Ahrdorf – Blankenheim railway line

Ahrdorf (Ahr) - Blankenheim (forest)
Route number (DB) :	2637
Course book section (DB) :	last 248c (1961)
Route length:	25 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend Eifel route from Hürth-Kalscheuren 25.0 Blankenheim (forest) 495 m Eifel route to Trier Listed bridge over the Eifel route 21.7 Blankenheimerdorf 533 m 19.1 Blankenheim (Eifel) 505 m Blankenheim tunnel (102 m) Mülheim tunnel (314 m) 16.4 Mülheim (Eifel) 500 m 9.5 Freilingen (Eifel) 395 m 5.8 Dollendorf (Eifel) 366 m Ahrdorf tunnel (396 m) formerly the Middle Ahr Valley Railway from Jünkerath 0.0 Ahrdorf (Ahr) former Middle Ahr Valley Railway to Dümpelfeld Swell:

The Ahrdorf (Ahr) –Blankenheim (Wald) line was a single-track, non-electrified branch line in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia . It is also called the Upper Ahr Valley Railway .

history

Ahrdorf station, start of the Upper Ahr Valley Railway

Bridge over the B 258 south of Freilingen station , the corresponding location is 4 km further east

Listed bridge near Blankenheim (forest) over the Eifel route

The route was planned as a connection between the Ahr Valley Railway and indirectly the left-hand Rhine route to the Eifel route.

The construction of the railway was approved in 1909; the Prussian state parliament estimated construction costs of 5.4 million marks for the 25-kilometer route. The actual construction work began in April 1910. The line was officially opened on May 1, 1913, at a cost of 7.8 million marks.

At the end of the Second World War, several bridges were blown up by the Wehrmacht, after which operations were suspended. The reconstruction took several years, only in 1950 was the traffic on the section between Mülheim (Eifel) and Blankenheim (forest) resumed. A year later, the rest of the route between Ahrdorf (Ahr) and Mülheim (Eifel) followed. From 1954 onwards, passenger trains were again on the line between Mülheim (Eifel) and Blankenheim (Wald).

As early as 1947, passenger traffic on the section between Ahrdorf (Ahr) and Mülheim (Eifel) was also formally suspended. Passenger traffic was carried out on the section still served until 1958, in the same year freight traffic between Ahrdorf (Ahr) and Mülheim (Eifel) was also discontinued.

The remaining freight traffic was abandoned in two sections, between Mülheim (Eifel) and Blankenheim (Eifel) in 1961 and after 1970 between Blankenheim (Eifel) and Blankenheim (Wald). The line was completely dismantled by 1980.

literature

• Kurt Hoppstädter: The development of the railway network in the Moselle valley and in the Eifel. Edited from the files of the Koblenz State Archives. Manuscript. University and City Library Cologne, 1963.
• Klaus Kemp: The Ahr Valley Railways. Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 1983, ISBN 3-88255-542-4 .
• Klaus Kemp: Eisenbahnchronik Eifel - Volume 2: The eastern Eifel railways, Moselle route and private railways Eisenbahn-Kurier-Verlag, Freiburg 2019, [ ISBN 978-3-844664-21-8 ]
• Heinz Schönewald: The History of the Ahr Valley Railway. Eifel-Verlag, Jünkerath 2016, ISBN 978-3-943123-17-3 (2nd edition Jünkerath 2020, ISBN 978-3-943123-40-1 )
• Bernd Franco Hoffmann: Disused railway lines in the Rhineland. Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2014, ISBN 978-3-95400-396-9 .

Web links

• Description of route 2637 in the NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost
• www.ahrdorf.de The route Ahrdorf (Ahr) - Blankenheim (Wald)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
2. ↑ Another new Eifelbahn. (PDF; 63 KiB)