Rail transport in Luxembourg

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Luxembourg Railway Station (2005)
National railway lines of Luxembourg

The rail transport in Luxembourg includes the history of the railways as the narrow-gauge railways in the Grand Duchy Luxembourg and the present through the company Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois operated (CFL) rail network.

Luxembourg railway history

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg belonged to the German Confederation as a sovereign state from 1815 to 1866 and remained a member of the German Customs Union until 1918 . When the first railway lines emerged in the 19th century , they were supposed to meet two diverging requirements:

  • Several European traffic flows meet in the country itself . The main station of Luxembourg forms the intersection.
  • Despite its small size, the country always had and still has a traffic requirement in the area that can hardly be satisfied by a route network with a clear center, especially since Luxembourg, the capital and largest city of the country, is located well south of the center of the country.

Wilhelmsbahn

The Luxemburgische Wilhelmsbahn (officially: Königlich-Großherzogliche Wilhelm-Luxemburg-Eisenbahngesellschaft, French : Société royale grand-ducale des Chemins de Fer Guillaume-Luxembourg , short: GL), built the through lines that are still in operation today with the help of capital from the German Empire .

In 1859 the state capital could be reached both from the west from Brussels via Arlon and from the south from Metz. The connection to the east brought the railway to Trier in 1861. With the line to Ettelbrück , where a branch line went to Diekirch , and further via Clervaux to Liège in the north, the basic network of the Luxembourg railways was completed in 1867, which in the 1980s was extended by a few lines in the mining area of ​​Esch and through the Vennbahn Ulflingen - St Vith was added to the north, which branched off in the Luxembourg border town of Troisvierges (Ulflingen) from the Luxembourg Northern Railway towards St. Vith until the beginning of World War II . Due to the destruction of the war in Belgium and Germany , operations were also stopped on the Luxembourg section.

Depending on the political constellation, management was initially the responsibility of the private Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Est and , from 1871, the German Imperial General Direction of the Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine , based in Strasbourg . It was initially directly subordinate to the Reich Chancellor , but in 1878 it was also subordinated to the Reich Office for the Administration of the Railways in Alsace-Lorraine , which was newly established in Berlin . From 1918 it was part of the French state network Réseau ferroviaire d'Alsace-Lorraine (AL). During the Second World War it was administered by the Deutsche Reichsbahn . According to the statistics for 1912, the Reichseisenbahn operated the lines of the Wilhelm-Luxemburg-Bahn with a length of 203 kilometers.

The Jhangelis station in Noerdingen
Reisdorf station on the Diekirch-Echternach line
Sign on the Attert line
Memorial plaque for the Attert line
Noerdingen station on the Attert line
Technical data of the longest tunnel on the Attert line
Memorial plaque for Benny near Vianden
Memorial for Benny in the same place
Lines of the Wilhelm-Luxemburg-Bahn in 1929 (180 km)

(Operation: Administration des Chemins de Fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine in Strasbourg)

  • October 4, 1859: Luxembourg – Kleinbettingen – border (–Brussels) 19 km
  • October 5, 1859: Luxembourg – Bettembourg (–Diedenhofen – Metz) 17 km
  • April 23, 1860: Bettembourg – Noertzange – Esch 10 km
  • June 1, 1860: Noertzange – Tétange – Rumelange-Otange 7 km
  • 29 August 1861: Luxembourg – Wasserbillig (–Igel – Trier Hbf) 38 km
  • November 21, 1862: Ettelbrück – Diekirch 4 km
  • February 20, 1867: Luxembourg – Ettelbruck – Clervaux – Troisvièrges (–Lüttich) 77 km
  • November 1, 1881: Esch (–Audun le Tiche) 1 km
  • 4th November 1889: Troisvièrges – Wilwerdange (- St. Vith) 7 km

Freight transport only (24 km):

