brothers), Bad Kreuznach has at its disposal two general hospitals that have available the most modern specialised departments for heart and intestinal disorders, and also strokes. In the spa zone, there is also the "Sana" Rhineland-Palatinate Rheumatic Centre, made up of a rheumatic hospital and a rehabilitation clinic, the Karl-Aschoff-Klinik. Another rehabilitation clinic under private sponsorship is the Klinik Nahetal. Also, there are the psychosomatic specialised clinic St.-Franziska-Stift and the rehabilitation and preventive clinic for children and youth, Viktoriastift. Transport Given Bad Kreuznach's location in the narrow Nahe valley, all transport corridors run upstream parallel to the river. Moreover, the town is an important crossing point for all modes of transport. Rail From 1896 to 1936, there were the Kreuznacher Kleinbahnen ("Kreuznach Narrow-Gauge Railways"), a rural narrow-gauge railway network. An original steam locomotive and its shed, which were moved from Winterburg, can be found today in nearby Bockenau. The Kreuznacher Straßen- und Vorortbahnen ("Kreuznach Tramways and Suburban Railways") ran not only a service within the town but also lines out into the surrounding area, to Bad Münster am Stein, Langenlonsheim and Sankt Johann. In 1953, the whole operation was shut down. Since the introduction of "Rhineland-Palatinate Timetabling" (Rheinland-Pfalz-Takt) in the mid 1990s, the train services other than the ICE/EC/IC services have once again earned some importance. Besides the introduction of hourly timetabling, there has also been a marked expansion into the nighttime hours, with trains leaving for Mainz three hours later each day. Bad Kreuznach station is one of Rhineland-Palatinate's few V-shaped stations (called a Keilbahnhof, or "wedge station", in the German terminology). Branching off the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen–Saarbrücken) here is the railway line to Gau Algesheim. From Bingen am Rhein, Regionalbahn trains run by way of the Alsenz Valley Railway, which branches off the Nahe Valley Railway in Bad Münster am Stein, to Kaiserslautern, reaching it in roughly 65 minutes. Running on the line to Saarbrücken and by way of Gau Algesheim and the West Rhine Railway to Mainz are Regional-Express and Regionalbahn trains. The travel time to Mainz lies between 25 and 40 minutes, and to Saarbrücken between 1 hour and 40 minutes and 2 hours and 20 minutes. Road Bad Kreuznach can be reached by car through the like-named interchange on the Autobahn A 61 as well as on Bundesstraßen 41, 48 and 428. Except for Bundesstraße 48, all these roads skirt the inner town, while