Luxembourg – Spa railway line

		Route from Verviers
	11.2	spa
	12.5	Spa-Géronstère (until 2002 Géronstère)
	15.2	Nivezé
	19.8	Sart-lez spa
	23.7	Hockai
	27.3	Francorchamps
		former route from Waimes
	36.8 17.1	Stavelot
		Route from Rivage
	22.1 34.8	Trois Ponts
		Trois Ponts tunnel (420 m)
	40.7	Grand Halleux
	45.7	Rencheux
		former route from Born
	46.7	Vielsalm
	48.3	Salmchâteau
	51.4	Cierreux
	54.2	Bovigny
		formerly on the route to St Vith
		former route from St Vith ( flyover structure )
	58.1	Gouvy
		former route to Libramont
	59.8 93.43	Belgium / Luxembourg
		Bellain
		Vennbahn from Aachen
	86.01	Ulflingen tunnel (165 m)
		Troisvierges
	83.22	Pfaffenmühl tunnel (190 m)
	81.05	Maulusmühle
	77.17	Clervaux
	76.63	Clervaux Tunnel (250 m)
	75.91	Schneidemühl tunnel (99 m)
	74.95	Mecherbach tunnel (84 m)
	74.14	Mecher tunnel (180 m)
	70.96	Drauffelt
	67.28	Wilwerwiltz
	65.84	Lellingen tunnel (180 m)
	64.30	Schieburg tunnel (236 m)
	63.17	Bierden tunnel (67 m)
	62.90	Kautenbach tunnel (186 m)
	62.30	Kirchberg Tunnel (76 m)
		Route from Bastogne
	62.02	Kautenbach
	61.60	Hockslay Tunnel (144 m)
	61.17	Schwarzepoul tunnel (85 m)
	59.90	Bar tower tunnel (74 m)
	57.75	Goebelsmühle
	56.78	Fischenterhof tunnel (447 m)
	54.56	Bourscheid tunnel (416 m)
	53.26	Michelau
	52.30	Michelau tunnel (290 m)
	51.67	Burden tunnel (534 m)
		Route from Grevenmacher
	47.18	Ettelbruck
	44.95	Sheer
		Route to Pétange
	43.23	Colmar mountain
	40.78	Cruchten tunnel (250 m)
		former narrow-gauge railway from Larochette
	40.33	Cruchten
	34.74	Mersch
	31.12	Lintgen
	28.16	Lorentzweiler
	25.53	Heisdorf
	24.00	Walferdingen
	20.83	Dommeldingen
	19.075	Pfaffenthal-Kirchberg transition to the funicular
		formerly narrow-gauge railway Luxembourg – Echternach
		Viaduct Grünewald (70 m)
		Viaduct Pfaffental (257 m)
		Clausener Viaduct (199 m)
		Moselle – Syretal route from Trier
		Pulvermühle Viaduct (242 m)
	17.57	Tunnel (413 m)
	16.65	Luxembourg
		Route to Namur , Longwy and route to Metz

The Luxembourg – Spa railway line (also known as the northern line , northern line or northern line in the Luxembourg part ) is a railway line in Luxembourg and Belgium . Today it connects the city of Luxembourg via Ettelbrück and Ulflingen (Troisvierges) with the Belgian Trois-Ponts . Earlier they went on to Spa , this section is down to a short remaining piece but shut down . Instead, the two-hourly intercity trains on route 33 from Luxembourg continue to run via Rivage to Liège-Guillemins .

At 76.78 kilometers ( Luxembourg Gare - Belgian border near Beesleck ), the north line is the longest continuous railway line in the Grand Duchy.

Operation and history

Formation in parts

Cruchten station in north Luxembourg (around 1910)

From 1858 to 1862, the southern part of the northern line was built as part of the Wilhelm-Luxemburg-Eisenbahn with the initially single-track Luxembourg - Ettelbrück (- Diekirch) line. The Luxembourg - Ettelbruck section was opened on July 21, 1862.

