Aachen – Tongeren railway line

Aachen – Tongeren
Route number (DB) :	2552
Route length:	50.3 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	3 kV  =
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Legend Line from Mönchengladbach 0.0 Aachen West Route to Aachen Hbf ( independent of level ) 4.7 Aachen-Gemmenich 4.5 Gemmenich Tunnel (869 m) 5.4 44.9 State border Germany / Belgium former route to Bleyberg ( level free ) 44.0 Botselaer Block 17 40.9 Former connection to the Liège – Aachen route ( no level ) Buschhausen 40.0 Göhl valley viaduct (1153 m) from Aachen 37.0 Montzen Gare former route from Homburg / Aubel (L 38) Gulptunnel (790 m) Remersdael Viaduct (390 m) 31.4 Remersdael Tunnel van Veurs / Tunnel de Fouron (2130 m) 26.6 Sint-Martens-Voeren Viaduct Sint-Martens-Voeren (250 m) 23.4 Warsage 21.0 Berneau Berwinnetalviadukt / Viaduct Berneau (230 m) 20.7 Line to Liège (L 24/1) 19.9 Line from Liège (L 24/2) 18.2 Visé Haut ( tower station ) A25 Meuse (536 m) Albert Canal (290 m) Geertunnel (1640 m) 11.3 Bassenge 9.3 Roclenge A13 7.1 Boirs 5.5 Line from Liège (L 34) 5.2 Glons skin 3.6 Nerem Vreren 0.0 Tongeren Swell:

The railway line Aachen Tongeren is the freight serving Belgian - German railway of Tongeren in Belgium to the German Aachen West station . The further rail route from Aachen via Montzen and Tongeren to Antwerp is also known as the Montzen route . The double-track line has a track width of 1435 millimeters ( standard gauge ) and is electrified with overhead lines . It is called Spoorlijn 24 on the Belgian rail network of SNCB.

Operation and history

The beginning of the Montzen route in the southern head of the station in Aachen-West (the pair of ascending tracks in the center of the picture)

Tank wagon block train traveling uphill on the ramp between Aachen West and the Gemmenich tunnel shortly before the tunnel portal

West portal of the Gemmenich tunnel on the Belgian side

Göhl valley viaduct

Göhl valley viaduct

In 1872 the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft opened a railway line from Aachen-West via Bleyberg (today: Plombières) to Welkenraedt . Parts of this route included the 869-meter-long Gemmenich tunnel used today by the Montzen route and the ramp with an incline of 17 per mille leading from Aachen to the tunnel.

Due to the difficult topography of the line between Aachen and Liège , which was completed in 1843, the Belgian and Prussian governments agreed in 1903 to improve the railway connections between Belgium and Prussia. Belgium planned a new route from Leuven via Tongeren to Aachen. This was shorter than the existing one and had less incline. However, as there was strong resistance to the route in Liège and Verviers because the cities feared the quality of their rail links, the Belgian government refrained from carrying it out. This only took place at the beginning of the First World War for military reasons on an order from the chief of the field railways, General Wilhelm Groener .

During the First World War , the Netherlands remained neutral and stopped international rail traffic across the Iron Rhine between Germany and Belgium. Germany, which had occupied Belgium, then built an alternative connection from the west side of the Gemmenich tunnel to Glons in Limburg through the north of the province of Liège and the Flemish exclave Voeren as a supply line for the western front . The route was based on the old Belgian plans for the new line between Aachen and Brussels. Since it was assumed that the main line would be used later by express trains, the route was laid out with curve radii of at least 1000 meters and maximum gradients of 10 per thousand. Construction began in the spring of 1915. The 15 construction lots included the 1153-meter-long Moresnet viaduct (Göhltalviadukt) , the 2130-meter-long Voertunnel, the 1630-meter-long Geertunnel and a 1300-meter-long and up to 27-meter-deep cut at Visé. A field railway network with a maximum length of 20 kilometers existed for the earthworks. Up to 190 light rail trains ran 24 hours a day, with a maximum of 12,000 workers working on the route. On February 28, 1917, the 44-kilometer new line between the west portal of the Gemmenich tunnel and Tongeren went into operation on a single track. From January 6, 1918, continuous double-track train traffic was also possible. 55 to 60 pairs of trains ran on the route every day.

