Viersen – Venlo railway line

		from Mönchengladbach
	−0.418	Viersen (formerly Viersen RhE)
		from Mönchengladbach
	0.000	Viersen BME
		to Krefeld
	4,990	Dülken Hp Üst (formerly Bf)
		to Brüggen
	9.797	Boisheim
	13,046	Breyell
		from Kempen
	17.635	Kaldenkirchen
		Kaldenkirchen – Brüggen small train
	18.300	Kaldenkirchen Gbf
	19.344 0.000	State border between Germany and the Netherlands
		from Maastricht
	2.900	Venlo
		to Haltern am See
		to Eindhoven

Swell:

The Viersen – Venlo line is an electrified main line in Germany and the Netherlands . It leads from Viersen via Kaldenkirchen to Venlo . The section between Viersen and Kaldenkirchen was declared congested in December 2018.

history

The railway line was built by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (BME) following its Duisburg-Ruhrort-Mönchengladbach line , which it took over on January 1, 1866 together with the Ruhrort-Crefeld-Kreis Gladbacher Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft .

The first section from Viersen to Kaldenkirchen was opened to traffic on January 29, 1866, followed by the second section from Kaldenkirchen to Venlo on October 29, 1866.

Parallel to this part, the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (RhE) built its own line from Kempen via Kaldenkirchen to Venlo , which it opened on December 23, 1867. The track between Kaldenkirchen and Venlo has served as a regular second track on the Brandenburg line since the Rhenish line was closed . Between Dülken and Kaldenkirchen, the line is only a single track over a length of around 12 kilometers.

On May 22, 1968, the installation of the overhead line was completed over the entire length of the route .

In the past, the route was also used for international long-distance traffic, including D-trains from Munich or Basel to Hoek van Holland and the Rheingold .

Expansion plans

To the north of Viersen station there is currently no direct track connection between the Viersen – Venlo line and the Duisburg-Ruhrort – Mönchengladbach line to and from Krefeld. Trains from the Netherlands on their way to the Ruhr area via Krefeld or vice versa therefore have to head to Viersen . For a connecting curve , the so-called Viersen curve, there is already a railway planning route, the area of which is owned by the railway and on which there is a construction ban (i.e. only one railway line may be built there). However, the plans have not yet been implemented, and the rejection of some politicians and residents for reasons of noise protection also played a role.

Since 1919 there have been repeated calls to double-track the entire length of the railway line, also from Venlo via Eindhoven and Tilburg to Breda (and on to Rotterdam or London). The Versailles Treaty expressly forbade this because France did not tolerate any new direct east-west connections. Even after the Second World War, the expansion did not take place until today.

Over the decades, changing factors contributed to the lack of route expansion:

At times, the Deutsche Bundesbahn and DB Netz were not interested, as the freight rates of ton kilometers from the Netherlands to Germany via Venlo were not worthwhile for them, because the route is largely on Dutch territory and therefore most of the income goes to the Dutch network operator ProRail .
The alternative route Rotterdam - Emmerich - Oberhausen (see Oberhausen – Arnheim and Arnheim – Amsterdam ), on the other hand, has three tracks and runs significantly longer on German territory, which brings DB Netz higher revenues.
The state of development of the A 61 represents (too) strong competition for the approximately parallel railway line to the south.

Various factors have contributed to making rail traffic more attractive again since around 1990 and to revive the expansion discussion:

fuel prices (especially diesel fuel prices for trucks ) have risen sharply;

in Germany, a truck toll was introduced on motorways on January 1, 2005 , and the Eurovignette in the Netherlands as early as 1995 ;

In the course of globalization, many more containers are arriving in the North Sea ports than before. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the Iron Curtain in 1989/90, Germany's eastern neighbors have also been participating in world trade; transit traffic through Germany has increased.

Expansion discussion until 2015

Since autumn 2012, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Düsseldorf and the Dutch city of Eindhoven have been demanding the double-track expansion of the single-track section and thus a continuous west-east connection to Düsseldorf via Mönchengladbach. This means that Noord-Brabant and the central part of Limburg would be connected to Düsseldorf with a fast connection. Düsseldorf Airport in particular is a compelling reason for this.

In the course of the discussions about the Iron Rhine and the Viersen connecting curve, there were often considerations about building the second track. In July 2011 it was said that the expansion was “a long way off”. The Rheinische Post commented:

“There is a section of the route on the Lower Rhine that has been generating enormous (economic) economic returns for decades with comparatively little money. The expansion of the Kaldenkirchen - Venlo line would bring more goods and more people onto the rails and promote both long-distance and local traffic. It is incomprehensible that neither in Düsseldorf nor in Berlin shows any real interest in this investment. The Lower Rhine sinks to the level of a zone border area in terms of rail traffic. "

In October 2011, the city council of Nettetal passed a resolution that vehemently called for a double-track expansion of the previously single-track bottleneck between Dülken and Kaldenkirchen.

