to Germany’s best station in a city and in a smaller town since 2004. Only stations that satisfy the needs of customers and citizens, according to a defined set of criteria, can receive the award. Objective demands such as customer information, cleanliness, and integration with the city and connections with other modes of transport are as important to clinching the vote as more subjective ‘feel-good’ factors. Dirty toilets, for example, are an obvious knockout factor. The previous winners were 2014: Dresden und Hünfeld ,2013: Göttingen and Oberursel, 2012: Bremen and Aschaffenburg, 2011: Leipzig and Halberstadt, 2010: Darmstadt and Baden-Baden, 2009: Erfurt and Uelzen, 2008: Karlsruhe and Schwerin, 2007: Berlin Main Station and Landsberg am Lech, 2006: Hamburg Dammtor and Oberstdorf, 2005: Mannheim and Wismar, and 2004: Hannover and Lübben.
About Allianz pro Schiene
We are the alliance for the promotion of safe and environmentally friendly rail transport
In Germany’s most unconventional transport alliance, 22 non-profit organisations and over 100 companies from every part of the railway sector work closely in permanent collaboration. The motivation is the promotion and improvement of rail transport in Germany. Learn more about the structure of our transport alliance and its aims. Because the Pro-Rail Alliance promotes climate protection, the tax authorities officially class it as a non-commercial entity.
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