Mühldorf (Oberbayern) station is a railway junction and station in the district town of Mühldorf in the German state of Bavaria. The station has seven platform tracks and is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 4 station. The station is served by 105 passenger trains each day operated by the Südostbayernbahn and frequented by about 10,000 travellers. It is also the central station of the “Bavarian Chemical Triangle” (Bayerisches Chemiedreieck). About 800 freight wagons are dispatched from it daily.
Location
The station is located north of the centre of Mühldorf in the so-called “Upper Town” (Oberen Stadt). The station area is bordered to the north by Bischof-von-Ketteler-Straße and to the south by Friedrich-Ebert-Straße. The two streets are connected by Innere Neumarkter Straße, which passes under an underpass under the tracks to the east of the station area. The station building is located to the south and has the address of Bahnhofplatz 6.
History
Until 1860, Mühldorf was just a small town with just under 2,000 inhabitants. Only the railway connection would bring a substantial boost to its economy and its population. In the following years citizens' initiatives supporting the construction of a railway to Mühldorf were formed. Mühldorf at the time was in the so-called "rail-less square", the boundaries of this square were the cities of Salzburg, Rosenheim, Munich, Landshut and Passau. There had been different proposals for the construction of lines from Freilassing, Traunstein and Rosenheim to Regensburg or from Munich to Freilassing or Passau. The decision was finally made in favour of a route from Munich via Mühldorf and Simbach towards Austria, which would also relieve the existing Munich–Rosenheim–Salzburg line. A law of 5 October 1863 authorised the construction of a line from Munich to the Austrian border in Simbach. The decision to pass through Mühldorf was made later. Finally, an alignment via Markt Schwaben, Dorfen and Mühldorf was selected.
Construction and opening of the station
Construction was delayed by the Franco-Prussian War and Mühldorf station was finally opened on 1 May 1871 with the opening of the railway between Munich and Neuötting. The line was extended a month later to Simbach. Meanwhile, the Bavarian Eastern Railway planned a connection from Plattling to Rosenheim. Citizens' initiative committees were established and shortly before the inaugural of Mühldorf Gustav von Schlör (Bavarian Minister for Trade and Public Works 1866–71) was appointed an honorary citizen because of his support for the project, which would make Mühldorf station a railway junction. Mühldorf became a “separation station” (Trennungsbahnhof) on 1 May 1876, when the line to Rosenheim was opened. On 15 October 1875 was a connection was opened from Mühldorf via Neumarkt-Sankt Veit to Plattling. Traffic at junction station continued to grow during the coming years. It was originally planned that the newly opened railway lines would use the single platform next to the station building, but the railway tracks soon proved to be no longer sufficient. As a result, five platform tracks were established, two tracks for through freight and four terminating sidings for freight. A local freight yard was built opposite the station building. A locomotive shelter was built east of the station for the Bavarian Eastern Railway. The station was the starting point of further lines. A line was opened on 1 September 1879 from Neumarkt St. Veit to Pocking and it was extended to Passau in 1888. On 8 October 1883 this was followed by a line to Landshut, but this also branched in Neumarkt-Sankt Veit from the Mühldorf–Plattling line. A line to Altötting was completed on 1 May 1897. This was extended on 9 August to Burghausen to form the Mühldorf–Burghausen railway. The line to Freilassing was opened on 1 December 1908 as a connection to the Tauern Railway; it branched off the Burghausen line at a relocated Tüßling station. On 14 November 1910, the Traunstein–Garching railway was opened to Traunstein, branching off the Mühldorf–Freilassing line in Garching. The station facilities were upgraded in the years that followed. Freight traffic of great importance was also won in the 1930s as a result of the development of the Bavarian Chemical Triangle. Thus a new marshalling yard needed to be built. This was opened in 1942 as Germany's most modern yard. This was controlled by 11 electro-mechanical interlockings, which had been reduced to eight in 2000. One of these is now a museum signal box. Today, operation are controlled by an electronic interlocking.