In March 2012, the mayor of Viersen, Günter Thönnessen, called for an expansion of the bottleneck. Peter Ramsauer , then Federal Minister of Transport, drew up the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2015 at that time . Representatives from the district of Viersen, the Venlo region and the province of Limburg as well as members of the Bundestag Uwe Schummer , Günter Krings and Ansgar Heveling (all CDU) therefore spoke to Ramsauer in February 2012.

Alexander Kirfel (Managing Director Network European Railways ) attributed the missing 13 plus 3 kilometers to "devastating consequences for the capacity of the line and the operational quality" and pointed out in 2012 that there are over 20 overloaded railway sections in North Rhine-Westphalia (tendency increasing).

A study by the RoCK project presented in January 2013 comes to the conclusion that a double-track expansion would cost around € 42 million and have a benefit-cost factor of 17.7. Among other things, the expansion could result in a shift of around 240,000 passenger kilometers / day and around 2.8 million tons / year. At the same time, travel times between Eindhoven and Düsseldorf would be significantly reduced.

Further south there is a single-track bottleneck between Rheydt and Odenkirchen on the Rheydt – Cologne-Ehrenfeld railway line (but with a length of three kilometers, it is significantly shorter). The total cost of expanding both sections is estimated at almost 50 million euros.

In March 2013 it became known that the North Rhine-Westphalian Transport Minister Michael Groschek wanted to register the bottleneck between Dülken and Kaldenkirchen for the 2015 Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan .

According to a press release from September 2013, Enak Ferlemann , Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Minister of Transport, described the removal of this bottleneck as “very obvious”.

Pre-planning 2016

In January 2016, the municipalities involved in the RoCK project presented the preliminary planning for the construction measures. Now - due to increased costs for noise protection, overhead line construction, cable ducts and inflation - costs of EUR 105 million and a cost-benefit factor of 7.9 were named. The construction work should take three to four years and only have a very slight impact on natural areas. The preliminary planning was sent to the Federal Ministry of Transport so that it can be taken into account in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030, which has not yet been completed . Alternative financing models were also considered to speed up construction.

As of September 2016

On September 22, 2016, the Bundestag dealt with the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 in a first reading. In it, the double-track expansion of the railway line between Dülken, Kaldenkirchen and Venlo and the Viersener curve as a project in potential demand have moved up to 9th place. However, the joint implementation of the two measures is controversial. The IHK supports the expansion plan; District Administrator Andreas Coenen (CDU) and the district CDU reject the Viersener curve . MdB Uwe Schummer (CDU) and MdB Udo Schiefner (SPD) also called for the projects to be decoupled.

Further development of the expansion plans

In October 2017 it became known that the line (together with the still single-track section between Rheydt and Odenkirchen of the Rheydt – Cologne-Ehrenfeld line) had now been upgraded to urgent needs by the federal government after a thorough examination. As a result, the project, which was valued at 130 million euros at the time, is expected to be completed before 2030. As requested by the city of Viersen and the district of Viersen, the Viersen curve is no longer part of the expansion plan. A connecting curve is to be built with a modified route and designed to be compatible with urban development. The total costs for the expansion including a connecting curve to the line to Krefeld were put at 210 million euros in autumn 2018, the expansion investments at 149 million euros. A value of 2.0 was given for the benefit-cost ratio of the project.

The line is to be equipped with ETCS Level 2 by 2025 . The intention is not to increase the capacity of the congested rail route, but to improve the quality of operation.

traffic

Today, only the regional express line RE 13 ( Maas-Wupper-Express ) from Venlo to Hamm runs in regular passenger traffic on this route, and it stops at every train station on the route. Since December 13, 2009, Keolis Deutschland has been operating it every hour under the eurobahn brand . Keolis has taken over operation on the Maas-Wupper-Express for 16 years and uses modern electric multiple units of the Flirt type from Stadler Rail along the entire route . The offer is supplemented by a working pair of trains operated by DB Regio , the RE 8, which runs in the morning from Kaldenkirchen via Mönchengladbach main station to Cologne Messe / Deutz and in the afternoon in the opposite direction. As a rule, four N-cars hauled by an electric locomotive of the DB class 111 are used for this pair of trains; in rare cases, electric multiple units of the class 425 can also be used.

Until 2009, Deutsche Bahn's subsidiary DB Regio NRW operated this route with a locomotive hauled push-pull train from the 111 series and five n-cars.

