Railway line Lindern – Heinsberg (Rheinl)
| Lindern – Heinsberg (Rheinl) | |
|---|---|
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| Route number (DB) : | 2542 |
| Course book section (DB) : | 485 (formerly 245, 456) |
| Route length: | 12.2 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Power system : | 15 kV 16.7 Hz ~ |
The Lindern – Heinsberg (Rheinl) railway , also known as the Heinsberger Bahn or Wurmtalbahn, is a branch line in North Rhine-Westphalia . It branches off the Aachen – Mönchengladbach railway line in Lindern and leads to Heinsberg .
history
Beginnings
Originally a railway line from Jülich via Brachelen and Randerath to Heinsberg was under discussion; Later, however, it was decided to shorten the route starting from Lindern. Initial plans envisaged the construction of the line as a narrow-gauge railway or horse-drawn railway ; such projects were discarded in favor of the main line . In Porselen there was resistance to the construction of the railway; some farmers refused to surrender parts of their land and attacked railroad workers with pitchforks.
The route was opened on May 16, 1890. This date should be historically significant for the city of Heinsberg and the surrounding communities; the economy in the otherwise structurally weak Heinsberger Land benefited immensely; In particular, the Vereinigte Glanzstoff-Fabriken AG in the Oberbruch district was able to grow into a large corporation thanks to the railway line. The company built a works railway that had a through-road through Oberbruch until the 1980s.
A gap between Lindern and Jülich could no longer be closed because the decision was made to build the Jülich – Dalheim railway on the right of the Rur due to the development of the hard coal deposits around Hückelhoven . Plans to extend the Heinsberger Bahn as far as Sittard , as a tram to Roermond or in normal-gauge operation to Wassenberg failed because of the high costs.
World War II and post-war period
In 1944, the Heinsberg train station was destroyed, so that the Deutsche Bundesbahn decided to rebuild the station in the early 1950s. This resulted in a station building that was rather oversized for Heinsberg.
The 1950s brought the next big changes. On September 11, 1953, the Federal Railroad heralded one of its first rationalization steps : the passenger traffic, which had previously been handled by steam locomotive-hauled passenger trains, was converted to modern, more economical multiple units. From then on, all passenger trains ran with rail buses of the VT 95 and VT 98 series as well as freight trains with small and medium-sized diesel locomotives (e.g. Köf or V 100 ). In the freight traffic, however, large diesel locomotives of the V 160 series were also used, which were clearly under-challenged with their tasks (freight trains with a maximum of ten wagons). In the last few years of operation, the passenger train services were provided with battery-powered railcars.
Decline
As early as 1966, rumors were circulating that the Heinsberger Bahn would be shut down. With the abandonment of small secondary lines, the Federal Railroad wanted to part with lost objects. This is how the Heinsberg line got into the DB's decommissioning discussion.
In the course of individual motorization, the number of passengers continued to decline in the 1970s. With the use of rail buses , public passenger transport at the stops on the way shifted away from the train stations on the outskirts to the town centers; however, the Federal Railroad at that time reduced the demand and at the same time the operation on the Heinsberg rail line to very few pairs of trains per day.
The ZDF telecast Länderspiegel compared in 1972 to more rural railway terminus in Heinsberg with the past on the main line railway station Erkelenz to allow the future county seat to characterize Heinsberg as "farming village" and the town of Erkelenz as a more suitable seat for the then newly formed Kreis Heinsberg show .
Critics (local politicians and newspapers) saw the reduced supply as the cause of the drop in passengers and assumed that the railway had systematically tried to make operations on the route unattractive in order to construct a reason for the closure with the resulting drop in passengers. Another basis for this protest were the passenger counts required for the Federal Railway Directorate's surveys, which were preferred and, according to current DB practice in the 1970s and 1980s, took place during holidays, on bridging days or on weekends. The most prominent doubter of these surveys was the CDU member of the Bundestag Spies von Büllesheim . He described the numbers of the railway as "unrealistic phantom numbers" that are "not verifiable".
Despite this protest, the last scheduled passenger train ran on September 26, 1980.
