Haltern – Venlo railway line

Haltern am See – Venlo
Hamburg-Venloer Bahn in blue
Route number (DB) :	2002 (Haltern – Büderich) 2003 (Büderich – border)
Course book section (DB) :	ex 224b / 242e
Route length:	90.2 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	50 km / h
Dual track :	-
Legend from Hamburg 0.0 Haltern am See according to Wanne-Eickel 7.4 Lippramsdorf (last post) 9.1 VEW Dorsten (Anst) Sidings to Dorsten (from 1972) 16.3 Hervest-Dorsten (ex. Bf)   route Coesfeld ↔ Dorsten ,   route Borken ↔ Dorsten former connection route from Dorsten RhE 17.0 Dorsten CM 18.2 Nagel (Anst) 24.0 Schermbeck 26.2 Dr. Müller & Co (Anst) 29.0 Dam (lip) 32.7 Drevenack 37.8 Obrighoven (Bk) 38.5 RWE / Railway nursery (Rst) 39.5 DAB (Anst) 40.3 Passavant (Anst) from Oberhausen 41.1 Wesel to Emmerich Small train Wesel – Rees – Emmerich Wesel harbor railway 45.0 Rhine bridge (Bk) (7.3) 48.6 Büderich East (6.6) 49.3 Büderich (Anst, formerly Bf) to Goch Solvay works railway (4.5) 51.4 Menzelen East (2.6) 53.1 Menzelen West Connection route to Alpen Awanst 53.9 Menzelen West Xanten – Duisburg 57.7 Boenninghardt 62.7 Issum 66.0 Aengenesch 69.0 Geldern Ost (formerly Geldern CM) Ø Connection railway to Geldern Geldern – Meerbeck Left Lower Rhine route Kleve ↔ Krefeld Connecting line from Geldern 73.4 Pont 79.0 Straelen Geldern circular orbit 84.9 State border Germany / Netherlands 89.3 Venlo Oostsingel (formerly Venlo CM) from Eindhoven 90.2 Venlo to Viersen Pbf to Roermond Swell:

The Haltern – Venlo line was a single-track main line in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands , which was originally built and operated by the Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (CME) as part of the supraregional Hamburg-Venloer Bahn . The now largely closed and dismantled line branched off the Wanne-Eickel-Hamburg railway line in Haltern and led via Wesel and Geldern to Venlo .

history

After the plan developed in France for a transcontinental railway connection between Hamburg and Paris (the so-called "Paris-Hamburg Railway") and further towards Scandinavia was met with approval in Prussia , a German railway company was now to build the section of the line running on German soil The western end point was supposed to be near the Dutch city ​​of Venlo and was therefore known as the " Hamburg-Venloer Bahn ".

The order for this was given to the Cologne-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (CME), which began building the eastern section of the line to Hamburg at its Wanne station on its main line , which is still of enormous importance for the regional and regional sectors as the Wanne-Eickel – Hamburg line national long-distance passenger and freight transport .

Since Prussia had been asked to bypass the strategically and economically important Rheinisch-Westfälische industrial area to the north, they had to have the western part of the route from Venlo to Haltern cross the Rhine in Wesel and build from Wesel to Haltern along the Lippe. She predicted in advance that these parts of the route would never be economically viable.

The construction of the Rhine bridge in Wesel only began when the urgently needed Elbe bridges between Harburg and Hamburg were completed. The rest of the route hardly presented any technical problems. Despite the late start of construction, the Haltern – Wesel section was completed a quarter of a year ago on March 1, 1874, the Wesel – Venlo section on December 31, 1874 half a year after the Haltern – Hamburg section (the last section Bremen – Hamburg June 1, 1874 ).

The use as a route in long-distance passenger transport was only short. By connecting the Boxteler Bahn to the Wesel Rhine Bridge, a long-distance connection (London -) Vlissingen  - Wesel - Osnabrück  - Berlin  - Eydtkuhnen  - St. Petersburg was established before the First World War . After the First World War, there was hardly any need for this connection; In addition, the Allied occupation of the Rhineland and other factors - e.g. B. difficult economic situation, reparations and inflation - the operation.

The route was also of little importance in local traffic , as it circumnavigated the Ruhr area extensively and there was hardly any demand for this route.

The Wesel – Haltern section later became important as an access route for the northern expansion of coal mining.

See also : "Rationalization at the beginning of the 20th century" in the article Ruhr mining

Shutdown

Haltern-Büderich section

Sections Venlo-Büderich

At the instigation of the Dutch State Railways , the section between Venlo and Straelen or Geldern Ost was shut down for the first time and international traffic ceased in 1936 .

