Krefeld – Rheydt railway line

Krefeld – Rheydt
Route including relocation / extensions
Route number (DB) :	2501 (KR-MG-Speick) 2523 (MG-Speick-Rheydt)
Course book section (DB) :	last 473
Route length:	23 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Top speed:	at last 60 km / h, bypass 50 km / h
Legend Line from Duisburg Left Lower Rhine route from Neuss -0.2 Krefeld Hbf former route to Hüls (until 1907, today B 9) Left Lower Rhine route to Kleve to the St. Tönis – Hülser Berg route (from 1907) Route to Viersen (see below) B 57 3.5 Krefeld steelworks (most recently Awanst ) 4.7 Krefeld steelworks Anst A 44 7.6 I want to 10.0 Inclined track Dellmann (Awanst) 10.3 Inclined path north A 52 A 44 former route from Neuss 12.7 Neersen Niers former route to Viersen 14.7 Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk (formerly connecting route to the main station) 14.9 Thin 0.0 000.0 Viersen-Helenabrunn Route from Krefeld via Viersen (see above) 2.5 017.2 Eicken (Abzw) 17.4 Mönchengladbach-Bökel (until 1909) Route from Neuss (18.1) Mönchengladbach Hbf former route to Jülich 5.5 000.0 Waldhausen ( Bk ) 20.6 4.4 Mönchengladbach-Speick (until 1909) (formerly the Bökel – Speick route, today partly B 57) (former route today Heinrich-Pesch-Straße) 2.0 Rheydt RhE Rheydt Hbf (formerly Rheydt BME) Route to Cologne former route of the Iron Rhine 12.7 000.4 Rheydt Gbf Iron Rhine to Dalheim Route to Aachen Swell:

The Krefeld – Rheydt railway line is a largely disused railway line in Germany . It led from Krefeld Hauptbahnhof via Neersen and Mönchengladbach to the Rheydter freight yard.

The sections that are still in operation are single-track today . The section that now forms the freight bypass in Mönchengladbach is electrified .

history

Starting from its Krefeld station on the left-hand Lower Rhine line , the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (RhE) built its own line in the direction of Mönchengladbach parallel to the Duisburg-Ruhrort-Mönchengladbach line of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (BME), which operates this together with the Ruhrort- Crefeld-Kreis Gladbacher Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft had taken over.

On November 15, 1877, the entire length of the line from Krefeld to Rheydt was opened, on the same day as the first section of the Neuss – Viersen line from Neuss to Neersen .

Former signal box Ws of Willich station

As with many other projects, the plans of the RhE intended to be able to take market share from the already established route through the straightest possible route and thus shorter travel times. Since larger towns such as Viersen and the Mönchengladbach BME train station (now Mönchengladbach Hbf ) , which is very important in terms of traffic, were not approached on the route via Willich and Neersen , the response to the new route was restrained, especially among travelers, which meant that the route did not could be operated economically.

After the nationalization of the Rhenish Railway and the competing companies, the various routes were reorganized. The Krefeld – Rheydt railway line was relocated in the Mönchengladbach area in 1909 and today's freight bypass line was opened, on which freight trains between Aachen and the Ruhr area or Venlo can bypass the heavily used section Rheydt Hbf - Mönchengladbach Hbf of the Aachen – Mönchengladbach line . The freight bypass railway was double-tracked between the Eicken branch and Rheydt Gbf until 1963. Also in 1909, a connection to Mönchengladbach main station was built from Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk station to Süchtelner Strasse, parallel to the existing line. After leaving the old route, it crossed the Duisburg-Ruhrort-Mönchengladbach railway line and ran parallel to it as far as the main station.

In return, the route from Süchtelner Straße via Mönchengladbach-Bökel and Mönchengladbach-Speick to the Rheinische Bahnhof Rheydt, which had been closed 20 years earlier, was abandoned. The course of the former route can still be seen today on maps and aerial photographs; the streets of Hohenzollernstrasse and Herrmann-Piecq-Anlage ( Bundesstrasse 57 ) run across the largest section .