While most of the stations along the route were demolished or used for other purposes after the closure, the Heinsberg station remained (for the time being) as an office for the freight traffic of the municipal gas works Heinsberg. In the mid-1980s, however, the station building had to give way to the new City Center building .
The shift of transport from rail to road also took place in freight transport: With the shift of general cargo traffic to the road by the new rail transport company (joint venture between Deutsche Bahn and Thyssen Haniel Logistik), general cargo transport by rail decreased significantly, making it unprofitable has been.
But the already seasonally fluctuating rail transport of regional products such as sugar beets or fertilizers also declined, because the level of motorization among farmers and the agricultural trade increased significantly in the 1970s. With new, more powerful tractors, for example, the sugar beets could be delivered directly to the sugar factory (for the Heinsberg farmers, for example, the sugar factories in Jülich or Ameln). So there were only a few customers left in freight transport, such as the municipal gas works, a timber trade and the Glanzstoffwerke in Oberbruch.
In 2010, the route was still served several times a week in freight transport with V 90 locomotives. The only remaining freight transport customer was the chemical park in Oberbruch. Freight traffic at the Heinsberg and Dremmen stations was stopped on May 28, 1994 for reasons of profitability. With effect from December 24, 1997, the Oberbruch - Heinsberg section was closed .
To operate the Oberbruch Chemical Park, the chemical park's own locomotive initially pushed the freight wagons into the Oberbruch train station, where they were taken over by DB Schenker Rail (now DB Cargo ) with a DB locomotive on working days .
In spring 2007 the private Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn (RSE) concluded a joint venture with the Nuon -Werkbahn of the Oberbuch Chemical Park , according to which a RSE train driver and a Nuon shunter each worked together on shunting work on the Oberbruch plant. Instead of the steam storage locomotive , an RSE diesel locomotive was used. The reason for this was that the steam storage locomotive of the Meiningen type, which had previously been used for shunting work , had been decommissioned due to the inspection deadline. The Oberbruch Chemical Park hoped that this new collaboration would provide "greater flexibility, contacts to new customers and greater capacity utilization for rail operations."
As a permanent rail replacement service (as of 2010), the buses on line 493 of the Euregio Maas-Rhine regional transport ran on weekdays, which established a connection on different routes between the city of Heinsberg and Lindern train station. The districts of Schafhausen, Eschweiler, Oberbruch, Hülhoven, Dremmen, Porselen, Horst and Randerath were served.
Sale, renovation of the infrastructure and resumption of rail traffic
Large parts of the line were renovated in 2005, level crossings were modernized and a new track with concrete sleepers was laid, so that only the rehabilitation of the section from Oberbruch station to Heinsberg city center, which was partially overgrown with bushes and trees, was missing for reactivation.
In February 2010, clearing work took place here in view of the upcoming reactivation. Hans Joachim Sistenich, then managing director of Aachener Verkehrsverbund and Zweckverband Nahverkehr Rheinland , declared on March 9, 2010 in the Heinsberg district building that the goal was to start rolling trains again in the direction of Heinsberg from December 2012 - initially in partial sections. The financing is now in place and all contractual issues have been clarified. The were West Energy and Transport GmbH named as track owners and the Rurtalbahn GmbH as the operator of the infrastructure. In addition, the line should be electrified . With effect from December 31, 2010, ownership of the line was transferred from DB Netz to West Energie und Verkehr, which bought the line and intended to lease it to the Rurtalbahn. In the list of railway infrastructure companies of the Federal Railway Authority , Rurtalbahn GmbH is named as the railway infrastructure company for this route.
The route, which has only been used for freight transport since the end of passenger transport in 1980 , most recently exclusively in the form of transfers to the Oberbruch Chemical Park , has been rebuilt since 2012 for the resumption of local rail passenger transport planned for the timetable change in December 2013, and the superstructure between Oberbruch and Heinsberg and renewed at the station facilities. In addition, the line was electrified with an overhead contact line. The reactivation with the Euregiobahn was originally planned for 2008, but was then postponed for the time being due to the cut in funding by the federal government.
