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The Oberhausen–Duisburg-Ruhrort railway is a line in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

. It runs from Oberhausen

Oberhausen

Oberhausen is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen . The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. It is also well known for the...

 via Duisburg-Meiderich

Meiderich

Meiderich is a quarter of the city of Duisburg. It is divided into Unter-, Mittel- and Obermeiderich.Meiderich belongs to the city district Meiderich/Beeck, which started in 1975, during the course of municipal reorganization. On the 31 December 2004, 75,000 people lived in the district...

 to Duisburg-Ruhrort

Ruhrort

Ruhrort is a district within the German city of Duisburg situated north of the confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine, in the western part of the Ruhr area...

.

The line is now classified as a main line, although it is not electrified and west of Duisburg-Meiderich Sud station it is entirely single-track.

History

The Cologne-Minden Railway Company

Cologne-Minden Railway Company

The Cologne-Minden Railway Company was along with the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company and the Rhenish Railway Company one of the railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia.-Founding :The founding of the...

 (Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CME) opened the first railway in the Ruhr

Ruhr

The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...

 with the completion of its trunk line

Cologne-Minden trunk line

The Cologne-Minden trunk line is a railway built by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company . The line is the westernmost part of the railway line from Berlin to the Rhine that was proposed by Friedrich List in his Concept for a railway network in Germany, published in 1833...

 in 1847. This allowed coal mined in the Ruhr to be brought to consumers in the Lower Rhine

Lower Rhine region (Germany)

The Lower Rhine region or Niederrhein is a region around the Lower Rhine section of the river Rhine in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany between approximately Neuss and Düsseldorf in the South and the Dutch border around Emmerich in the North...

. It entered into a contract with the Ruhrort-Crefeld District Gladbach Railway Company (Ruhrort–Crefeld−Kreis Gladbach Eisenbahngesellschaft, RCG) to vuild a line to Ruhrort and to establish a train ferry between Ruhrort and Homberg

Ruhrort–Homberg train ferry

The Ruhrort–Homberg train ferry was a German train ferry on the Rhine between Ruhrort and Homberg, now districts of Duisburg.-History :While the Cologne-Minden Railway Company was building its trunk line between Cologne and Minden via Duisburg between 1843 and 1847, the shareholders of the...

. The RCG agreed to build a line from Homberg to Mönchengladbach. The CME opened its branch line from Oberhausen Station via Meiderich to Ruhrort on 14 October 1848. Under the contract the train ferry was to become operational within four years of the completion of the line.

Development

After the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BME) took over the RCG, together with the Aachen-Neuß-Düsseldorf Railway Company (Aachen-Neuß-Düsseldorfer Eisenbahngesellschaft) of the Royal Directorate of the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company

Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company

The Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company was a German railway company founded in 1850 and taken over by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company in 1862...

 (Königliche Direction der Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn) in 1866, it built a line to Ruhrort, starting from its Mülheim-Styrum station. This meant that BME lines connected to the ferry terminals on both shores, and so the CME line to Oberhausen abruptly lost its usefulness.

After the Duisburg-Hochfeld rail bridge was opened over the Rhine on the Osterath–Dortmund Süd line, the old Ruhrort–Homberg train ferry became completely run down and the line lost its national significance; instead, it was used for the transport of goods to the steel industry and the port of Duisburg-Ruhrort.

Current situation

The railway lines built during the 19th century in areas that are now incorporated in the city of Duisburg do not reflect the current passenger traffic flows of the current population and this line has only limited usefulness for passenger transport.

In the past freight mainly ran on the line between Duisburg-Ruhrorter Hafen (harbour) freight yard and the large Oberhausen West freight yard (formerly the Oberhausen RHE station). The Duisburg-Wedau–Bottrop Süd line of the former Rhenish Railway Company

Rhenish Railway Company

The Rhenish Railway Company was along with the Cologne-Minden Railway Company and the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company one of the railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia.-Foundation :The...

 (Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, RHE) connected the two freight yards. Today the harbour yard is only connected to the east to the Duisburg-Wedau–Bottrop Süd line.

Rail service

The Regionalbahn

RegionalBahn

The Regionalbahn is a type of local passenger train in Germany.-Service:Regionalbahn trains usually call at all stations on a given line, with the exception of RB trains within S-Bahn networks, these may only call at selected stations...

 service RB 36 (Ruhrort-Bahn) was, until recently, operated by the Prignitzer Eisenbahn (PEG), owned by Arriva

Arriva

Arriva plc is a multinational public transport company owned by Deutsche Bahn and headquartered in Sunderland, United Kingdom. It has bus, coach, train, tram and waterbus operations in 12 countries across Europe, employs more than 47,500 people and services over 1.5 billion passenger journeys each...

. The travel time for the whole line is twelve minutes. There are connections to other trains at Oberhausen Hauptbahnhof.

The PEG trains are operated with Bombardier Talent diesel multiple unit

Diesel multiple unit

A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple unit train consisting of multiple carriages powered by one or more on-board diesel engines. They may also be referred to as a railcar or railmotor, depending on country.-Design:...

s (class 643.2) on one track, with an average speed is 45 km / h. The Ruhrort line runs on weekdays at 30-minute intervals and at weekends at 60-minute intervals. The Ruhrort line is part of the network of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr

Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr

The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr is the public transport association covering the area of the Rhine-Ruhr megalopolis in Germany...

(Rhine-Ruhr Public Transport Association).

In December 2010, the line was taken over by NordWestBahn.

External links

• [line/2274.htm Description of line 2274] in the NRW railway archive of André Joost