Rhine-Weser Express

RRX 6 Rhein-Weser-Express
former train run only to Düsseldorf
Course book section (DB) :	370 (Minden – Bielefeld) 400 (Bielefeld – Hamm) 415.1 / 2 (Hamm – Düsseldorf) 485 (Düsseldorf – Neuss) 495 (Neuss – Cologne) 465 (Cologne – Cologne / Bonn Airport)
Route length:	280 km
Top speed:	160 km / h
State:	North Rhine-Westphalia
course
Legend 280 Minden (Westf) ⊙ ICE , IC 274 Porta Westfalica ⊙ 265 Bad Oeynhausen ⊙ IC 259 Wages (Westf) ⊙ 249 Herford ⊙ ICE, IC 235 Bielefeld Hbf ⊙ ICE, IC 217 Gütersloh Hbf ⊙ ICE, IC 208 Rheda-Wiedenbrück ⊙ 198 Oelde ⊙ 189 Neubeckum ⊙ 179 Ahlen (Westf) ⊙ 171 Hamm-Heesen ⊙ 168 Hamm (Westf) Hbf ⊙ ICE, IC 153 Came ⊙ 137 Dortmund Hbf ⊙ THA, ICE, IC 119 Bochum Hbf ⊙ ICE, IC 112 Wattenscheid ⊙ 103 Essen Hbf ⊙ THA , ICE, IC 94 Mülheim (Ruhr) Hbf ⊙ ICE, IC 84 Duisburg Hbf ⊙ THA, ICE, IC 67 Düsseldorf Airport ⊙   ICE, IC 60 Düsseldorf Hbf ⊙ THA, ICE, IC 49 Neuss Hbf (since 12/2016) IC 33 Dormagen (since 12/2016) 11 Cologne Central Station (since 12/2016) THA, ICE, IC 10 Cologne Messe / Deutz (only NVZ, partly) ICE, IC 0 Cologne / Bonn Airport (since 12/2016) ICE, IC

The Rhein-Weser-Express is a regional express train route in North Rhine-Westphalia , the cities of Westphalia (including Minden , Bielefeld and Hamm ) with the Ruhr area (especially Dortmund , Bochum , Essen and Duisburg ) and the Rhineland ( Düsseldorf , Neuss and Cologne ) connects.

Until the timetable change in December 2016, the train was still called the Westfalen-Express and ended at Düsseldorf Central Station.

history

The NRW Express (RE 1) was one of the first regional express lines and initially ran with five and now up to eight double-decker cars from Bielefeld via Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Cologne to Aachen . The forerunners of today's Rhein-Weser-Express were weekday intermediate trains of the NRW-Express , which served to increase the frequency between Bielefeld and Dortmund. In order to relieve the burden on the Bielefeld - Düsseldorf section, the Westfalen-Express (at that time still with the line number RE 11) was set up on May 24, 1998 .

With the 2002 timetable change, this train route was extended from Düsseldorf via Dortmund and Bielefeld to Minden, and the line number was changed to RE 6. In return, the less busy section of the NRW Express between Bielefeld and Hamm was cut off, in particular to improve the punctuality of the entire line. For the Bielefeld - Minden route, the new Westfalen Express doubled the local public transport offer Monday to Friday.

As a preliminary operation for the Rhein-Ruhr-Express , the RE 6a line went into operation with the timetable change on December 13, 2015. For the first time, this regularly connected Düsseldorf Central Station with Cologne / Bonn Airport , serving stops in Neuss Central Station , Dormagen , Cologne Central Station and individual trains also Cologne Messe / Deutz .

This interim line was operated on schedule with electric multiple units of the 425 series in double traction. The reason for the temporary separation of the RE 6 and RE 6a was the lack of an emergency brake override for the double-deck cars used on the RE 6 (Minden - Düsseldorf) line, which are not allowed to use the Cologne airport loop .

When the timetable changed in December 2016, the rolling stock was replaced by retrofitted double-decker trains, the RE 6 was extended to Cologne / Bonn Airport and the RE 6a line was discontinued. The RE 6 has been named Rhein-Weser-Express since the extension .

