Worms Hauptbahnhof is, along with Worms Pfeddersheim station, one of two operational passenger stations in the Rhenish Hesse city of Worms, Germany. The station with its pedestrian underpass is also an essential link between the eastern and the western parts of central Worms. Every day it is used by about 15,000 people. History Beginnings The history of the railway to Worm began in 1836, when the governments of France and Bavaria were planning to build a railway along the western bank of the Rhine between Basel and Cologne via Strasbourg and Mainz. Two years later, however, the plans were dropped for economic and military reasons by the other states the railway would have crossed: the Grand Duchies of Baden, Hesse and the Kingdom of Prussia. Instead, the Main-Neckar line was built on the east side of Rhine. Finally, in 1844 some citizens in Mainz and Worms took the initiative to establish a company for building a railway from Mainz to Worms. The private company constructing and later operating it was called the Hessian Ludwig Railway (). Several factors such as the lean years of 1846 and 1847, the democratic uprising in 1848-1850 prolonged the opening of the line from Mainz to Worms until 1853. The first station There were discussions for six years in Worms on the location of the new station. The Worms council pressed for a central location near the Rhine port, near the present Rheintorplatz, but on 21 September 1852 the Hessian Ludwig Railway chose a site near the cemetery, now Albert-Schulte Park. On 24 August 1853 the line was opened from Mainz to Worms and three months later, on 15 November, the line was extended to Ludwigshafen. After an initial underestimation of freight traffic, extra facilities were built at Worms station in the following years: a loading dock, a goods shed and a marshalling yard. Now there were regular freight trains conveying sugar beet, grain, coal and much else to the factories, mills and ports in Worms. Following the opening of the railway there was great growth in industry and population in Worms: in 1849 there were only 89 factory workers; in 1858, there were over 2,000. The second station With the growth of passenger traffic, the old station buildings were inadequate. In 1871 the old station building was replaced. The new station building was built in the then fashionable neo-classical style. The arrivals hall had