Köln Messe/Deutz station

Köln Messe/Deutz station is an important railway junction for long-distance rail and local services in the Cologne district of Deutz in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is situated close to the eastern bank of the Rhine and connected via the Hohenzollern Bridge to Köln Hauptbahnhof, the city's main station, which is just a few hundred metres away. The Cologne Trade Fair (Koelnmesse) grounds are directly north of the station, hence the Messe in the station's name. The Stadtbahn station of Deutz/Messe is nearby and connected by a pedestrian tunnel.The station is a junction station, which has platforms on two levels: the high-level platforms are used by trains running in the east-west direction across the Hohenzollern Bridge to and from Köln Hauptbahnhof. The lower level (Köln Messe/Deutz-Tief) is used by trains running in a north-south direction bypassing the Hauptbahnhof from Köln-Mülheim station towards Troisdorf. It serves an important function in providing some relief for the Köln Hauptbahnhof bottleneck—some ICE services call at Köln-Deutz instead of Köln Hbf, eliminating the need for changing direction, while many regional trains from the west terminate here to prevent them blocking the Hauptbahnhof.HistoryThe current Köln Messe/Deutz station was developed from several predecessors built from 1845 and the basic structure of the current station was opened on 11 November 1913. It gradually replaced the four stations of the competing companies, the Cologne-Minden Railway Company (Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CME), and the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BME).