Hillesheim – Gerolstein railway line

Hillesheim (Eifel) –Gerolstein
Route number (DB) :	3004
Course book range :	248f (1944)
Route length:	12 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Dümpelfeld Hillesheim (Eifel) 459 m to Lissendorf Hillesheim Viaduct Dohm (Kr Daun) Eifelquerbahn from Andernach Eifel route from Cologne main station Pelm Gerolstein 361 m Westeifelbahn to St Vith Eifel route to Ehrang

The Hillesheim – Gerolstein line was a continuous double-track, non-electrified line in Rhineland-Palatinate . The 12 km long route was built mainly for strategic reasons , so the route was not rebuilt after heavy destruction in the Second World War .

history

Construction train in Hillesheim station

The railway line was planned around 1900 as a supplement to the strategic railways Dümpelfeld – Lissendorf and Jünkerath – Weywertz . The actual construction work began in April 1909. The line was officially opened on June 30, 1912 together with the other two railway lines. 80% of the construction costs of 7.2 million marks were paid by the Reich , the remaining 20% ​​by Prussia. The route ran from Hillesheim on the Dümpelfeld – Lissendorf railway line to Gerolstein, while the first 9 km had a completely separate route (3 km of which were a few hundred meters away from the Eifel route), the remaining 3 km to Gerolstein lay parallel to the Eifelquerbahn . In front of the abandoned Pelm train station, the two-track Eifel line joined , so five parallel tracks led to Gerolstein.

Actual operations began on July 1, 1912, and from then on two pairs of trains ran daily on the route. Since the route was planned mainly from a military point of view, the traffic was always modest except during the two world wars. From January 10, 1921, passenger traffic was completely stopped, resumed when the timetable changed on June 1, 1921, stopped again on October 26, 1921 "until further notice" and resumed on June 1, 1922.

In the second half of the 1930s, traffic increased again as numerous material transports for the construction of the west wall were carried over the route. In March 1945, large parts of the route were destroyed by the Wehrmacht, and the Hillesheim viaduct, which had already been damaged by Allied air raids, was blown up. Since there was never any significant volume of traffic, the line was not rebuilt after the end of the war.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany 2007/2008 . 6th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9 .
2. ^ Course book 1944
3. ↑ Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of January 8, 1921, No. 2. Announcement No. 41, p. 20.
4. ↑ Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of June 4, 1921, No. 31. Announcement No. 656, p. 349.
5. ^ Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz of October 15, 1921, No. 58. Announcement No. 1138, p. 646; Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz of October 22, 1921, No. 60. Announcement No. 1159, p. 662.
6. ↑ Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of June 10, 1922, No. 38. Announcement No. 645, p. 391.
7. ^ Hillesheim station. In: Ahr Valley Railway. Retrieved April 9, 2019 . 
8. ^ Karl Josef Bales: The Ruhr-Mosel relief line. In: Heimatjahrbuch 1995. Vulkaneifel district, accessed on April 9, 2019 .