There were preliminary considerations for a route north to the Belgian border as early as 1855. In that year, the Verviers - Spa route went into operation in Belgium , with which the world-famous Spa Spa connects to the international east-west main route Brussels - Cologne north of it won. The Liège - Marloie (- Luxembourg) line did not exist at that time (it was only completed in 1866), so the question arose as to how Ostbelgien, with its important industrial companies (especially Liège and Verviers ), compared to the industrially important Luxembourg at the time the cheapest link. The extension of the Luxembourg Northern Railway from Ettelbrück was not to lead initially through the river valleys, but to Diekirch and then over the heights to Weiswampach. It was not until 1860 that the current route from Ettelbrück through the river valleys to Troisvierges and the Belgian border was established. This section was built between 1862 and 1866 and opened on December 15, 1866.

This section was initially only a single track, but a second track was already planned during construction (and was realized 50 years later). As a rule, a minimum radius of 400 meters was specified for the curves. The maximum gradient is 1.5%. Due to the numerous loops in the valley, 18 tunnels and 51 river bridges were necessary.

Old route with rock cut near Francorchamps (2011)

The last section from Troisvierges to Spa in Belgium (also single-track) was opened to rail traffic on February 20, 1867. Until then, passenger and freight traffic between East Belgium and Luxembourg only had the choice between a detour via Marloie (before 1866 also via Namur ) or even via the Rhine route , there was now a direct connection between these economic areas, which flourished accordingly, even if the The alignment in the northern section was very unfavorable: While the section south of Trois-Ponts ran more or less straight towards Luxembourg, the Trois-Ponts - Spa section had to overcome a ridge of the Ardennes .

Since an “Ardennes base tunnel ” over 10 km long was not financially viable at the time, the railway line from Trois-Ponts had to rise by approx. 300 meters in an easterly direction over a length of approx. 10 km, and then the ridge at a suitable point (near Francorchamps ) and from there to the west on a further 10 km distance to Spa again about 300 m. This line layout, which was strongly adapted to the terrain, avoided any tunnels or expensive larger bridges, but doubled the distance between the Trois-Ponts and Spa stations (30.6 kilometers by rail versus 13.5 km as the crow flies). At a time when the rail network was still very extensive, this was not a problem as there was no serious alternative. In 1870 a through coach connection Luxembourg - Spa - Liège was established. The section from the border to Spa was leased to the Belgian State Railways in 1872.

Competition from new neighboring lines

Spa station with the cast-iron platform hall built in 1867

This heyday lasted only two decades, however, because in 1889 the so-called Vennbahn went into operation from Troisvierges via the then Prussian St. Vith to Aachen , via which considerable quantities of coal were soon transported from the Aachen mining area to Luxembourg and ore from Luxembourg to Aachen. When the line from Trois-Ponts to Rivage was opened in 1890 , Luxembourg was now also given a shorter connection to Liège than before, which also had fewer so-called lost inclines, which was a criterion in particular for the increasingly longer and heavier freight trains. The Trois-Ponts - Spa section then lost much of its importance.

The last pre-war timetable from 1914 shows five continuous pairs of trains between Luxembourg and Verviers, one of which was even an express train with significantly fewer stops in between, which covered the total distance of 149 km in around four hours; it also carried daily through coaches (1st, 2nd and 3rd class) Luxembourg - Spa - Brussels. In addition, there were two pairs of trains Luxembourg - Ulflingen (Troisvierges), three pairs of trains Luxembourg - Ettelbrück and, in the northern section, one pair each of Ulflingen - Verviers, Trois-Ponts - Verviers and Trois-Ponts - Liège, as well as a few trains on very short sections. The Luxembourg - Liège train service via Rivage seems to have been similar at the time, at least in terms of passenger transport.

First and Second World War

Planning the German attack ( Schlieffen plan , as of 1905)

Result of the German attack ( Western Front , as of 1915/16)

From 1907 to 1917 the section Luxembourg - Ettelbrück was expanded to two tracks, from 1910 to 1917 the section Ettelbrück - Troisvierges, the latter was put into operation on March 15, 1917.

