Ratheim station
| Ratheim | |
|---|---|
 Station building, track side, 2007
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| Data | |
| Design | Through station |
| Platform tracks | 2 |
| abbreviation | KRAH |
| location | |
| City / municipality | Hückelhoven |
| Place / district | Ratheim |
| country | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| Country | Germany |
| Coordinates | 51 ° 4 '10 " N , 6 ° 11' 28" E |
| DE-NHN | 58 m |
| Railway lines | |
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| Railway stations in North Rhine-Westphalia | |
The Ratheim train station in the Hückelhoven district of Ratheim was for a long time the most important train station in the Hückelhovener urban area next to the Baal train station due to the high volume of goods traffic and the connections to the Sophia-Jacoba mine . In addition, it was important for passenger traffic until it was discontinued on September 27, 1980.
history
Freight transport
With the opening of the Jülich – Dalheim railway line in 1911, Ratheim also received a railway connection. To the south-east of the station building, an eight-track works station of the Sophia-Jacoba colliery was built with sidings to the Hückelhoven colliery site. The Ratheim central shaft system was connected to the northwest of the station.
Due to the rail connection, Ratheim and Hückelhoven grew into industrial locations, especially after the Second World War. The operation was also characterized by very long and heavy coal trains, which was later to become the reason for the electrification of the Ratheim-Baal freight yard section.
In its heyday, Ratheim station had 14 officials for this purpose and freight traffic reached up to 60,000 freight wagons per year (e.g. 1987). There were four to six so-called program trains run by the Deutsche Bundesbahn per day (additional freight trains if required) and internal transports between the colliery site in Ratheim and the briquette factory in Hückelhoven almost every block .
As a result of the closure of the underground mining of the Sophia-Jacoba colliery, freight traffic and thus the importance of the Ratheim train station also decreased significantly; Until 2007, sporadically a few freight trains drove through the Ratheim station. For this purpose, the station was manned as scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Before 2011, all tracks were completely removed.
Despite the cessation of passenger traffic in the 1980s, it was still possible to purchase tickets from the dispatcher at the Ratheim train station until 2002 . This small-scale ticket sales had to be stopped because of the separation of network and operations at Deutsche Bahn (the dispatchers at Ratheim station belonged to DB Netz).
In 2011 the area around the former train station was overgrown and in a poor condition.
passenger traffic
The Deutsche Bundesbahn had little interest in branch lines like this one in its later days. The connection Baal – Dalheim was initially relatively well accepted by the population because of the so-called round traffic (a connection via Mönchengladbach – Rheydt – Rheindahlen – Wegberg – Dalheim – Wassenberg – Ratheim – Hückelhoven – Baal (West) –Erkelenz – Rheydt – Mönchengladbach) However, due to the thinning of the timetable and unattractive travel times, the traffic slowly decreased. The 1979 timetable contained the note that a cessation of traffic must be expected at any time.
The round trip popular with the population was finally abolished and rail buses running in parallel did the rest: On September 27, 1980, the last passenger train - with a funeral wreath - left at 2:30 p.m. at Ratheim station.
This event in the history of Hückelhoven called upon the mayor of the time Roemer, the city director Bürger, the technical deputy Dr. Herzberg and the Deputy Mayor Ginnuttis on the scene. While Mr. Ginnuttis appeared in mourning clothes (“You go to the funeral in a black suit”), Ratheim's city councilors Peter Knur and Axel Preßler in historical costumes took the matter with humor. At the Ratheim train station, a barrel of beer was struck as a funeral coffee substitute for the numerous onlookers and, despite the depressing situation, three cheers were given to the Ratheim train station and it would reopen soon.
The official cessation of operations on the Dalheim – Ratheim section took place on December 31, 1983. In April 1985, the tracks in the section from and including Wassenberg to Rosenthal were removed, the same happened in 1986 when the rubble dump in Rosenthal was closed on the section from Rosenthal to Dalheim (excl. ).
In its 2013 target concept, the Aachener Verkehrsverbund plans to reactivate the route (Wassenberg–) Ratheim – Baal for passenger traffic. However, these plans are opposed to the intention of the city of Hückelhoven to partially build over the route to build a bypass.
ICE stop at Ratheim
In the EXPO year 2000, the coal washing plant of the former Sophia-Jacoba colliery was briefly used as a processing hall for ICE multiple units at the Wegberg-Wildenrath test center , which led to the curious fact that ICEs were used for handover trips on the route (diesel ICEs were able to run off drive under their own power, while electric multiple units had to be taken over by diesel locomotives with protective wagons from the end of the overhead line at the Ratheim level crossing ) and so the Ratheim station became an "unofficial ICE stop".
Special trains
Although regular passenger traffic was discontinued in the 1980s, there were some special train trips to Ratheim station:
- The Klingende Rurtaler linked Hückelhoven and Ratheim with tourist destinations such as Heimbach or Königswinter in the 1980s and 1990s .
- In 1986 the Realschule Ratheim started a special train with around 750 students to Heimbach.
- In the 1980s, the glass train brought railway enthusiasts from southern Germany to Ratheim to visit the colliery there.
- Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen started a special train in 2005.
- The DGEG last traveled the route with a 3-part rail bus team.
See also
literature
- Josef Lennartz: Railways in the Rhineland border region . ( Museum publications of the Heinsberg district, Volume 6) 1985.
Web links
- Description of the operating location of Ratheim in the NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost
- Railway in Dalheim
- Baal-Ratheim railway line with freight train times
- Jülich – Dalheim railway line on gessen.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Timetable of the round trip from 1979 ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Theo Scheres: Pictures from Hückelhoven-Baal. In: Railway in Dalheim. Accessed March 31, 2020 .
- ↑ Forum post with pictures
