The Düren–Neuss railway is a line in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The non-electrified main line originally ran from Düren to Neuss, but the Düren–Bedburg section has been closed and dismantled.
History
The Neuss–Duren section was opened on 1 September 1869 by the Rhenish Railway Company (Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, RhE), which was nationalised in 1880. It formed the first cross connection between the two main lines to Aachen from Düsseldorf via Mönchengladbach and from Cologne, as the (Mönchengladbach –) Hochneukirch – Jülich – Stolberg (– Aachen) branch line was opened four years later and the current Mönchengladbach–Cologne main line was opened between 1889 and 1899.
The later emergence of the now more important and electrified Mönchengladbach–Cologne line is also the reason for the location of Grevenbroich station, which was initially built on the north-south running Neuss–Düren line. This meant that east-west running Mönchengladbach–Cologne line had to be built to the station on a large S-curve.
Even before the Second World War, about half of all trains on the Düren–Neuss line continued to and from Düsseldorf Hbf. (table 224b) A few trains at that time began in Grevenbroich or Gustorf. A pair of Sunday excursion trains running between Düsseldorf and Heimbach (Eifel) passed through some of the smaller stations without stopping.
On the morning of 5 September 1937, a serious railway accident occurred in Holzheim station: a special train running from Rommerskirchen with 800 pilgrims on pilgrimage to Kevelaer was derailed. 17 people died and 18 people were seriously injured.
Timetable changes in the postwar period
After the Second World War, the rail service, which had been greatly reduced by the effects of the war, was successively rebuilt and upgraded. Thus, in the winter timetable 1952/53, there were two through trains from Jülich to Neuss, using the Bedburg–Ameln railway, in the morning. In the 1950s, the number of trains running from/to Düsseldorf also increased. Passenger services were abandoned on the branch from Bedburg to Ameln in 1953 and Sunday passenger services were abandoned on the Erft Railway from Bedburg via Bergheim to Horrem in 1963. However, due to the very limited interdependence of rail traffic on the Düren–Neuss line and the Erft Railway, this had practically no effect.
At the beginning of the 1950s, the new Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) established the so-called Städteschnellverkehr (city express, S-Zug) semi-fast services on many routes, mainly serving local and regional traffic. These were not successful everywhere. For example, a pair of S-Zug services between Stolberg-Hammer (Altstadt) and Mönchengladbach via Jülich was cancelled in May 1952. Also a pair of S-Zug services ran between Düren and Düsseldorf on weekday mornings and evenings, stopping only in Elsdorf, Bedburg, Grevenbroich and Neuss. This also soon disappeared from the timetable, while the service from Aachen to Bonn via Düren and Euskirchen, later ran for two decades as an Eilzug (semi-fast) service. However, on the Düren–Neuss route there were occasional semi-fast trains from year to year that did not stop at all stations. Often, however, they only operated as semi-fast trains on parts of the route, for instance between Düren and Grevenbroich, so that in practice only the two stops between Bedburg and Grevenbroich were omitted. Most of the semi-fast trains stopped in Elsdorf. The main purpose of skipping stations was clearly no longer to achieve shorter travel times, but to allow trains to run over a particular section of single-track line quickly enough that the trains running in the opposite direction before and after them were hindered as little as possible. As a rule, over the years not more than three trains per day and direction ran as (partial) semi-fast trains and the last semi-fast train ran on this line on 22 May 1982.
In the 1960s, during several timetable periodsOfficial timetable of Deutsche Bundesbahn (summer 1961, summer 1963, summer 1964, summer 1965, summer 1968) a motorail train ran with sleeping and couchette cars from Avignon to Düsseldorf and return over the Düren–Neuss line on Saturdays in the summer months. Since this train could only stop at car loading stations—so not between Düsseldorf and Aachen—and since neither the main line via Cologne nor the line via Mönchengladbach were electrified until 1966, this was hauled by a fast class 03 steam locomotive over the less congested line via Bedburg, which had been developed for operations at 100 km/h or more, which corresponded approximately at that time to the permissible maximum speed for car-carrying trains.
A direct afternoon commuter service from Neuss via Düren to Aachen was also added in the 1960s, but this disappeared a few years later. However, a direct Düsseldorf–Heimbach service on Sundays continued throughout this period. Apart from these exceptions, passenger traffic did not extend significantly beyond the core Düren–Düsseldorf route until the 1970s.