After the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the German troops marched into Belgium ensured, with high priority, that the topographically demanding section of Vielsalm - Trois-Ponts was also double-tracked by the end of 1916. The occupation had already put the connecting piece in the direction of Liège (Trois-Pont - Rivage) on two tracks in May 1915, but it had already been prepared there when the section was built.

In addition, at the end of 1914 , Lieutenant Colonel Groener , who was responsible for German war railroad logistics, ordered the construction of several strategic railway lines to better serve the front in the Franco-Belgian border area, including two generously dimensioned double-track main lines that run from the German Vennbahn in Vielsalm (from Born, Line 47A) and Gouvy (from St. Vith, line 163) created a connection to the Luxembourg - Liège line (and ended in ruins or insignificance after 1945). With these new lines one could consistently double-track and without time-consuming changes of direction z. B. from Cologne (via Monschau ) to Gouvy or from Gerolstein (via St. Vith ) to Liège and back. (The occupiers apparently had little interest in the Gouvy - Vielsalm section.) After the war, the second track was dismantled on some of the above-mentioned routes due to a lack of demand.

In 1924, the Belgian State Railways acquired the part of the entire line that was previously only leased in Belgium.

During the Second World War there was massive destruction of tracks, bridges, buildings and telegraph lines only during the Ardennes offensive between December 16, 1944 and February 1945. From March or April 1945, restricted single-track operation was possible again. After the CFL was founded in 1946, the final reconstruction took until 1952.

Post-war period and long-distance train bloom

Gouvy station shortly before the introduction of the IC system (1984)

Saturday IC with Dutch cars (1985)

As a result, there were repeated modernization measures such as the gradual conversion of the mechanical signal boxes to electrical signal systems and the reduction of level crossings. In these modernizations, safety on the one hand, but also massive staff savings on the other, played an important role.

In the post-war period, it became increasingly clear that the southern section of Luxembourg - Trois-Ponts as part of the international long-distance connection to Liège would retain a permanent place in the European rail system, while the short northern section of Trois-Ponts - Stavelot - Spa-Géronstère, in particular by the rural area increasing motorization of the population and the aforementioned unfavorable alignment lost more and more passengers and sank into insignificance. So the northern section was finally closed in 1959 for passenger traffic; Until the end of the 1960s, individual special trains still ran to the car races on the Francorchamps circuit , which is located immediately to the east of the route. Freight traffic between Trois-Ponts and Spa was also discontinued in the 1960s. Only the stretch from Spa-Géronstère to Verviers has been preserved to this day and was even electrified in 1971.

Between the 1950s and the early 1980s, only three through express trains Liège - Luxembourg ran on the southern section Luxembourg - Trois-Ponts, between Gouvy and Trois-Ponts there were one (!) Up to seven local trains depending on the year and direction. One of the three express trains ran at least from / to Utrecht as early as 1952 and had a timely connection (possibly also through coach transfer) to an express train to / from Basel (possibly also Italy) in Luxembourg . This connection changed its route again and again in the coming years (1964 e.g. Maastricht - Basel) and reached its maximum in the 1970s at the latest with the long route Amsterdam - Maastricht - Liège - Luxembourg - Strasbourg - Basel - Italy; the section between Basel and the constantly changing endpoints in Italy (e.g. Ancona , Pisa ) was mastered overnight. It existed (with a decreasing tendency again) until the early 1990s. The other two pairs of express trains kept their route limited to Liège - Luxembourg over the years.