Until mid-December 2013, Heinsberg was the only district town in North Rhine-Westphalia (and one of the few district towns in Germany) that could not be reached by train as scheduled.
A reactivation was requested by the passenger associations Pro Bahn and Verkehrsclub Deutschland . In addition, the Aachen Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2009 assessed the expansion of the route as a "highly urgent measure for long-distance passenger traffic, freight traffic and local traffic". Despite the initially negative attitude of the North Rhine-Westphalian state transport ministry, the Aachener Verkehrsverbund (AVV) and local politicians adhered to the reactivation plans. After the implementation deadline in 2008 could not be met due to the cut in funding by the federal government , the aim was to reactivate the route by June 2013. Due to delays in setting up the electronic interlocking , passenger traffic was not resumed until the timetable change on December 15, 2013. Two days earlier, on December 13, 2013, the line was officially reopened during a celebration. The costs for the renovation and adaptation of the infrastructure amounted to around 18 million euros.
Operation in local passenger transport
The Rhein-Niers-Bahn coming from Aachen is winged in Lindern , one part of the train continues via Mönchengladbach to Essen , the other from Lindern to Heinsberg. The infrastructure of the Heinsberger Bahn is operated by the Rurtalbahn GmbH . The line operation has been carried out by DB Regio , which last won the tender for the services until 2034 . Coming from Heinsberg, this part of the train will be connected again in Lindern with the train from Mönchengladbach in the direction of Aachen.
At the beginning of 2015, instead of the 2000 forecast, only 1400 passengers used the connection every day. There are still regular problems with the wings in Lindern, with major deficits in the information provided to passengers. In addition, many bus connections in the Heinsberg district are, contrary to the original plans, still not clocked and adapted to the train schedule. There is also no connection to Mönchengladbach for the Rhein-Niers-Bahn from Heinsberg, as it misses the RE 4 to Düsseldorf by a few minutes.
Route description
course
The line begins today on track 3 of the Lindern station , built in 1852 , which dates back to the founding of the Aachen – Mönchengladbach line. It initially leads briefly parallel to the main line in the direction of Aachen, and shortly after the Thomashof level crossing, first to climb a hill towards Randerath, which naturally still belongs to the Aldenhovener loess plate and thus to the main unit Jülich Börde. From this it rises before Randerath once again in the fifth already for natural unit of order Lower Rurniederung belonging worm depression (also called Wurmtal, hence the term worm Valley Railway) and crosses between Randerath and Horst the worm. Between Horst and Porselen, the route leaves the Wurm lowlands and then continues through the Heinsberger Ruraue to Heinsberg. Nevertheless, the route from the Wurmbrücke behind Randerath always remains on the left, western side of the Wurm, which also flows through the Ruraue up to the confluence with the Rur.
While the reception buildings of the train stations in Heinsberg-Randerath, Heinsberg-Porselen and Heinsberg (Rheinl) were demolished, the train station building in Heinsberg-Oberbruch now houses commercial premises; the Dremmen station was closed.
Operating points
Alleviate
In 1852, Lindern received a train station with goods handling on the new Aachen – Mönchengladbach line . Today, the rail connection is important for commuters in the vicinity ( Heinsberg / Linnich ). Today there is a restaurant and a kiosk in the building of the Lindern train station. The two interlockings were abandoned after a central interlocking went into operation at the end of 2007 and the switch connections at the Westkopf were dismantled. Lindern thus became a stop , as the line to Heinsberg now began at a junction on the east head of the main line and the stop was locally connected to it. For the reactivation of the line to Heinsberg, the switch connections at the Westkopf were rebuilt and the station was converted back into a train station in terms of signaling.
The route of the Wurmtalbahn begins in Lindern. Immediately after the level crossing, opposite the former Lf signal box (western exit from the station), the route branches off to the right in the direction of Randerath and climbs in a curve onto the open field between Lindern, Leiffarth and Randerath.
Heinsberg-Randerath
Behind Lindern, the route runs through slightly hilly country until the municipality of Randerath , which was independent until 1970 , is reached. Behind Randerath, the route crosses the Wurm and then crosses the valley of this river. The Randerath station and its station building were on Heerweg with a route kilometer 3.2. The Randerath train station, built in 1890, had a loading track between the reception building and the main track with a platform. On the site of the demolished station building there is now a parking lot. The platform of the new stop is located on the Bahnweg near the junction of the K 16 and L 228.
