|}
The Soden Railway is a line in the western suburbs of Frankfurt am Main and was one of the oldest railways in Germany, opened in 1847.

Route

The Soden Railway runs from Frankfurt-Höchst

Frankfurt-Höchst station

The Frankfurt-Höchst station is an important station in the Frankfurt district of Höchst and is the second largest station in the city with twelve tracks. It is currently mainly used by S-Bahn, suburban and regional services...

 to Bad Soden am Taunus

Bad Soden (Taunus) station

Bad Soden station is the northern terminus of the Soden Railway in the German state of Hesse. It is also the northern terminus of the line S 3 services of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn over the Limes Railway .-Location and facilities :...

 and is 6.6 km long. It was also called the Höchst–Soden Railway. The line has timetable route number 643 and is operated as line R13 of the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund

Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund

The Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund is an organised transport network in the German state of Hesse, centred around the city of Frankfurt am Main. Its head office is located in Hofheim im Taunus...

.

History

The line was opened on 22 May 1847 and is might be described as the first German branch line. In Höchst

Frankfurt-Höchst station

The Frankfurt-Höchst station is an important station in the Frankfurt district of Höchst and is the second largest station in the city with twelve tracks. It is currently mainly used by S-Bahn, suburban and regional services...

 it connects with the Taunus Railway opened in 1839 from Frankfurt to Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Wiesbaden, the state capital of the German state of Hesse. It is a terminal station at the southern edge of the city center and is served by over 500 long-distance and regional trains and used by more than 30,000 travelers each day.-History:The current station...

. It was built to connect the emerging spa town of Soden to the new rail network. The builder and owner of the line was the Soden Company . The line was managed from the beginning by the Taunus Railway Company.

Since 1972, there has been a connection in Bad Soden to the Limes Railway to Niederhöchstadt, which connects Bad Soden with the Rhine-Main S-Bahn

Rhine-Main S-Bahn

The Rhine-Main S-Bahn system is an integrated rapid transit and commuter transport system for the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region, which includes the cities Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Offenbach am Main, Hanau and Darmstadt...

 network.

Operations

The railway was originally only operated in the summer months. In 1860 the operating company stopped operations and demanded subsidies from the Nassau Government

Nassau (state)

Nassau was a German state within the Holy Roman Empire and later in the German Confederation. Its ruling dynasty, now extinct in male line, was the House of Nassau.-Origins:...

, which refused. Operations only resumed on 1 October 1863 after the track had been sold to the Taunus Railway Company for 100,000 guilder

Guilder

Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch gulden — from Old Dutch for 'golden'. The guilder originated as a gold coin but has been a common name for a silver or base metal coin for some centuries...

s. On 1 January 1872 the Soden Railway was sold to the Prussian state railways

Prussian state railways

The term Prussian state railways encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia...

 and subsequently ran all year.

From 1979 to 1997 Soden Railway formed part of S-Bahn line S3

S3 (Rhine-Main S-Bahn)

The S3 service of the S-Bahn Rhein-Main system bearing the KBS number 645.3- City tunnel :The city tunnel is an underground, pure S-Bahn route used by almost all services...

. In addition, the line was electrified. Train patronage was very poor, so S-Bahn services were abandoned. From 1997, the Frankfurt-Königsteiner Eisenbahn operated the line. These operations have since been rebranded as Hessische Landesbahn (Hessian State Railways). Despite the fact that the line is electrified, it is operated, along with the Hessische Landesbahn’s other routes through the Taunus, by a diesel multiple unit

Diesel multiple unit

A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple unit train consisting of multiple carriages powered by one or more on-board diesel engines. They may also be referred to as a railcar or railmotor, depending on country.-Design:...

  (usually a VT 2E, sometimes a LINT).

Future

The section south of the A 66 autobahn

Bundesautobahn 66

is an autobahn in southwestern Germany. It connects the Taunus to Fulda, passing close to Frankfurt am Main. The first part of the autobahn between Wiesbaden and the Nordwestkreuz Frankfurt, was opened as early as 1934, then called the Rhein-Main-Schnellweg. It became an autobahn in 1965.The...

 would from part of the proposed Regionalstadtbahn Regionaltangente West line through the western fringes of Frankfurt. If built, this would have a new station called Zuckschwerdtstraße.