During the heyday of car train traffic throughout Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, trains also ran from the loading stations in 's-Hertogenbosch ( Netherlands ) and Bressoux (5 km northeast of Liège-Guillemins main station in Liège , at that time together with Schaerbeek / Schaarbeek near Brussels the only car loading stations in Belgium ) via the Luxembourg Northern Railway to the holiday destinations in the south, especially in France (e.g. Avignon , Narbonne , Saint-Raphaël .) In those years there was also a seasonal pair of express trains that took day trippers from Amsterdam (via Maastricht) to on Saturdays Luxembourg and back, as well as a Saturday train pair introduced in 1977 as the “De Ardennen Express”, brought it from Antwerp via Liège and Gouvy to the Belgian Ardennes town of Bastogne , which a few years later went under the name “De Ardenner” (better adapted to the low average speed) Luxembourgish Ettelbrück and operated until 1989.

Securing future viability

InterRegio near Clervaux (2007)

The nationwide introduction of the InterCity / InterRegio system in Belgium in 1984 led to a significant improvement in the number of trains on the route. Previously, in addition to the international train pair mentioned, there were only two continuous train pairs Luxembourg - Liège, with the introduction of the IR line called m, initially 6, later 8 train pairs were offered on this connection every two hours.

The Luxembourg - Ettelbruck section was electrified by June 9, 1988, followed by the Ettelbruck - Kautenbach sections on April 20, 1991 and Kautenbach - Troisvierges on September 25, 1993. On September 26, 1999, the Gouvy - Trois-Ponts section of the electrical operation started; the last electrification gap was closed on May 27, 2000.

As a result of the electrification, numerous tunnel sections between Ettelbrück and Troisvierges have been dismantled to a single track for cost reasons, a drawback that the line has suffered to this day. As part of this project, the last mechanical signal systems and signal boxes were replaced. The entire route from Ettelbrück to the Belgian border has since been monitored from the central signal box in Ettelbrück. Another loss in importance was the discontinuation of regular international goods transit in 2004. Since then, almost only passenger trains have been running on the route north of Ettelbrück.

Local traffic currently takes place on the route between Luxembourg and Troisvierges. In addition, regional express trains and regional trains on the Luxembourg - Diekirch route use the northern route in the Luxembourg - Ettelbrück section, trains to Wiltz use the Luxembourg - Ettelbrück - Kautenbach section. Push-pull trains with electric locomotives of the 4000 series and double-decker cars from Bombardier , double-decker railcars of the 2200 series ( Alstom Coradia Duplex ) or class 2000 electric railcars from De Dietrich Ferroviaire are used .

The entire route is now used by long-distance trains on Intercity line 33 (Liers - Liège - Luxembourg) every two hours. Until December 2019, mostly the Luxembourg series 3000, more rarely the identically constructed NMBS / SNCB series 13 , with four to five Belgian I10 high-capacity express train cars were used. Since December 2019, electric multiple units of the NMBS / SNCB series AM 08 have been used on the line .

Route description

Trois-Ponts station (1995)

End of the cycle path at Hockai (2011)

Viaduct between Géronstère and Spa (2008)

Spa station (2007)

Luxembourg section

The starting point of the northern route is Luxembourg train station , the route leads through the Ösling , a foothill of the Ardennes . The crossed landscape with its narrow, deep valleys and the numerous bends in the river as well as many bridges and tunnels make the northern route one of the most attractive low mountain railways in Europe.

In Ettelbrück the electrified connection branches off to Diekirch , from Kautenbach the likewise electrified branch line leads to Wiltz (its current length is 9.48 kilometers), which used to lead to Bastogne .

Belgian section

On the Belgian side, the railway line follows the Salm valley northwards from the former Bovigny station until it joins the Amblève (Amel) at Trois-Ponts . While the intercity trains today follow the Amblève further downstream in the direction of Rivage - Liège, the original route in the direction of Spa followed the Amblève upstream to Stavelot. Starting in Trois-Ponts (approx. 250 m high), a cycle path was set up on the railway line in 2010 (so-called Pré- RaVeL ), which rises almost continuously up to approx. 530 m height at Hockai.