  • September 29, 1884: Bettembourg – Dudelange-Ville – Dudelange-Usines 6 km
  • Dudelange-Usines – Reiteschkopp (ore loading point) 1 km
  • Rumelange-Otange-Langenacker ore loading point 3 km
  • Tétange – Langengrund – Kirchberg ore loading point 3 km
  • Fentange – Oetrange 11 km

also two freight railways in Lorraine

Luxembourgish Prince Heinrich Railway and Ore Mine Company

The second company was the Luxemburgische Prinz Heinrich-Eisenbahn- und Erzgruben-Aktiengesellschaft (French: Société Anonyme Luxembourgeoise des Chemins de fer et Minières Prince Henri , short: PH), the successor company of the Prinz-Heinrich-Eisenbahngesellschaft (French: Compagnie des chemins de fer Prince-Henri ), continued the construction of railways. It opened up the country in the area through a circular railway, which is now partially closed. The company also built and operated several routes to neighboring France and Belgium .

From Diekirch you reached Echternach in the Sauer Valley in 1873/74 and reached the Trier route in Wasserbillig. In the same year, a line was led from Esch along the western border via Petingen to Kleinbettingen and linked in 1880 via Nördingen with the Ettelbrück junction on the north-south axis.

In Pétange, connections to the Belgian and French rail networks were established in 1874 and 1886 respectively. From Kautenbach, which lies north of Ettelbrück on the main line, a connection was built to the Belgian town of Bastogne in 1881/88. Finally, in 1891, Grevenmacher on the Moselle was connected to the Wasserbillig border station.

Lines of the Prinz-Heinrich-Bahn in 1929 (188 km)
  • August 1, 1873: Esch– Pétange 16 km
  • August 1, 1873: Pétange – Hagen – Steinfort 18 km
  • December 8, 1873: Diekirch – Grundhof – Echternach 27 km
  • May 20, 1874: Echternach – Wasserbillig 22 km
  • December 1, 1874: Pétange – Rodange – Athus 5 km
  • December 20, 1875: Pétange – Lamadelaine (Rollingen) (freight railway) 6 km
  • March 7, 1877: Esch – Esch-Hoehl (freight railway) 1 km
  • April 19, 1879: Lamadelaine border (freight railway) 4 km
  • April 20, 1880: Steinfort – Noerdange – Ettelbrück 34 km
  • June 1, 1881: Kautenbach - Wiltz 9 km
  • June 27, 1886: Rodingen (-Longwy) 2 km
  • July 1, 1888: Wiltz – Schimpach-Wampach (–Bastogne) 10 km
  • November 25, 1891: Wasserbillig – Grevenmacher 6 km
  • 1900: Luxembourg – Pétange 20 km
  • before 1914: Grundhof – Beaufort (meter gauge) 7 km
  • ??? Hagen – Kleinbettingen 1 km

In 1946, the Luxembourg government decided to combine all railways into a state railway called the “Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgois” (National Society of Luxembourg Railways), or CFL for short.

This network of the two large companies of almost 400 km in length was reduced to around 275 kilometers by 1975.

Prince Heinrich Railway locomotives
line Lane numbers DR numbers CFL numbers number Years of construction design type Remarks
A. 1-9 9 1871 + 73 C n2t Tubize type 10
B. 21-24 4th 1875 C n2t Tubize type 14
C. 51-65, 67-68 17th 1874 + 1900 C n2 Tubize type 2
66 1 ? 1B or B1 n2 Bought used in the Netherlands in 1899
D. 91-98 8th 1870-94 B1 n2t Tubize type 6
99 1 1887 C n2t Bought used in the Netherlands in 1900
E. 31-37 71 601-607 2001-2007 7th 1900-06 1'B1 'n2t like Prussia. T 5 1 ; 1922–28 converted to superheated steam
F. 151-152 2 1902 C n2t like Prussia. T 3 ; Sold in 1940/41
G 101-103 92 2701-2703 4001-4003 3 1904 D n2t Converted to superheated steam in 1922
G' 104-106 92 2711-2713 4201-4203 3 1906 D n2t 1925/26 converted to superheated steam
H 201-205 75 641-645 3302, 3303 5 1908 1'C1 'n2t 1922–32 converted to superheated steam
H' 206-215 75 651-660 3401… 3410 10 1913 1'C1 'h2t
I. 401-405 57 901-905 5101-5105 5 1913 E h2
K 451-461 57 2773-2783 5201 ... 5211 11 1913-21 E h2 ex Prussia. G 10 ; Bought from Belgium in 1923
L. 251-263 75 1121-1133 3501… 3513 13 1914-18 1'C1 'h2t ex bad. VI c , bought from Belgium in 1923
M. 301-302 2 1897 B n2t Track width 700 mm; for the Differdingen – Thillenberg ore railway
303-304 2 1907 + 13 B n2t
N 311-312 99 291-293 361-362 2 1904 C n2t Track width 1000 mm; for the Grundhof – Befort narrow-gauge railway
O 501-504 58 2145-2148 5401-5404 4th 1918 1'E h3 ex Prussia. G 12 ; Bought from Belgium in 1926
O' 505-507 58 601-603 5301, 5303 3 1917 1'E h3 ex Prussia. G 12 (type CFOA) ; Bought from Belgium in 1927

