Cologne/Bonn Airport station

Cologne/Bonn Airport is a station at Cologne Bonn Airport in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was built as part of the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed railway and opened in June 2004 on an approximately 15 kilometre-long airport loop. It is served by Intercity-Express, Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn and regional services.The Cologne Bonn airport was the third German airport to have a connection to the ICE network after Frankfurt Airport and Düsseldorf Airport.The approximately 420 m-long and 40 m-wide underground station is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 3 station. The four platform tracks are located 18 m below the surface. In 2002, the projected construction cost of the station stood at €58.3 million. It was funded by the federal government, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Cologne Bonn Airport. In total, the federal government contributed approximately €255 million to the construction costs of the airport loop and station.InfrastructureThe station has two island platforms, each bordered by two tracks, between concrete walls under an arched glass roof. A large glass-walled staircase in the middle of the platforms is used to change of platform and leads to one of the emergency exits. Escalators and lifts from the platform lead to the basement of terminal 2. The difference in height between rail and platform edge on the outer tracks is 76 cm. The central tracks are laid a little lower, so that their platforms are 96 cm high above the rail. The high S-Bahn sets stop at the low platforms, which cannot be avoided for operational reasons.