Hagen-Vorhalle station is a large marshalling yard of national importance and a small passenger station for local services in the Hagen

Hagen

Hagen is the 39th-largest city in Germany, located in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne, Volme and Ennepe meet the river Ruhr...

 district of Vorhalle in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

. It was opened in its present form in 1910 in and is one of the nine major marshalling yards in Germany and a key element of the 200X program to upgrade Germany's freight infrastructure initiated in 2006 by the former Railion Deutschland AG (now DB Schenker Rail). The station is located on the Ruhr Valley Railway and the Elberfeld–Dortmund line

Elberfeld–Dortmund railway

The Elberfeld–Dortmund railway is a major German railway. It is part of a major axis for long distance and regional rail services between Wuppertal and Cologne, and is served by Intercity Express, InterCity, Regional Express, Regionalbahn and S-Bahn trains....

. The station was opened on the 9 March 1849 as Herdecke station and successively renamed as Herdecke Süd, Herdecke-Vorhalle and Vorhalle. It was renamed as Hagen-Vorhalle in the early 1950s.

Marshalling yard

The yard has eleven arrival tracks, two hump tracks and 40 classification tracks up to 920 m long. The freight wagons or sets of wagons are run over the hump and then retarded by a series of automatic retarders and finally pushed together for coupling. The wagons are then coupled together with their brake hoses and the brakes are tested by a remote-controlled brake test system. The entire marshalling operation is automatically controlled by a central electronic interlocking. Intervention by the signallers is only required if there is a fault.

The Hagen-Vorhalle yard was modernised between 2004 and 2006 by DB Netz

DB Netz

DB Netz AG is a 100%-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn is a railway infrastructure provider, which owns and operates a majority of the German railway system . The company was established in the course of the second stage of the German rail reform as a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn...

 (a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

). The fully automated system was commissioned in January 2007. The modernisation significantly reduced staff numbers at the yard.

The collapse of rail freight by 25% due to the current economic crisis may lead to the complete closure of the marshalling yard, even though it has only just been modernised. The yard's scope is being reviewed.

Passenger station

The Hagen-Vorhalle passenger station originally consisted of two central platforms; today only one is left, facing two tracks. The station is currently classified as a category 6 station.
It is served by Regionalbahn

RegionalBahn

The Regionalbahn is a type of local passenger train in Germany.-Service:Regionalbahn trains usually call at all stations on a given line, with the exception of RB trains within S-Bahn networks, these may only call at selected stations...

 service RB 40 (Ruhr-Lenne-Bahn) running between Essen Hauptbahnhof

Essen Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Essen in western Germany. It is situated south of the old town centre, next to the A 40 motorway.It was opened in 1862 by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn...

 and Hagen Hauptbahnhof

Hagen Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Hagen in western Germany. It is an important rail hub for the southeastern Ruhr area, offering regional and long distance connections....

 at 60 minute intervals and line S 5 of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn, running between Dortmund Hauptbahnhof

Dortmund Hauptbahnhof

is the central station for the city of Dortmund in Germany.The station's origins lie in a joint station of the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn and Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn which was built north of the city centre in 1847. That station was replaced by a new station, erected in 1910 at the current site....

 and Hagen at 30 minute intervals.

It is also served by bus route 516, operated by Hagener Straßenbahn AG at 30 minute intervals, and route 554, operated by Verkehrsgesellschaft Ennepe-Ruhr at 60 minute intervals during the day.