During the planning of the
Landau–Zweibrücken railway, it was found that building the line via Pirmasens would be difficult. The topography of Pirmasens meant that a station would have to be built far from the city centre and an elaborate tunnel under the city would have been necessary. It was decided to build the line to the north of Pirmasens along the Rodalb and Schwarzenbach rivers. A station was built near the hamlet of Biebermühle and at the same time a branch line was built to Pirmasens (the
Biebermühl Railway,
Biebermühlbahn).
Opening and first few decades The station was established on 25 November 1875 with the commissioning of the
Annweiler–
Zweibrücken section of the
Queich Valley Railway (
Queichtalbahn). At the same time the branch line to Pirmasens was opened, making the station a railway junction. Its builder, the former
Palatinate Railway (
Pfalzbahn), was absorbed in 1909 into the
Royal Bavarian State Railways (
Königliche Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahnen). In 1905, a further branch line was opened to
Waldfischbach and the station building became surrounded by rail tracks. In 1913 the station became more important as a junction, as the line to Waldfischbach had been extended to
Kaiserslautern. After operations of the station had been taken over by France as a result of the First World War, it was taken over in 1922 by
Deutsche Reichsbahn. It belonged at first to the
railway division of Ludwigshafen and in 1935 was transferred to the Saarbrücken railway division. During the
Third Reich the station was completely transformed. This included the building of a new station building.
Since the end of the Second World War On 1 April 1947, the station came under the administration of the railway division of Mainz, since the Saar had been removed from Germany. From 1 May 1972 until the founding of
Deutsche Bahn in 1994, the station was administered by the
Deutsche Bundesbahn railway division in Saarbrücken. The station was served not only by local trains but also by services on the
Saarbrücken–
Zweibrücken–
Landau–
Karlsruhe route. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Saarbrücken–
Munich express operated over the line. With the introduction of the summer timetable in May 1989, a forerunner of the modern
Regional-Express services called a
RegionalSchnellBahn ran on the Saarbrücken–Pirmasens Nord–Landau–Karlsruhe route using new
class 628.2 diesel multiple units. In the summer of 1994 timetable this service was abandoned and the current
Regionalbahn service was introduced. Today the station serves as a junction between the railway lines from Saarbrücken, Landau and
Kaiserslautern, all starting or ending at Pirmasens. Until 2002, Regional-Express service RE 4, running from Pirmasens Central Station via Kaiserslautern to
Bingen stopped at the station. The train ran over the
Alsenz Valley Railway (
Alsenztalbahn). Since then, however, trains run only as far as Kaiserslautern, where it is necessary to change trains to travel to
Bad Kreuznach and Bingen. ==Infrastructure ==