During the Second World War , the line was put back into operation at the instigation of the Wehrmacht and served as supplies for the Western Front. When the Allied troops were on the advance, the Wesel railway bridge was blown up by German pioneers on March 10, 1945.

After the war, allied military transport operations were resumed with the help of a makeshift bridge. At the end of 1946, however, it was dismantled again. This finally interrupted the route between Büderich and Wesel.

On May 29, 1960, the last passenger train ran between Geldern and Büderich Ost, two years later passenger traffic was also stopped between Haltern and Wesel.

Freight traffic was ended in several stages: first on August 1, 1963 between Menzelen West and Bönninghardt , then on February 28, 1967 from Bönninghardt to Straelen . The section between Schermbeck and Wesel followed on May 26, 1974 , on October 1, 1985 between Hervest-Dorsten and Schermbeck and finally on May 29, 1988 between Haltern and Hervest-Dorsten.

Between 1975 and 1992, large parts of the line were finally closed, dismantled and dismantled.

From November 8, 2018 to February 8, 2019, DB Netz AG is tendering the approximately 5.2 kilometer long Büderich - Alpen section for takeover, as the costs for maintaining the line and the investment costs will not generate any income from train path over the next few years. and plant usage in recent years.

Redesign of the route to the bike path

The Römer-Lippe-Route long- distance cycle path runs in the section from Wesel to Haltern for the most part on the railway line that has been converted into a cycle path . Since what remains of the railway line between Wesel- Wittenberg and Drevenack is under monument protection, the cycle path on this section is mostly parallel to the route.

Todays situation

The existing tracks between km 9.1 and 16.0 are now only used as connecting tracks for RWE to its Kusenhorst substation . The rails between km 32.7 and 41.1 (formerly Drevenack - Wesel) are now classified as station tracks and are also mainly used by RWE. In addition, in this section and on the Weseler Hafenbahn, there is a museum railway operation of the association " Historischer Eisenbahnverkehr Wesel ".

On the left bank of the Rhine, the line from Büderich to Menzelen West was converted into line 2517 in 2003 and served as a rail link between the ESCO salt mine in Borth and the Lower Rhine line until 2014 . In the meantime, the track systems have also been dismantled in this section.

literature

• Wolfgang Klee: Tower train stations . In: Railway magazine . Issue 12, 1991, p. 34 ff .
• Vincent Freriks: The Venlo – Wesel – Haltern line . In: Jürgen Becks, Martin Wilhelm Roelen (Ed.): Railways on the Lower Rhine . An exhibition by the Wesel City Museum, the Wesel City Archives and the Prussian Museum North Rhine-Westphalia Foundation, October 9, 2005 to January 29, 2006. Wesel City Museum, Wesel 2005, ISBN 3-924380-75-9 , p. 125-158 .
• Rolf Swoboda: Venlo Railway. Haltern - Wesel - Venlo . Verlag Bernd Neddermeyer, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-941712-04-1 .
• Hans Schlieper, Vincent Freriks: The Boxteler Bahn . The North Brabant German Railway Company and the international Vlissingen postal route. The history of the railway line (London - Vlissingen -) Boxtel - Gennep - Wesel (- Berlin) and the connection (Paris -) Venlo - Wesel - Haltern (- Hamburg). Ed .: German Society for Railway History. Hövelhof 2014, ISBN 978-3-937189-79-6 , p. 14-15, 235 .

Web links

Commons : Haltern – Venlo railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost:

• Description of the route 2002 : Haltern ↔ Büderich
• Description of the route 2003 : Büderich ↔ Venlo
• Description of the former connection route 15 : Dorsten CME ↔ Dorsten RhE
• Description of the route 2517 : Büderich ↔ Awanst Alpen
• Description of the connection route 2514 : Geldern CME ↔ Geldern RhE
• Website of the historical rail traffic association Wesel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ↑ Volker Kocks: The Wesel Railway Bridge . In: Jürgen Becks, Martin Wilhelm Roelen (ed.): Railways on the Lower Rhine . Städtisches Museum Wesel, Wesel 2005, pp. 265–287.
4. ↑ Submission of railway infrastructure: route 2517 Alps - Büderich, tender from November 8, 2018 to February 8, 2019. In: fahrweg.dbnetze.com. DB Netz, 2018, accessed on November 16, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Achim Bartoschek: Railroad cycling in North Rhine-Westphalia , route Wesel - Dorsten-Holsterhausen - Haltern , accessed on October 14, 2016.