Due to the lack of approvals for the new multiple units by the German and Dutch approval authorities, replacement traffic with the DB sets described above was operated between Mönchengladbach and Venlo. In the meantime, the Flirt railcars only commuted as far as Kaldenkirchen and were supplemented by a short shuttle from the 111 series with three n-type cars from Kaldenkirchen to Venlo. Since the end of July 2010, four-car Flirt trains have been commuting between Venlo and Mönchengladbach and five-car Flirt trains operated by eurobahn between Mönchengladbach and Hamm. For some years now, five-car trains, some coupled with four-car trains, have been running continuously from Hamm to Venlo.

The route is also used by numerous freight trains between Germany and the Netherlands and Belgium. It was part of discussed alternative routes to the Iron Rhine in different variants , none of which prevailed. In particular, the fact that trains to the Ruhr area in Viersen have to change direction without the Viersen curve played a role.

In long-distance traffic, the line is occasionally used as a diversion for ICE trains between the Netherlands and Germany when the Oberhausen – Arnhem line is closed. In this case, the ICE runs from Utrecht via Eindhoven and Venlo to Viersen and further on the Duisburg-Ruhrort-Mönchengladbach, Mönchengladbach-Aachen (to Rheydt), Rheydt-Cologne-Ehrenfeld and Aachen- Cologne railway lines to Cologne Central Station . From there they run again on the regular route. In this case, the ICE stops at Venlo and Mönchengladbach Central Station .

literature

Bernd Franco Hoffmann: The Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn. Through the valleys of Wupper, Ruhr and Volme ; Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt, 2015, ISBN 978-3954005802

Web links

NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost:

Description of line 2510 : Viersen – Venlo (BME)
Description of route 2512 : Kaldenkirchen – Venlo (RhE)

further web links:

Kaldenkirchen - Dülken - Viersen on www.gessen.de
Staatslijn G: Venlo – Pruisische Grens . In: martijnvanvulpen.nl (Dutch)

Individual evidence

↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register

↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .

↑ ^a ^b Plan to increase the rail capacity (PEK) for the Viersen - Kaldenkirchen Gr route 2510, which has been declared overloaded. (PDF) DB Netz, August 15, 2019, pp. 4, 22, 33 , accessed on November 16, 2019 .

↑ Information on earlier long-distance traffic on the route ( memento of the original from April 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of Christian Kotschi @1@ 2

↑ http://www.ngz-online.de Expansion of the Viersener curve of importance '

^ Rheinische Post July 5, 2011: Expansion a long way off

↑ Peters, Ludger: Why is nobody fighting here? , Comment in the Rheinische Post from July 5, 2011, accessed on January 31, 2018

↑ ^a ^b Rheinische Post of October 3, 2011: Resolution to Ramsauer

^ "Yes" to more rail , article in the Rheinische Post from March 30, 2012

↑ www.regiovenlo.nl

↑ Good discussions with Minister of Transport Ramsauer ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article on Niederrheintotal.de@1@ 2

↑ Intercity connection Düsseldorf-Venlo? ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article in Grenzland-Nachrichten from February 16, 2012@1@ 2

↑ Deutsche Verkehrszeitung (DVZ), 115/12, page 11

↑ RoCK report two-track expansion Dülken - Kaldenkirchen ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , December 20, 2012@1@ 2

↑ rp-online.de (Rheinische Post): Two-track expansion is cheap and benefits many , article from March 19, 2013, accessed on January 31, 2018

↑ New high-speed rail connection between Düsseldorf and Eindhoven. (DOC) (No longer available online.) Office for Communication Düsseldorf - Press service of the state capital Düsseldorf, January 13, 2016, archived from the original on January 14, 2016 ; accessed on January 31, 2018 .

^ Rheinische Post 23 September 2016, Grenzland-Kurier, page C1: First reading for the federal transport route plan

↑ Daniela Buschkamp, Martin Röse, Emily Senf: Viersen could become an IC stop. In: Rheinische Post . October 14, 2017, accessed January 31, 2018 .

↑ Assessment of the railway expansion project of the potential demand. (PDF; 32.24 MB) Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure , November 5, 2018, p. 10 , accessed on February 20, 2019 .

^ Archive of reports about the railway in 2007 at duisburgweb.de, report from May 29, 2007

[1] DB Netze - Infrastructure Register

[2] Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .

[db-2019-08-15-3] Plan to increase the rail capacity (PEK) for the Viersen - Kaldenkirchen Gr route 2510, which has been declared overloaded. (PDF) DB Netz, August 15, 2019, pp. 4, 22, 33 , accessed on November 16, 2019 .