Stuttgart Österfeld station

Stuttgart Österfeld station
Through station
View from the southeast, in the background is the Österfeld tunnel, the Stuttgart Engineering Park and scientific centres of the University of Stuttgart
Location	Paradiesstraße, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg Germany
Coordinates	48°44′15″N 9°7′0″E / 48.73750°N 9.11667°E / 48.73750; 9.11667Coordinates: 48°44′15″N 9°7′0″E / 48.73750°N 9.11667°E / 48.73750; 9.11667
Line(s)	Main line of the Stuttgart S-Bahn Gäu Railway
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	6075
DS100 code	TSOS
IBNR	08005779
Category	4
Website	www.bahnhof.de
History
Opened	17 April 1993
Traffic
Passengers	4050 (week days)

Österfeld station is located in the Stuttgart district of Vaihingen in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It was built in 1985 at the junction of the main line of the Stuttgart S-Bahn where it emerges from the Hasenberg tunnel and connects with the Gäu Railway (German: Gäubahn), which runs above ground.

Attached to the station is a park-and-ride car park with 500 places, which is directly accessible from the A 831 autobahn. The station is otherwise only accessible by foot. Above the station is the STEP business park with numerous offices, including the headquarters of Debitel. Near the station are also the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure building and the Michael Bauer School (a Waldorf school).

From the late 1970s the planners of the S-Bahn line between the Pfaffenwald campus of the University of Stuttgart and Stuttgart-Rohr through Vaihingen concluded that the existing two-track Gäu Railway would not that sufficient capacity for the S-Bahn and other traffic. They presented several alternatives, including an underground line on a north-south route through Vaihingen with a station in the centre of Vaihingen or alternatively the quadruplication of the section of the Gäu Railway running through Vaihingen. The Stuttgart City Council requested the federal and state governments to support the underground option at Vaihingen. As the federal and state governments rejected this, the city sought an additional station later called Österfeld to the north of the Nesenbach viaduct to support development of the residential areas of Vaihingen. The Verkehrs- und Tarifverbund Stuttgart (“Stuttgart Transport and Fares Association”, VVS) investigated this proposal and concluded that the forecast traffic would not justify the establishment of such a station at the time of the opening of the S-Bahn line, although the option of its future construction should be kept open. So the line was opened in 1985 as an above-ground four-track line, with space provided at the eventual Österfeld station between the tracks for the future installation of a central station platform. This provision created an additional cost of 2.45 million Deutsche Marks, of which the city funded 0.35 million DM.