Heinsberg-Horst
After crossing the Wurm, the route soon passes the village of Horst . In Horst, in the course of the resumption of local rail passenger transport in 2013, a stop was built for the first time at route kilometer 5.0.
Heinsberg-Porselen
The Porselen stop follows at kilometer 6.4 , the platform of which was initially retained after passenger traffic was discontinued in 1980, but was completely renewed when passenger traffic was resumed.
Heinsberg-Dremmen
The former Dremmen station is located at 7.8 km on Sootstraße in Dremmen. The loading street, the goods shed and the station building are still in ruin. In the Dremmen station area there were two butt tracks for company connections.
Heinsberg-Oberbruch
Behind Dremmen, the route runs through a forest until you reach the Heinsberg-Oberbruch train station. The former Oberbruch station (formerly Grebben ) is located on the Wurmtalbahn at 9.3 km.
The renovated station building now serves as a practice for a physiotherapist. There is a makeshift signal box at the branch to the chemical park. In the station area there was a bypass track, a stump track and two sidings to the former Akzo works until the reactivation work began. These two steam storage locomotives were still available for shunting operations and takeover trips from the train station to the company premises until the turn of the second millennium . A pull-out track runs parallel to the main track up to km 9.8 just before the Kamper Straße level crossing . From there, all traffic in the direction of Heinsberg was suspended on May 28, 1994.
Heinsberg district house
The new owner, WestEnergie und Verkehr GmbH, provided a new and additional stopping point directly at the Kreishaus in Heinsberg and the infrastructure operator, Rurtalbahn GmbH, set it up at kilometer 11.0 for the recommissioning of the line, which has been closed for passenger traffic since 1980.
Heinsberg (Rheinl)
The end point of the route (as of 2013) is in front of the Heinsberg bus station and a shopping center on the position of the former reception building . The tracks end in the former freight yard. The former terminus station was the end point of the line at route kilometer 12.3. The Heinsberg train station had two tracks, one of which served as a bypass. The second track was connected to a small platform. Shortly after the cessation of passenger traffic to Heinsberg, the station building was demolished to make room for the new bus station.
See also
literature
- Josef Lennartz: Railways in the Rhineland border region. A contribution to the recent economic history of the district of Heinsberg (= museum publications of the district of Heinsberg. Vol. 6, ZDB -ID 584867-2 ). District of Heinsberg, Heinsberg 1985, DNB 850942187 .
- Wilhelm Frenken: The one hundred year history of passenger traffic on the Heinsberg – Lindern railway line. In: Local calendar of the Heinsberg district. Vol. 10, 1982, ISSN 1615-7761 , p. 97.
- Wolfgang Fiegenbaum, Wolfgang Klee: Farewell to the rails. Disused railway lines for passenger traffic in Germany 1980–1985. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-613-01191-3 .
Web links
- Course book route 485a - Heinsberg - Lindern - Aachen RB 33 Rhein − Niers − Bahn. (PDF; 32.9 kB) Deutsche Bahn , December 13, 2015, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- Stefan von der Ruhren: Course book route 456 Lindern - Heinsberg. In: Railways in Aachen and the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. Stefan von der Ruhren, November 11, 2014, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- Philip Rademacher, Reinhard Gessen: Routes - Lindern - Heinsberg. The history. In: Mining and railways in the Aachen-Düren-Heinsberg region. Reinhard Gessen, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- Philip Rademacher, Reinhard Gessen: Specials - Reactivation Lindern - Heinsberg. In: Mining and railways in the Aachen-Düren-Heinsberg region. Reinhard Gessen, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- Reinhard Gessen: Specials - Oberbruch, a small handover on March 5th, 2007. Oberbruch, handover of Nuon. In: Mining and railways in the Aachen-Düren-Heinsberg region. Reinhard Gessen, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- 125 years of the Lindern - Heinsberg railway line. In: The AVV blog. Aachen Transport Association , December 17, 2015, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- Opening ride on the Wurmtalbahn. In: Youtube channel traingermany . December 13, 2013, accessed January 11, 2016 .
