Ourtalbahn
The Ourtalbahn was a planned but not built strategic railway line in the Eifel between Losheim and Sankt Vith . The project was named after the River Our .
history
Soon after the completion of the Oleftalbahn to Hellenthal , the communities to the south of it, which had previously been without a railway connection, started talking about an extension of the route via Losheim and Andler to Ulflingen . Several petitions to this effect, the first dating from 1889, were unsuccessful. With the opening of the Jünkerath – Weywertz line in 1912, the prospects of a realization fell again, as part of the catchment area of a Hellenthal – Ulflingen railway was opened up with this line.
Only the military requirements after the outbreak of World War I fundamentally improved the prospects of the communities in the Ourtal for a railway connection. The aim was to save the supply trains for the western front running over the Vennquerbahn from having to make a detour via Weywertz and Weismes to the new routes to Gouvy and Vielsalm , and to relieve the Vennbahn between Weywertz and Born or Sankt Vith.
Another new strategic railway line was planned as a feeder from the east. This should begin at the Voreifelbahn near Rheinbach , lead via Bad Münstereifel and Bouderath , cross the Obere Ahrtalbahn at Blankenheim and the Eifel route in Schmidtheim to meet the Vennquerbahn between Stadtkyll and Kronenburg . However, this route did not get beyond the planning stage.
The new project envisaged a route from Losheim into the Ourtal, then down the valley via Manderfeld and Andler to Schönberg . At Atzerath , the train was to leave the Ourtal and run through the Eiterbach valley to Wallerode . The connection to the Vennbahn was planned in Sankt Vith. The project also included an intersection-free connection to the line to Gouvy behind St. Vith and a northern connection to the Vennbahn from Wallmerode to Born with a direct connection to the Born – Vielsalm railway . Most of the route would have run in the area of the Malmedy district and only a short section between Manderfeld and Andler in the Prüm district .
With the armistice on November 11, 1918, work had to be stopped before the construction of the railway began. Only a residential building for railway officials in Manderfeld had been completed by then. After the end of the First World War and with the cession of the district of Malmedy as a result of the Versailles Treaty , the basis for further construction no longer existed; the route was never realized.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ 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 , p. 118.
- ^ The Euskirchen = Münstereifel railway line. Euskirchener Volksblatt of October 1, 1935, accessed on February 7, 2012.
- ↑ The western part can be seen on this route map ( memento from December 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
