Its position was chosen to allow the building of a bridge over the Main to Steinheim as part of the south bank route to Frankfurt.

The constraints imposed by the position of the crossing of the Main explain why the station was built so far from the centre of the city, which is still a significant problem for public transport in Hanau: two centres must be served: the Hauptbahnhof and the downtown bus junction in Freiheitsplatz.

Until the end of the Second World War, the station served a tram line of the Hanau Tramway (Hanauer Straßenbahn).

Since the station was built partly in a former river bed of the Main, there will always be problems with water penetration, especially after storms.

The passenger accessible part of the entrance building was transformed fundamentally in the early 1990s with the reorganisation of baggage and express freight operations.