 Travelers had to cross the Rhine with their luggage on a train ferry.Therefore, in 1860 the building of a permanent railway bridge began, which went into service on 20 December 1862 as the first permanent bridge over the Rhine at Mainz since Roman times.On 17 October 1859 the Mainz-Bingen line opened from its own terminal station in Mainz, which was outside the Mainz fortress in the Gartenfeld ("garden field") (now Neustadt) between the Frauenlobstraße and Feldbergplatz, near where today's Grüne Brücke crosses Rheinallee.