| Erkrath station | |
| Native Name Lang: | de |
| Symbol: | s |
| Symbol Location: | rhine-ruhr |
| Type: | Through station |
| Address: | Morper Allee 1, Erkrath, North Rhine-Westphalia |
| Country: | Germany |
| Coordinates: | 51.2204°N 6.903°W |
| Line: | Düsseldorf–Elberfeld |
| Platforms: | 2 |
| Accessible: | yes |
| Zone: | |
| Opened: | 20 December 1838 [3] |
| Website: | www.bahnhof.de |
| Map Type: | North Rhine-Westphalia |
Erkrath station is a through station in the town of Erkrath in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has two platform tracks and it is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 5 station.
The station was opened along with the Düsseldorf–Elberfeld railway from Düsseldorf to Erkrath by the Düsseldorf-Elberfeld Railway Company on 20 December 1838.[4] The line between Erkrath and Hochdahl has a gradient of 3.33% and rises 82 m in about 2.5 km. For more than one hundred years, this was the steepest main line in Europe. For many years trains had to be hauled by cable, originally driven by a stationary steam engine. A few months later haulage by cable attached to a stationary steam engine was changed to haulage by cable attached via pulleys to a locomotive running downhill on an additional track. With the duplication of the remainder of the line in 1865, the steep section of line became three-track, until the electrification of the line in 1963. The third track was rebuilt in 1985, as part of the additional third track built for the planned S-Bahn line. In 1926, cable haulage on the incline was replaced by bank engines.
The station is served by the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn lines S 8 between Mönchengladbach and Wuppertal-Oberbarmen or Hagen every 20 minutes and several S 68 services between Wuppertal-Vohwinkel and Langenfeld in the peak hour.[5]
It is also served by four bus routes operated by Rheinbahn: O5 (every 20–60 minutes), O6 (20), 734 (60) and 743 (60).