Train run

The Rhein-Weser-Express travels a total of nine railway lines:

• the Hamm – Minden railway line continuously (together with all regional and long-distance trains on the four-track line separate from goods traffic.)
• the Dortmund – Hamm railway line (together with all regional and long-distance trains)
• the Dortmund – Duisburg railway line (long-distance tracks , together with all regional and long-distance trains),
• the Cologne – Duisburg railway line between Duisburg and Düsseldorf.
  On this four- to six-track section, the Rhein-Weser-Express uses the so-called local tracks or the S-Bahn tracks, as does the Rhein-Haard-Express RE 2, the Rhein-Emscher-Express RE 3, the Rhein-Hellweg Express RE 11, the Rhein-IJssel-Express RE 19 and in sections also the S-Bahn. Only the NRW-Express RE 1 and the Rhein-Express RE 5 use the long-distance tracks here.
• the Mönchengladbach – Düsseldorf railway line between Düsseldorf and Neuss (together with other regional trains),
• the left-hand Lower Rhine route between Neuss and Cologne (together with regional and S-Bahn and freight trains).
• the Hohenzollern Bridge between Köln Hbf and Köln Messe / Deutz (together with all regional and long-distance trains),
• the winning stretch between Cologne Messe / Deutz and the junction at Cologne Airport Northwest (together with all regional and long-distance trains),
• the Cologne airport loop to Cologne / Bonn Airport (together with all regional, S-Bahn and long-distance trains).

Similar to the Rhein-Emscher-Express , the Rhein-Weser -Express travels a large part of the main route of the Cologne-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , but between Dortmund and Duisburg it uses the better developed and more centrally located Ruhr area route of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and the left Lower Rhine route between Düsseldorf and Cologne .

Offer

Since the timetable change in December 2016, the Rhein-Weser-Express has been running every hour from Minden to Cologne / Bonn Airport during the day, and since the timetable change in December 2010 also as a full service on the entire route from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Until the timetable change in December 2010, however, there were also individual trains with the turning points of Dortmund, Hamm and Bielefeld in peripheral locations.

The cycle is condensed into sections by the NRW-Express and the Rhein-Hellweg-Express between Hamm and Duisburg, by the Ems-Börde-Bahn RB 69 between Bielefeld and Hamm, Weser-Leine-Express RE 70 and Porta-Express RE 78 between Bielefeld and Minden.

RE 6 in Essen main station to Düsseldorf

A large section of the RE 6 runs parallel to S-Bahn lines and in some cases has the character of a fast S-Bahn or rapid transit system and is used accordingly by passengers.

It has been operated in local rail passenger transport by National Express since December 2019, which uses Desiro HC trains in the RRX paint scheme. The scheduled top speed of 160 km / h can be extended over large sections.

The Rhein-Weser-Express is linked in Cologne, Neuss, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, Hamm, Bielefeld, Herford, Löhne and Minden with the rest of the local transport network in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony . In addition, it ensures direct connections to long-distance traffic at some of the stops.

Tendering the route

Three special purpose associations in North Rhine-Westphalia, the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR), the Zweckverband Nahverkehr Westfalen-Lippe (NWL) and the Zweckverband Nahverkehr Rheinland (NVR) are involved in the order.

According to the VRR quality report 2007 , the train journeys of the RE 6 had an average delay of 3.6 minutes in 2007 and are thus slightly above the average of the RE lines in North Rhine-Westphalia. The rate of unforeseeable failures was around 1.75% of all train journeys, which means that the RE 6 is roughly in the middle of the RE lines in NRW.

The major transport contract, on the basis of which the line between Dortmund and Düsseldorf is operated, was terminated without notice by the VRR on June 12, 2008, since then the DB has operated it on this branch on the basis of an imposition . On December 19, 2008, the Gelsenkirchen Administrative Court ruled that the termination of the “major transport contract” had been illegal. The North Rhine-Westphalian transport authorities have submitted a joint tendering schedule, according to which the RE 6 line is to be tendered together with the RE 5 Rhein-Express . The RE 6 went into operation on December 11, 2016.

As part of the so-called Rhein-Ruhr-Express interim award, the services will be provided by DB Regio from December 2016 until the Rhein-Ruhr-Express vehicles are commissioned . Since the timetable change in December 2019, the Rhein-Weser-Express has been operated by National Express Rail GmbH with Desiro HC vehicles.

Web links

Commons : Westfalen-Express  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Description of the Westfalen-Express (!) In the NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NVR, meeting of the main committee on November 5, 2016, regional rail transport annual timetable 2017 - changes and innovations to the timetable change
2. ↑ 2010 timetable changes in NRW accessed in December 2010
3. ↑ Quality report 2007 of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (PDF, 659.8 kB) ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2014 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. 
4. ↑ [1]
5. ↑ RRX interim award goes to DB Regio NRW. NVR, April 11, 2014, accessed April 11, 2014 (press release). 
6. ↑ A strong team for the RRX. RRX, accessed February 20, 2017 . 

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap