per kilometre. Design Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe station is a through station with four platforms and two through tracks in a cutting. It is divided into two halves for the operation of trains. The two platforms of the west side are served by long-distance trains and the two platforms on the east side by regional trains. Two through tracks were created for the freight trains. The very wide platforms and the upper deck supported by two-sided fish-belly rows of columns make the middle of the platforms dark and drafty, leading to the station being given the nickname of the "palace of a thousand winds" (Palast der tausend Winde). The platforms are served primarily by a 220-metre-long two-storey entrance building built over the northern approach tracks. From there the ramps and stairs lead down to the platforms. In the southern part of the platforms additional stairs and lifts connect to the platforms. This second access is aimed primarily at users of the car park, which has 300 spaces on two levels. The station forecourt in front of the entrance building is an extension of Wilhelmshöher Allee. It is covered by a 90 m-long and 65 m-wide canopy. This rests on 59 irregularly arranged columns, 15 m-high over the forecourt and also projects on the axis of Wilhelmshöher Allee. This serves as the tram and bus stop. Opening The station was inaugurated between 29 May and 1 June 1991 as part of a comprehensive, four-day program. On the afternoon of 29 May 1991, Jürgen Kastner, president of the Bundesbahndirektion (railway division) of Frankfurt, symbolically handed the key of an Intercity-Express (ICE) train that was on display to Kassel mayor Wolfram Bremeier. Numerous personnel, including several hundred police officers, secured the event. On 30 May promotional ICE services were offered to Fulda and back at special prices. The grand opening of the new station stood in the shadow of the symbolic start of operations on the high-speed rail services in Germany on the same day (29 May). ICE services commenced on the high-speed line between Hanover and Würzburg over its full length. The fact that the ICE opening ceremony would take place in Kassel, had already been scheduled at the end of the 1980s. Five ICE trains ran to the new station from Bonn, Hamburg, Mainz, Stuttgart and Munich and reached it at the same time. German President Richard von Weizsäcker symbolically switched the exit signal