After the First World War, the two-track Montzen route was used almost exclusively to transport goods from Antwerp to Germany, even after the reopening of the Iron Rhine at the end of the war. Belgium preferred the Montzen route for traffic to Germany for the following reasons:

• Less wasted time as only one border has to be crossed.
• There are no fees to be paid for using the Dutch tracks.

A disadvantage compared to the Iron Rhine is that the Montzen route is 50 kilometers longer. In addition, the Iron Rhine has hardly any inclines, while on the ramp in Aachen trains between Aachen West and the Gemmenich Tunnel often need a pushing locomotive.

Even after the Second World War , the Montzen route was mainly used - apart from occasional military transports with British soldiers and diversion traffic during business interruptions, including the main Aachen – Liège route, no more passenger traffic took place on this route from June 2, 1957.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Germany and the Netherlands pushed for reactivation of the Iron Rhine. In 1954 a trilateral congress was held in Roermond . Belgium, on the other hand, wanted to stick to the Montzen route, and so the main part of the goods traffic ran via Montzen. The Iron Rhine was only among other 1970-1973 from Opel - Car transport trains used and, in 1977, when the tunnel were waiting the Montzenroute, had contacts there at least 1978 to 1986, a factory daily pair of trains with containers, swap bodies and semi-trailers to / from Antwerp and Zeebrugge or Ostend. After the Montzen route was modernized in 1991, traffic between Germany and Belgium on the Iron Rhine came to a complete standstill, and the route was partially closed.

The line has been electrified since 1984, but initially there was no contact line on the Montzen – Gemmenich tunnel section . The construction work for the electrification of this section began in February 2008 and was completed with the timetable change in December 2008. This means that continuous electrical train operation is now possible on the entire route, which shortens the travel time of the trains by around an hour. The change between the German and the Belgian electricity system takes place on the Moresnet viaduct, the multi-system locomotives used drive through the system separation point in one swing . Operations are now concentrated on Aachen West train station as the eastern start or end point of the line, where in most cases a change of direction is still required, as the majority of trains go to and from Cologne. The Montzen marshalling yard, which used to have up to 52 tracks, has lost its importance and has been dismantled.

literature

• Thomas Barthels, Armin Möller, Klaus Barthels: The Montzen route: railways between Antwerp, Liège, Aachen and Cologne . Verlag Thomas Barthels, Mönchengladbach 2006, ISBN 3-9810183-1-1 .
• Hans Schweers, Henning Wall: Railways around Aachen: 150 years of the international route Cologne - Aachen - Antwerp . Verlag Schweers + Wall, Aachen 1993, ISBN 3-921679-91-5 ( table of contents ).

Web links

Commons : Aachen – Tongeren railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Description of route 2552 (Aachen West - Grenz) in the NRWbahnarchiv
• Stefan von der Ruhren: Course book route 24 Aachen West - Visé - Tongeren , accessed on January 3, 2009

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ↑ Route description on the website vonderruhren.aachenbahn.de, February 5, 2014 Retrieved on , see. Also the route directory DB Netz on stredax.bahn.de ( memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) for route 2552, which classifies the route into the gradient class between 15 and 20 per thousand (accessed on February 5, 2014)
4. ↑ DB AG and Belgian Railways are closing the electrification gap on the Cologne - Antwerp freight line. Deutsche Bahn , May 4, 2007, accessed November 30, 2007 . 
5. ^ Ulrich Simons: Goods faster in Antwerp. In: Aachener Zeitung . December 17, 2008, accessed August 26, 2019 .