Cologne Eifeltor train station

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Cologne Eifeltor
Gantry cranes at Cologne Eifeltor train station
Gantry cranes at Cologne Eifeltor train station
Data
Operating point type Container terminal
Platform tracks -
abbreviation
  • KKE (train station)
  • KKEU (transshipment station)
  • KKBE (transfer station)
location
City / municipality Cologne
country North Rhine-Westphalia
Country Germany
Coordinates 50 ° 53 '13 "  N , 6 ° 55' 15"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 53 '13 "  N , 6 ° 55' 15"  E
Railway lines
Railway stations in North Rhine-Westphalia
i16 i16 i18

Eifeltor transshipment station
Aerial view of the Cologne-Eifeltor freight station, looking south
A4 crosses the container terminal

The Cologne Eifeltor station in Cologne is a freight station on the left Rhine route and comprises (as of 2005) Germany's largest container transshipment station for combined rail-road freight traffic .

history

Construction of the container terminal began in 1968 following the existing Cologne Eifeltor freight yard, which at the time was still operated as a marshalling yard for express freight , parallel to the Cologne South - Bonn railway line on the other side of the federal motorway 4, with the construction of a crane bridge for reloading onto trucks . The "Container Terminal Cologne Eifeltor" was put into operation on February 26, 1969. The system initially had a special crane that could lift large-capacity containers with a weight of up to 600 centners. The feeder trucks were led over a two-kilometer detour via the B 265 (Luxemburger Strasse), the military ring road and a connecting road through the Cologne green belt . The system was soon also used for loading entire trucks onto flatbed wagons and a few couchette cars for the drivers, which are transported in the night jump as a block train , rolling road , to a destination station, from which they then distribute their cargo early.

Situation until 2012

Two of the crane bridges at Eifeltor station at night

The transshipment station for combined transport at the Cologne Eifeltor freight center, operated by the Deutsche Umschlaggesellschaft Schiene-Straße (DUSS) , soon reached its limits. It now had its own motorway connection , was equipped with six container handling crane bridges over the nine handling tracks, which load and unload up to 850 trucks with up to 1200 containers and container tanks for around 40 trains every day with two additional mobile cranes. Around two thirds of the containers are temporarily stored on the site and later loaded. In Cologne, with 274,000 transshipment per year, 20% of the combined transport in Germany was handled. That put it in third place in Europe. The station is also used by many private rail freight companies who, for example, operate routes to Hamburg or Kiel (further to Scandinavia) or to the port of Rotterdam .

The routes to the German seaports are particularly frequented by the approximately 40 daily trains to mostly German destination stations. From the tank trucks in the chemical network, the trains to the chemical zone at the mouth of the Rhone cover the greatest distances. There are also two daily trains to and from Spain , nine to Italy and one to Switzerland .

The container terminal in the nearby Knapsack Chemical Park acts as a satellite terminal for Eifeltor.

There is a truck stop with a restaurant and a truck wash at the train station.

Current situation

As part of a special program by the Federal Ministry of Transport , a third transshipment module and new tracks for a connection to the south should be built in 2009/2010. These plans had become obsolete when the railway went public. Since mid-2011, a start has been made to create these additional capacities from 100,000 loading units to a total of around 380,000 with four additional tracks and two portal cranes with a span of 46 meters, largely with funds from the economic stimulus package II . To this end, 47 million euros were invested. With more than 4,000 trains per year, the terminal is the second largest in the Deutsche Bahn network after the special Hamburg terminal. On November 23, 2012, the expanded facility was officially put into operation by the then Chief Financial Officer of DB Netz , Roland Bosch , and Lord Mayor Jürgen Roters .

In addition to the existing motorway connection to the federal motorway 4 (AS Köln-Eifeltor), the road traffic connection is to be improved by the planned four-lane new construction of the B51n directly to the federal motorway 553 near Brühl. The planning approval procedure for this project is currently in preparation, the start of construction is not yet in sight.

In addition to driving combined transport trains from the Cologne-Eifeltor container terminal, SBB Cargo Deutschland and other rail transport companies maneuver tank cars and other freight cars in the freight station. In addition, SBB Cargo Deutschland and DB Cargo use the freight yard as a locomotive driver's location with the associated buildings. At these locations, these railway companies and others use the station as a train driver change station and locomotive storage. In the southeastern part of the freight yard, tank wagons are loaded with trucks. In addition, the freight yard is used in the event of disruptions to hold back a wide variety of freight trains and for operational head-turning when necessary diversions. To reach route 2641 coming from the south or to get to the left Rhine route from there, you have to drive through the freight station. In addition to the two freight bypass tracks between the freight yard and passenger tracks, freight trains also use the freight yard to reach route 2640 and vice versa. Five electromechanical signal boxes are operated in the freight yard. In the north-eastern part, in addition to the shunting of tank wagons, damaged container wagons are also parked there, waiting to be repaired.

Web links

Commons : Bahnhof Köln Eifeltor  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Deutsche Bahn AG:

NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost:

Individual evidence

  1. Tiefensee wants to trigger the construction boom, in: Kölnische Rundschau, December 4, 2008. URL of December 4, 2008
  2. Birgit Lehmann: Eifeltor will soon create even more containers in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Rhein-Erft, from June 21, 2011.
  3. ^ Helmut Frangenberg: Extension of the Eifeltor in Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger of November 24, 2012, p. 32
  4. Information from the State Office for Road Construction NRW on the planned new construction of the B51n (accessed September 11, 2016)