Until 1976, the line followed another route between Gustorf and Bedburg; this section included the stations of Harff and Kaster, which was only opened in 1971. As a result of the mining of lignite (brown coal) by Rheinbraun AG (now part of RWE) at Harff, the line was removed for the expansion of an open-cast mine. The railway line was relocated between Gustorf and Bedburg with a crossing loop at Neurath. About 20 years later, Deutsche Bahn dismantled the loop at Neurath in 1995, as it was no longer necessary for train services. It is intended to return the line to the old route after the exhaustion of the open-cast mine to reconnect Kaster with the railway. However, this has not been implemented to date.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the number of trains to and from Heimbach trains steadily increased and almost all trains ran to and from Düsseldorf and few trains ended in Neuss. In the summer timetable 1981, for example, 15 trains ran from Düren to Düsseldorf from Monday to Friday, two from Düren to Neuss, two from Grevenbroich to Düsseldorf and one from Bedburg to Neuss. Services continuing on the Erft Railway were very rare until 1988. Apart from the services to/from Heimbach, there were some rather short-lived services on other routes in the early 1980s. Thus, in the summer of 1980, an afternoon train was inserted from Düren via Grevenbroich to Mönchengladbach, apparently as a replacement for the trains from Düren via Jülich to Mönchengladbach, which could no longer operate due to the decommissioning of the Jülich–Hochneukirch section. For several years there was an early morning train from Grevenbroich to Wuppertal-Wichlinghausen (from 1983 to Krefeld). The longest regional service was a morning train from Düren via Düsseldorf, Dorsten and Coesfeld to Rheine that ran from June 1980 to May 1982 and was operated with a class VT 24 set, which was very unusual in the area of the cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf and Aachen, but many sets of this class were stationed in Westphalia. In the mid-1980s, these connections were decreased again, with only a few services passing on to the Erft Railway and a few more running to Heimbach. In the 1987/88 timetable two trains ran from Düsseldorf to Heimbach each day and four from Heimbach to Düsseldorf, with one more of each on Saturdays.
Decline of the Düren–Bedburg section
With the commissioning of the so-called east-west S-Bahn (S 8) on 29 May 1988, the timetable concept of the Düren–Neuss line was modified. The new S-Bahn line between Mönchengladbach, Neuss, Düsseldorf and Hagen ran every 20 minutes and replaced commuter services on many sections. Therefore, most Düren–Düsseldorf services were shortened to the Düren–Neuss route. In addition, a regular interval timetable was established on the remaining Düren–Neuss section. At the time, this was a rare exception in regional transport, since before 1991 Deutsche Bundesbahn operated few services at regular intervals except on S-Bahn networks and Intercity services.
Because services every 20 minutes from Neuss towards Düren would have been excessive, only every second S-Bahn service was met by a connecting train, so a 40-minute service was operated between Neuss and Grevenbroich. Only every second train continued to Düren, so that a service ran every 80 minutes between Grevenbroich and Düren, which was not very useful for passengers. During the morning peak hour there were some deviations from the regular interval pattern and some additional services. During the afternoon peak hour, the 80-minute service was reinforced between Bedburg and Neuss to provide a 40-minute cycle. The end of the Düren–Bedburg section was approaching, as the redevelopment of the line in the next seven years was foreseen as a result of the expansion of the Hambach surface mine, which was approved in the 1970s. On Sundays, the entire line was served every two hours. In addition, in 1988, some direct connections were restored from Horrem to Neuss in the peak hour. Through trains continued to run to and from Heimbach, but less than before and mostly only to/from Neuss instead of to/from Düsseldorf. Their numbers continued to decline over the next few years; the 1990/91 timetable only listed one daily direct connection to Heimbach and two return services, with three on Saturdays in both directions.
On 2 June 1991, when DB introduced regular-interval services for regional services, the operating concept of the Düren–Neuss line was fundamentally changed. The trains now ran every hour on the whole line from Neuss to Horrem, but only on weekdays, as there had been no service from Saturday afternoon on the Erft Railway for nearly three decades. Additional services ran between Neuss and Grevenbroich on weekdays providing a service with intervals alternating between 20 and 40 minutes, services ran on the Erft Railway mostly at half-hourly intervals, and the previously prevailing break from 9:00 to 12:00 was abolished. As a result of this changeover, the intermediate stations north of Bedburg were given a much improved connection to Cologne. Since Cologne is not only larger than Aachen, but also closer to these stations, additional traffic was expected compared to the previous orientation to Düren and Aachen. In addition, of course, there would be improved connections from the Erft Railway to the commuter destination of Düsseldorf.
The disadvantage of these changes was that there were no longer any through services towards Heimbach. In addition, the Bedburg–Düren section was operated only as isolated shuttle service, although now it ran every hour, even on Sundays. Compared to the hourly express train service (Aachen –) Düren – Cologne – Düsseldorf (– Dortmund)—now the RE 1 Regional-Express service—established in 1991, the direct connection from Düren to Dusseldorf via Bedburg and Neuss was completely unattractive because of the need to change trains twice. To make matters worse, the connections in Bedburg were only convenient in one direction due to scheduling constraints, in the morning from Düren to Neuss and in the afternoon in the opposite direction; otherwise the wait to change trains in Bedburg was over 30 minutes.
This situation was improved on 31 May 1992: direct trains between Düren and Neuss were restored on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. On weekdays, however, the situation described above regarding transfers in Bedburg remained. The Düren–Bedburg line was thus one of the few that remained in operation until its closure at all times and on all days of the week. Direct weekend connections to Heimbach were not reintroduced, especially since the operation of the Düren–Heimbach railway was transferred to the Dürener Kreisbahn in May 1993.