Howald railway station

Railway station in Luxembourg
  • CFL
  • SNCF
HistoryOpened10 December 2017 (2017-12-10)
Services
Preceding station CFL Following station
Luxembourg
Terminus
Line 60 Berchem
towards Rodange
Preceding station TER Grand Est Following station
Bettembourg
towards Metz
L01b Luxembourg
Terminus

Howald railway station (Luxembourgish: Gare Houwald, French: Gare de Howald, German: Bahnhof Howald) is a railway station in Luxembourg on line 6, which opened on December 10, 2017. It is located in Howald, in the commune of Hesperange, in the canton of Luxembourg. It is operated by Société nationale des chemins de fer luxembourgeois (CFL).

Railway situation

At 289 meters above sea level, Howald station is located at kilometre point (PK) 14.400 of line 6, between Luxembourg and Berchem stations.[1]

History

Pile at the future site of the tramway bridge.

The original Howald station opened on September 26, 1992, with a single platform and very limited facilities. The service was suspended for work between September 2000 and June 2002, before being definitively withdrawn on December 11, 2015.[2]

Plans for a new station in Howald were first mentioned in 2009, and funding to build the station was granted on December 17, 2010.[3] The station's opening was initially scheduled for 2015, but the financial crisis forced the government to postpone the project.[3] The cost of construction was initially estimated to be around €43 million.[4] The footbridge for the station was installed in November 2016.[5]

The new station partially opened on December 10, 2017 (one platform and an access footbridge), while a provisional stop of the same name on line 4 was officially closed.[1][6] The second platform was originally planned to be completed by 2020, at the same time as the arrival of the tramway to the south of the capital, with the opening of the second platform and the mixed tramway and bus bridge that will overlook it.[5] However, the opening of the second platform, along with other projects on the line, was pushed back to 2026 due to problems with the acquisition of the right-of-way, revisions to the design of a railway structure due to a nearby motorway, and shortages in construction supplies due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[7] Phase 1 ultimately cost €42.9 million, and provides direct access to the southern districts of Luxembourg City, home to a major business park, the Cloche-d'Or and the new Ban de Gasperich district.[6] The new station saves a considerable amount of time for workers coming from the south of the country and the border regions, as they don't have to go all the way up to the central station and then take the municipal buses, and thus retrace their steps.[6]

Passenger service

Access

Access to the platform is via a footbridge, equipped with elevators and escalators, and eventually via the future bridge over which buses and trams will pass.

Service

Howald is served by TER, Regional-Express (RE) and Regionalbunn (RB) trains, which operate on the following routes:[8]

Intermodality

Howald station is served by buses, accessible via the footbridge, at the Howald Ronnebësch bus stop served by lines 24, 28 and 29 of the Luxembourg City buses and by lines 302, 455, 456, 501, 504, 621, 655, 801 and 802 of the Régime général des transports routiers.

The station is close to the Luxembourg-Sud park and ride facility and its 1,451 parking spaces.[9] By 2024, Howald will be served by the Luxembourg tramway, for which it will be one of the major transfer points.

References

  1. ^ a b "Réseau ferré luxembourgeois : Document de référence du réseau 2018 (version 1.3)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 18, 2018.
  2. ^ "Gare de Howald". rail.lu. Retrieved 19 July 2017..
  3. ^ a b Patrick Théry (30 August 2013). "La future gare de Howald dans les cartons". lessentiel.lu. Retrieved 19 July 2017..
  4. ^ "42,8 millions d'euros pour débuter la gare périphérique". lessentiel.lu. 11 April 2010. Retrieved 19 July 2017..
  5. ^ a b Erwan Nonet (3 January 2017). "Pôle d'échange train-bus-tram : le futur en marche". republicain-lorrain.fr. Retrieved 19 July 2017..
  6. ^ a b c Erwan Nonet (10 December 2017). "Howald : une nouvelle gare pour le Sud". lequotidien.lu. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  7. ^ "État d'avancement des travaux au niveau de la nouvelle ligne ferroviaire Luxembourg-Bettembourg". gouvernement.lu (in French). 2022-06-01. Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  8. ^ CFL. "Carte du réseau". cfl.lu. Retrieved 11 December 2017. ; cette page permet également l'accès aux fiches horaires réactualisées.
  9. ^ "611 places supplémentaires au P+R Sud à Howald". Administration des ponts et chaussées. 18 September 2018. Retrieved 27 September 2018.


External links

  • Official CFL page on Howald station
  • "Gare Howald". rail.lu (in French).