Frankfurt–Offenbach Local Railway

While the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Hesse-Darmstadt) was developing plans for the construction of the Main-Neckar Railway (connecting Frankfurt and Heidelberg), a local company proposed in the late 1830s to build a line along the south bank of the Main, connecting the line with Offenbach, one of the most important commercial cities of the Grand Duchy.

Difficulties in acquiring land north of Oberrad and the opposition of carters in Frankfurt delayed the start of operations.

[1] The originally planned commencement of services on 1 August 1846, simultaneously with the opening of the Main-Neckar railway, was not achieved.

Instead, freight trains ran only three times a week at night from 23 August, operating in what had been declared publicly as a trial.

Therefore, trains ran from Darmstadt to an operations depot called Mainspitze on the edge of the Main, where they reversed to run back to Sachsenhausen station, which had been rented as a temporary terminus from the Frankfurt-Offenbach Railway.

The management of the Frankfurt-Offenbach Railway gave in to public pressure and provided a regular passenger service.

On 31 December 1871, Prussia became a party to the treaty with Hesse-Darmstadt, retrospectively to 12 June 1868, and it became part of the Prussian State Railways.

Although the Lokalbahn offered lower fares and faster journey times, the tram ran to the centre of Offenbach and Oberrad.

In 1900, however, the siding was replaced with a branch off the Bebra Railway at Oberrad, ending the transport of goods on the Lokalbahn.

As a consequence, the number of passengers on the Lokalbahn was reduced by a quarter, while the aging infrastructure of the railway had an increasing impact on costs.

Passenger numbers halved and coal and spare parts shortage repeatedly closed the line.

Early in 1942 the schedule was temporarily reduced to hourly operations, but in November the same year trains were running every half-hour.

Some time after the currency reform of 1948, increasing motorisation and an improved rail service on the Bebra line led to the number of passengers quickly falling to about 1000 per day.

Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railways) therefore decided to close the now highly unprofitable line on 1 October 1955.

With the exception of Oberrad station, all rail track was isolated and building abandoned on the Lokalbahn in the summer of 1956.