Royal management of the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway
The Royal Direction of the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Railway , based in Aachen , was founded with the “highest decree of March 4, 1850”. From April 1, 1850, it operated two railway companies that had been working together since it was founded:
- Ruhrort-Crefeld-Kreis Gladbacher Eisenbahngesellschaft, founded in 1844 and confirmed by the state on August 21, 1846. Prussian concession from January 8, 1847 to build the line from Homberg via Trompet, Uerdingen and Viersen to Gladbach ( Duisburg-Ruhrort – Mönchengladbach line ).
- Aachen-Neuss-Düsseldorfer Eisenbahngesellschaft, founded in 1846 and confirmed by the state on January 8, 1847. Prussian concession from August 21, 1846 to build the line from Aachen via Gladbach, Neuss to Düsseldorf ( Aachen – Mönchengladbach and Mönchengladbach – Düsseldorf railway ).
founding
The Ruhrort-Crefeld-Kreis Gladbacher Eisenbahngesellschaft built the railway line from Homberg am Rhein via Krefeld to Viersen with a length of 33.6 kilometers and opened it on October 15, 1849. Due to financial difficulties, the company received a state interest guarantee. In the contract of September 26, 1846 it was agreed that the Prussian state would take over the further construction work as well as the operation and management of the railways for both companies.
Track construction
On April 1, 1850, both railway companies handed over management to the royal railway administration in Aachen .
This took over the further route construction as follows:
| Route section | length | Opened |
|---|---|---|
| Viersen - Gladbach | 8.6 km | October 15, 1851 |
| Gladbach - Rheydt | 3.8 km | August 12, 1852 |
| Rheydt - Herzogenrath | 44.0 km | November 12, 1852 |
| Herzogenrath - Aachen | 13.2 km | January 17, 1853 |
| Aachen - border D / B | 2.7 km | October 23, 1854 |
| Gladbach - Obercassel | 24.2 km | January 17, 1853 |
| Obercassel - Rhine station | 0.9 km | October 16, 1854 |
In the Rhine station on the Rhine meadow of the Rhine knee , the goods could be transferred to shipping or transported on with carts over the Düsseldorf ship bridge. The next station on the route was Oberkassel station , located at today's Belsenplatz . From there the route led along the Greifweg in the direction of Neuss .
The initiators of the railway line from the industrial sector in the Krefeld and Mönchengladbach area wanted to give domestic industry cheap access to raw materials from overseas via the Antwerp port and a cheap fuel supply with coal from the Ruhr. At the same time, the rail connections made it easier to sell their own products. In order to avoid the laborious reloading of goods when crossing the Rhine - the military had not allowed the construction of a railway bridge from Ruhrort to Homberg - the Ruhrort-Crefeld-Kreis Gladbacher Eisenbahngesellschaft agreed on March 29, 1849, a contract with the Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn to operate a train the Rhine between Ruhrort and Homberg for freight and passenger cars.
The Ruhrort – Homberg railway project began operations on November 12, 1852. Initially, the wagons were lowered on ropes over inclined levels onto the non-powered pontoons and then pulled up again on ropes on the other bank by locomotives. A steamship with the pontoons coupled on both sides provided the crossing. This meant that up to 700 wagons could be transferred each month. In order to increase the efficiency of the trajectory, both railway companies built lifting towers on both banks from 1854 onwards, through which the wagons could be hydraulically raised or lowered from the ferry. After commissioning on May 1, 1856, the ferry service of approx. 30,000 cars on approx. 50,000 cars are increased annually.
Takeover by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft
With the construction of the Witten / Dortmund – Oberhausen / Duisburg railway line, which was completed in 1862 , the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (BME) competed with the Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn (CME), which previously operated exclusively in the Ruhr area, for the removal of the coal. It even had the competitive advantage that its route ran south of the main line of the CME right through the middle of the former production area and thus the connection of the mines was possible with less effort. BME took a first step closer to its strategic goal of also transporting coal to Belgium , the Netherlands and the seaports there with the construction of a connecting line from Styrum station to the Ruhrort harbor , which was completed in 1867 .
But the transshipment of coal to ships on the Rhine was laborious and expensive for supplying Belgium with coal, and the Belgian seaports were severely disadvantaged compared to the Dutch when it came to further transshipment of coal . That is why it made the funds available to the Prussian state to take over all shares in the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn. As a result, on January 8, 1866, the management of the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn was transferred to the “Royal Directorate of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn in Elberfeld” and the directorate in Aachen was dissolved. In this way , the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and the BME merged on January 1, 1866. The transport of coal and other goods was now exclusively by land from the Ruhr area to the border with Belgium in the hands of a railway directorate.
literature
- Bernd Franco Hoffmann: The Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn. Through the valleys of Wupper, Ruhr and Volme ; Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt, 2015, ISBN 978-3954005802