Historic narrow-gauge railways

→ see also: Jhangeli

The 140-kilometer meter-gauge branch lines , which were built by two companies, were also closed in the decades after the Second World War:

The Luxembourg secondary railways ( Société des chemins de fer secondaires luxembourgeois ) - originally a subsidiary of the Swiss Lokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik and comrades in Winterthur - opened a 27-kilometer line from the city of Luxembourg via Bad Mondorf to the Moselle wine town of Remich on February 20, 1882 , from which a cross connection (10 km) from Aspelt to Bettembourg branched off from September 1, 1899 . The longest narrow-gauge railway in the country was 46 kilometers long and from April 20, 1904 connected the city of Luxembourg via Junglinster directly with the pilgrimage site of Echternach in the Sauer Valley. The picturesque town of Fels and its surroundings were connected to Kruchten on the north-south axis from February 20, 1882 (12 km). All these routes were laid out in meter gauge. In the twenties, the Prince Heinrich Railway ran the Vizinalbahnen Luxembourg – Echternach and Bettembourg – Aspelt.

The lines of the Société anonyme des chemins de fer cantonaux Luxembourgeois ( Anonymous Society of the Luxembourg Cantonal Railways ) based in Diekirch were on April 4, 1889 between Diekirch and the castle town of Vianden an der Our and on November 24, 1890 between Nördingen (Noerdange) and Martelingen (Martelange) on the Belgian border. They were also meter gauge and 14 and 30 kilometers long.

The former Luxembourg narrow-gauge railways are now used as a cycle path . The popularity of the trains of narrow gauge railways reflect her in the vernacular familiar nickname resist:

About the names:

  • The name Jhangeli was provided by the promoter of the Felser Bahn, the Felser cloth manufacturer, Mayor and Member of Parliament Jean Knaff. (Jean = Luxembourgish Jhang ).
  • The Echternach Charly was named after the general director of public buildings, Charles Rischard.
  • Benni from Diekirch was initially also a Jhangeli. When two petrol railcars were used in 1925 , it was renamed. (Gasoline = Benny).
  • The 150 km long network of narrow-gauge railways consisted for the most part of isolated lines.

The same applies to the former standard-gauge connections of the anonymous Luxembourgish Prince Heinrich Railway and Ore Mine Company  :

both components of the Luxemburg belt bunn (belt railway), and:

Today's rail network

RegionalExpress stops at the Howald stop (opening in December 2017)

After the Second World War , the network of Luxembourg railways covered 550 kilometers, although an extensive narrow-gauge rail network still existed at that time . The rail network was cut in half within a decade and a half. On February 15, 1953, the "Jhangeli", a popularly popular narrow-gauge railway, was shut down. At the end of 2003, the national route network was 275 kilometers in length, 140 kilometers of which were double-track and 135 kilometers were single-track. At that time, there were a total of 618 kilometers of rail, of which 436 kilometers were on main lines and stations and 182 kilometers on secondary lines .

The rail network comprises 70 stations and stops and is 95 percent electrified .

The main carriers of traffic are the 70-kilometer northern route Luxembourg (city) - Troisvierges - ( Liège / Belgium) and the east-west connection ( Trier / Germany) - Wasserbillig - Luxembourg (city) - Kleinbettingen - ( Arlon / Belgium).

The national safety authority for the Luxembourg rail network is the Administration des Chemins de Fer , the regulatory body is the Institut Luxembourgeois de Régulation .

Market opening

Access to the national rail network and its operation and management are regulated by the law of June 6, 2019, which in turn implements Directive 2012/34 of the European Union and its amending acts 2016/2370 into national law.

passenger traffic

French railcar of the type Z24500 in Luxembourg station

An exception in Article 5 of Regulation 1370/2007 of the European Union has spared Luxembourg from the liberalization of public rail passenger transport services. These orders are still awarded directly to the CFL without any tenders. The CFL is still free to work with other railway companies , which is also the case for cross-border traffic to France ( SNCF ) and Belgium ( SNCB ).

Freight transport

An SNCB freight train passes through Differdange, pulled by two T13 locomotives

National and international freight transport in Luxembourg is fully liberalized in accordance with European law.

technical features

General

The Luxembourg rail network is characterized by a number of special technical features in terms of power supply as well as signaling and security systems , which mainly come from the three neighboring countries.

Vehicles that use the Luxembourg rail network require - as with any rail network - proof of compatibility with the existing infrastructure. This proof often has to be provided with test drives. In addition, persons entrusted with safety tasks (train drivers, train drivers, wagon masters, shunters, etc.) must be specially checked and allowed to participate in the operation.
The foreign influence is due on the one hand to the German influence during the time of the German occupation of Alsace-Lorraine (the Wilhelm-Luxemburg Bahn was operated by the Imperial General Management of the Railways in Alsace-Lorraine), on the other hand to the French and Belgian influence, due to the participation of the French and the Belgian state in the National Company of the Luxembourg Railways , which initially stood at 24.5% each.

European Rail Traffic Management System

European Train Control System

CFL was the first network operator to opt for the network-wide introduction of the European train control system ETCS Level 1 as the national safety system. The equipping of the entire national rail network with ETCS was completed at the end of 2014. All CFL vehicles for passenger transport (locomotives, multiple units and control cars) were converted by the end of 2017.

Measures taken as a result of the fatal accident on February 14, 2017

After the accident on February 14, 2017 in Dudelange, in which the driver was killed due to a driver's carelessness and the lack of brake monitoring by the national train control system Memor II +, the national investigation body, the Administration des enquêtes techniques , wrote the following in its preliminary investigation report Recommendation:

«Recommandation LU-CF-2017-002: Faire évoluer le plus rapidement possible, l'utilisation sur tout le réseau ferré national, you système d'aide à la conduite Memor II + vers le système unifié de contrôle-commande ETCS. Fort du constat que le système Memor II + ne dispose pas de dispositif technique détectant la non-transmission d'une impulsion Memor II +, il s'avère important d'imposer à toutes les entreprises ferroviaires circulant sur le réseau ferré national d'équiper au plus vite tout leur matériel roulant avec le système de sécurité européen ETCS. »

"Recommendation LU-CF-2017-002: Promote the transition from the Memor II + driver assistance system to the uniform train control system ETCS as quickly as possible. As a result of the knowledge that the Memor II + system does not have a device that recognizes a lack of transmission of a Memor II + pulse, it has proven to be important to require all railway companies operating on the national rail network to equip their vehicles with the European ETCS train control system as quickly as possible . "

- Administration des enquêtes techniques : Preliminary investigation report on the railway accident on February 14, 2017 in Dudelange

On the basis of this recommendation, the national security authority of Luxembourg, the Administration des Chemins de Fer, decided to only allow the use of the Memor II + system until December 31, 2019. The use of the ETCS system has been mandatory since January 1, 2020.
Railway companies operating the North Sea - Mediterranean freight corridor are exempt from this regulation. This corridor runs in Luxembourg through the train stations Pétange, Esch an der Alzette and Bettembourg-Güterbahnhof (Bettembourg-marchandises). However, this exemption only applies until December 31, 2020. From January 1, 2021, the use of traction vehicles with ETCS vehicle equipment and their use will also be required on this corridor.

GSM-R

After the Austrian company Kapsch CarrierCom announced at the end of March 2016 that 271 km of the Luxembourg rail network would be equipped with GSM-R for the beginning of 2017, the system was only switched off and on on December 9, 2018 by the national security authority of Luxembourg, the ACF put into operation by the CFL.

Expansion projects and funds

In 1995, the Luxembourg state took over the rail network from the CFL through the establishment of the Réseau Ferré National Luxembourgeois . Since then, the Fonds du Rail has ensured the financing of the maintenance and expansion of the rail network. For the first time in several decades, a new railway line went into operation in 2003 with the connection between Dudelange-Usines (Luxembourg) and Volmerange-les-Mines (France). The legal basis for further expansion projects was created in the 1999–2004 legislative period.

Expansion projects

Since November 2012, the Pétange-Luxembourg route has been open to two tracks. To this end, a new railway bridge was built in April 2010 over the A6 motorway near Zessingen .

literature

  • Ed Federmeyer: Narrow Gauge Railways in Luxembourg. Volume 1, (= GAR Documentation). 1991, ISBN 3-921980-46-1 .
  • Ed Federmeyer: Narrow Gauge Railways in Luxembourg. Volume 2, (= GAR Documentation). ISBN 3-921980-46-1 .
  • Ed Federmeyer: Railways in Luxembourg. Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 1984, ISBN 3-88255-400-2 .
  • Ed Federmeyer: Railways in Luxembourg. Volume 1, Herdam-Verlag, Gernrode 2007, ISBN 978-3-933178-21-3 .
  • Ed Federmeyer: Railways in Luxembourg. Volume 2, Herdam-Verlag, Gernrode 2009, ISBN 978-3-933178-24-4 .
  • Ed Federmeyer: Railways in Luxembourg. Volume 3, Herdam-Verlag, Gernrode 2012, ISBN 978-3-933178-27-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Narrow-gauge railways: “De Jhangeli” ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2010 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. Postage stamp from the Luxembourg Post. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pt.lu
  2. ↑ Rapport intégré 2019 du groupe CFL. (pdf) Retrieved July 5, 2020 (CFL Annual Report 2019, page 60).
  3. ↑ Le réseau ferré luxembourgeois. ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2013 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cfl.lu
  4. ^ Loi relative à la gestion, à l'accès, à l'utilisation de l'infrastructure ferroviaire et à la régulation du marché ferroviaire. Retrieved on July 5, 2020 (Act on the management, access and use of the rail infrastructure and on the regulation of the rail market).
  5. ^ Report annuel de sécurité 2014 de l'Administration des chemins de fer. (pdf) Retrieved July 5, 2020 (ACF Annual Safety Report 2014, B.1, Section 4).
  6. ↑ Annual Report 2017 (CFL). (pdf) Retrieved July 5, 2020 (CFL Annual Report, page 6).
  7. ^ Preliminary investigation report by the Administration des enquêtes techniques on the railway accident on February 14, 2017 in Dudelange
  8. ↑ Final report: Collision ferroviaire du 14 février 2017 à Dudelange. Retrieved July 11, 2020 .
  9. ↑ LOGISTIK express press service: Kapsch CarrierCom implements a nationwide rail communication network in Luxembourg. Retrieved July 5, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Report annuel de sécurité 2018 de l'Administration des chemins de fer. Retrieved July 5, 2020 (Annual Safety Report of the Administration of the Railways, page 9).
  11. ^ Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois: Rapport intégré 2018. Retrieved on July 5, 2020 (Annual Report of the National Society of Luxembourg Railways, page 17).
  12. ↑ New drawbridge stretched over the A6 motorway. In: Luxemburger Wort . April 24, 2010.