After the Wehrmacht had blown up a railway bridge towards the end of the Second World War in 1944 in order to stop the military advance of the Allies , the route between Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk and Mönchengladbach Hauptbahnhof could no longer be used. The connection was not restored after the end of the war, from then on passenger trains only ran between Krefeld and Neuwerk.

On May 22, 1982, passenger traffic on the route was then completely stopped, the last of which was the 515 series of battery-powered railcars . In the following years up to May 28, 1994, freight trains with gravel ran from Krefeld to a storage facility on Süchtelner Strasse in Mönchengladbach. The connection to the main train station and the link from Süchtelner Straße to the Eicken junction had already been dismantled at this point. However, the three bridges over the Süchtelner and the bridge over the Eickener Straße were only demolished in the second half of the 1980s. In 1997 the Krefeld – Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk section was closed.

Todays situation

Parked wagons at the Krefeld steelworks junction with the steelworks in the background

Today, the railway line is only in operation as far as the Krefeld steelworks junction and is used for local freight traffic. The rest of the original line has been completely shut down and partially dismantled, but until Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk a large part of the track was still there until the 2010s. Since 2011, further parts to the north of Neersen train station have been dismantled in order to create a wide footpath and cycle path on the former route. This was completely completed in autumn 2012, so that the former and now privately owned Willich train station can be viewed from the platform side again. An approx. 250-meter-long section of track still exists at Willich-Wekel on the Klein Kempen road northwards, as well as further longer sections north of the L 361 road and between the Neersen and Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk stations.

There are currently plans to extend the S 28 S-Bahn line operated by the Regiobahn , which now runs on the Neuss – Viersen line to Kaarst. For this purpose, the former and currently demolished connection line from Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk to Mönchengladbach Hbf is to be rebuilt and the line connected via Neersen to Mönchengladbach. In the meantime, however, a road has been built on the site of the connecting curve and businesses have settled, which would then have to be relocated.

The new route opened in 1909 north of the Mönchengladbach city area still serves as a bypass line for freight traffic. In the 2000s it was only used in exceptional cases and was temporarily blocked in 2007. After completion of the construction work for the 2nd expansion stage of the ESTW Grevenbroich at the end of 2007, in which the Rheydter freight station was connected to the signal box, the bypass was also cut free from the previously heavy vegetation and the heavily damaged superstructure was partially renewed, so that again with greater use is to be expected.

The bypass route is repeatedly discussed in Mönchengladbach in connection with a reactivation of the Iron Rhine , although it is not part of the historic route and can also be used by trains traveling from Belgium via the Montzen route without reactivating it. Residents of the route fear increased noise pollution due to increasing freight traffic on the bypass route after reactivation of the Iron Rhine. Should the alternative new line be built north of Mönchengladbach, this does not necessarily mean that the bypass route will be closed.

Web links

NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost:

• Description of route 2501 : Krefeld Hbf - Mönchengladbach-Speick
• Description of route 2523 : Mönchengladbach-Speick - Rheydt Gbf
• Description of route 2522 : Viersen-Helenabrunn - Rheydt Gbf (freight bypass from 1909)
• Description of former route 33 : Mönchengladbach-Neuwerk - Mönchengladbach Hbf (connecting route from 1909, number according to source)

further evidence:

• Final report of the Circle-Line project study on the planned regional railway extension (PDF; 464 kB)
• The former course book routes in the Viersen district

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ^ The former course book routes in the Viersen district ( memento from October 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (Christian Kotschi's homepage, accessed on May 14, 2011)
4. ↑ Martin Krauss: Development of the Railway Infrastructure 1997/98, in: Bahn-Report 2/1999, p. 4–7, here: p. 6.
5. ↑ Freight bypass in Mönchengladbach back in operation. In: Railway in Mönchengladbach. Retrieved June 13, 2018 . 
6. ^ New plans for "Iron Rhine" , Rheinische Post from June 20, 2007