5 km east of Trois-Ponts is the former station of Stavelot, where the connection line to Malmedy , which was still used by freight trains until 2006, branched off to the Vennbahn , which has also been a cycle path since 2010 and leads through a tunnel directly behind Stavelot, while the line to Spa immediately next to it over the corresponding hill. After passing several deep rock cuttings and the Francorchamps motorsport facility, the route reaches an old train station in the center of Hockai. About 500 m further north, the developed cycle path ends at the Stavelot / Jalhay municipal boundary, which is also where the highest point is.

From Hockai onwards, the route today presents itself as a forest path that is not very suitable for bicycles and is partly interspersed with old railway gravel. An expansion of this path, which descends continuously as far as Spa-Géronstère, as a railway cycle path is planned (as of January 2017).

literature

Ed Federmayer: Railways in Luxembourg. Volume 1. Herdam Fotoverlag, Gernrode / Harz 2007, ISBN 978-3-933178-21-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Nico Wennmacher: From 8 June 1980 to June 8, 2005. ( Memento of 3 January 2018 Internet Archive .) Le Signal, No. 10, May 18, 2005.

^ Hans Schweers and Henning Wall: Railways around Aachen , 1st edition, Aachen 1993, ISBN 3-921679-91-5

^ Reichs-Kursbuch, edited in the Kursbureau of the Reichs-Postamt, Berlin 1914, reprint 1970, Verlag Ritzau, Pürgen / Landsberg (Lech), table 221

↑ Fredy Thonus, Klaus-Dieter Klauser, Charles Legros: Le Rail en Ardenne-Eifel - La ligne Vielsalm - Born, 47A / A small railway line in the Eifel-Ardennes area - The Vielsalm - Born line (47A) (bilingual), history association Between Venn and Schneifel (ZVS), St. Vith 2016, ISBN 9789491261336

↑ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Official course book October 5, 1952, foreign short tables 1536, 1540a, 1540b, 1551

↑ Deutsche Bundesbahn: International Course Book Winter 1964/65, Table 1771

↑ Stefan von der Ruhren: Train formation for international passenger trains 1971–1998 (Italy / Switzerland / Southern France - BeNeLux). Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
↑ Peter Vereecken: Photo of CFL 1805 + NMBS 5529 + Autoslaaptrein Costa Express in Gouvy on July 31, 1989. Retrieved on January 15, 2017 .
↑ SNCB / NMBS: Indicateur Chemins de Fer Belges / Spoorboekje Belgische Spoorwegen, valid from June 2, 1985 to May 31, 1986, tables A10, A11, A12, X and Y (sic!)
↑ SNCB / NMBS: Indicateur international / Spoorboekje buitenland, Eté / Zomer, valid from May 31 to September 26, 1981, table 5b
↑ https://rail.lu/materiel/sncbam08.html
^ Railway lines in the Kiischpelt
↑ Northern route on Bahnbilder.de, accessed on July 1, 2020
↑ Troisvierges – Ettelbruck – Luxembourg ( driver's cab ride )

[1] Nico Wennmacher: From 8 June 1980 to June 8, 2005. ( Memento of 3 January 2018 Internet Archive .) Le Signal, No. 10, May 18, 2005.

[2] Hans Schweers and Henning Wall: Railways around Aachen , 1st edition, Aachen 1993, ISBN 3-921679-91-5

[3] Reichs-Kursbuch, edited in the Kursbureau of the Reichs-Postamt, Berlin 1914, reprint 1970, Verlag Ritzau, Pürgen / Landsberg (Lech), table 221

[4] Fredy Thonus, Klaus-Dieter Klauser, Charles Legros: Le Rail en Ardenne-Eifel - La ligne Vielsalm - Born, 47A / A small railway line in the Eifel-Ardennes area - The Vielsalm - Born line (47A) (bilingual), history association Between Venn and Schneifel (ZVS), St. Vith 2016, ISBN 9789491261336

[5] Deutsche Bundesbahn: Official course book October 5, 1952, foreign short tables 1536, 1540a, 1540b, 1551

[6] Deutsche Bundesbahn: International Course Book Winter 1964/65, Table 1771