- André Joost: Description of route 2542 (Lindern - Heinsberg). In: NRWbahnarchiv route archive. André Joost, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
- ^ Railways in the Rhine border region.
- ↑ a b Home calendar and railways in the Rhenish border region (= museum publications of the Heinsberg district. Volume 6). 1985.
- ↑ Timetable documents from course books and research in the Heinsberg district archive as part of the work on the decline of the railway in Heinsberger Land. 2007, presented by M. Bienick at the Hückelhoven high school.
- ↑ Erkelenz newspaper. January 24, 1978.
- ↑ Survey of contemporary witnesses with the former FDL from Bf Dremmen as part of the specialist work on the decline of the railway in Heinsberger Land. 2007, presented by M. Bienick at the Hückelhoven high school.
- ^ Martin Krauss: Development of the Railway Infrastructure 1997/98. In: Bahn-Report . 2/1999, pp. 4–7, here: p. 6.
- ↑ List of the federally closed lines in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia that have been closed since 1994. (XLSX; 16.4 KB) Federal Railway Office , July 13, 2015, accessed on March 28, 2018 .
- ↑ Joint venture with Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn. (PDF; 67.7 KB) February 1, 2007, archived from the original on July 30, 2007 ; Retrieved January 16, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Clear the way to Heinsberg. Pro Bahn NRW eV , Regional Association Euregio Aachen, February 9, 2010, accessed on August 26, 2010 : "The reactivation of the Heinsberger Bahn is one of the core goals of the Proi Bahn Euregio Aachen passenger association" .
- ↑ Tim Gorgels: Heinsberg-Lindern railway line should be released again. (No longer available online.) 100'5 Das Hitradio , March 10, 2010, formerly in the original ; Retrieved August 26, 2010 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) .
- ^ Railway line sold by DB to West. In: Aachener Nachrichten . December 8, 2010, accessed January 16, 2013 .
- ↑ Railway infrastructure company in the FRG. (Excel document, 90 kB) (No longer available online.) Federal Railway Office , July 6, 2012, formerly in the original ; accessed on May 26, 2017 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Rail infrastructure in the Aachen region. (PDF; 6.96 MB) Track inventory and use. IHK Aachen , 2004, archived from the original on April 3, 2007 ; accessed on January 12, 2016 .
- ↑ AZ / AN. March 1, 2008, target network of the avv for 2013.
- ↑ Willy Spichartz: A big welcome for the first train. In: RP Online . December 14, 2013, accessed January 11, 2016 .
- ^ Express traffic in the Aachen transport association. (PDF; 258 KB) Aachen Transport Association , December 2015, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- ^ Infrastructure projects - new construction of the Lindern - Heinsberg line. Rurtalbahn GmbH , accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- ↑ DB Regio will operate RB 33 beyond 2020. Aachen Transport Association , December 14, 2016, accessed on June 2, 2019 .
- ↑ The train has been rolling towards Heinsberg for two years. In: Aachener Nachrichten . December 2, 2015, accessed January 11, 2016 .
- ↑ Anna Petra Thomas: First balance: RB 33 still suffers from "teething problems". In: Aachener Nachrichten . February 13, 2015, accessed January 11, 2016 .
- ^ Karlheinz Paffen, Adolf Schüttler, Heinrich Müller-Miny: Geographical Land Survey 1: 200,000. (PDF; 7.08 MB) Classification of natural areas, p. 108/109, Düsseldorf-Erkelenz. Institute for Regional Studies , April 1963, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- ^ André Joost: Heinsberg-Randerath operations center. In: NRWbahnarchiv-Betriebsstellen. André Joost, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- ^ André Joost: Description of the route 2542 (Lindern - Heinsberg). In: NRWbahnarchiv route archive. André Joost, accessed on January 11, 2016 .
- ^ Georg Schmitz: Electric premiere on the tracks. In: Aachener Nachrichten . December 9, 2013, accessed January 11, 2016 .
