The Cologne–Aachen high-speed line is the German part of the Trans-European transport networks project high-speed line Paris–Brussels–Cologne. It is not a newly built railway line, but a project to upgrade the existing railway line which was opened in 1841 by the Rhenish Railway Company. When it was continued into Belgium in 1843, it became the world's first international railway line.
The line inside Germany has a length of about . The first from Cologne to Düren have been rebuilt. Since 2002 the line allows for speeds up to . Separate tracks have been built parallel to the high-speed tracks for local S-Bahn traffic. The remaining line from Düren to Aachen allows speeds up to with some slower sections. Upgrades of Düren–Aachen are planned for the near future. In Belgium, the high-speed line is continued as HSL 3.
Regional-Express services on the line are RE 1 (NRW-Express) and RE 9 (Rhein-Sieg-Express) with National Express/RRX Desiro HC units, and push-pull trains with six double-decker carriages or Talent 2 units respectively. Long-distance trains are operated by Eurostar between Paris and Cologne and ICE 3 Neo trains between Frankfurt and Brussels roughly half-hourly, plus occasional other ICE, Intercity and Flixtrain services.
History
Plans for the construction of a railway between Cologne and the Belgian border began in December 1833 with the issue of concession to the Cologne Railway Committee, which was to develop a line under the direction of Cologne Lord Mayor Johann Adolph Steinberger and the entrepreneur Ludolf Camphausen. The Cologne Railway Committee presented a draft route that would bypass Aachen to reduce costs: the line would run from Eschweiler to Kornelimünster along the Inde and from there to the Belgian border. Düren would also not have been connected to the railway. The Aachen merchants resisted this proposal and they founded the Aachen Railway Committee under the direction of David Hansemann and Philipp Heinrich Pastor. This was the beginning of the so-called Eisenbahnstreites zwischen Köln und Aachen (railway dispute between Cologne and Aachen). In October, the Aachen Railway Committee presented an alternative proposal for the route that ran from Cologne via Düren and Aachen to the Belgian border.
On 6 April 1836, a conference of representatives of the traders of Aachen and Cologne in Jülich, chaired by the Oberpräsident of the Rhine Province Ernst von Bodelschwingh, could not resolve to the railway dispute. Hansemann and the Aachen cloth manufacturer Joseph van Gülpen then travelled to Berlin and lodged an application for a line running through Aachen. In Berlin, lengthy negotiations took place between representatives of Aachen and Cologne. Prussian king Frederick William III decided on 12 February 1837 that the line would run through Aachen and thus ended the railway dispute.
In June 1837, the Aachen and Cologne representatives agreed to the merger of the two committees of their cities and founded the Rhenish Railway Company (Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft), which received a concession to build the line from Cologne to the Belgian border in Herbesthal. Construction of the line began on 11 April 1838.
The proposal to develop a direct line from Düren to Aachen was discarded due to the geological conditions of the northern Eifel and a curve to the north was adopted between Düren and Aachen that is still used by the line. The share capital of 9 million marks was raised to enable the Rhenish Railway to build the line by the issuing of shares. But due to the difficult route, construction costs increased to 21 million marks. The additional costs of 12 million marks were raised by issuing additional shares worth 4.5 million marks and bonds worth 7.5 million marks. The Belgian government alone acquired bonds for 3 million marks.
The first section from Cologne to Müngersdorf was opened on 2 August 1839, less than four years after the Nuremberg–Fürth railway, the first German railway, and was the seventh railway on German territory. To this end, open and closed carriages and wagons were delivered by Waggonfabrik Talbot of Aachen using road transport at the beginning of the year. Another section from Müngersdorf to Lövenich was opened on 2 July 1840. The last section from Lövenich to Aachen was opened on 1 September 1841 with an inaugural trip from Cologne to Aachen and back, during which a banquet for 360 invited guests was held. Regular passenger services on the whole route commenced on 6 September 1841. A panel on the east side of Düren station still marks this event.
With the connection of the line from Belgium, a special train ran from Antwerp to Cologne on 15 October 1843. This made the line between Cologne and Aachen part of the world's first cross-border railway. The Belgian railways were connected to the French railway network in 1845, so the Cologne-Aachen line handled traffic to and from France.
Operations until the First World War
Initially, the line was single-track and the timetable was set up so that trains leaving from Aachen and Cologne crossed at the multi-track Düren station. After the line on the Belgian side had been duplicated, the Rhenish Railway Company decided to duplicate the entire line in 1844. According to a report by Gustav von Mevissen, the president of the Rhenish Railway Company on 20 May 1845, the volume of traffic on the line between Cologne and Aachen exceeded the expectations of the planners in the early years. The passenger traffic was one of the largest in Prussia and the freight traffic was "the highest of all continental railways". Freight traffic exceeded passenger traffic in 1847. Work on the Aachen–Eschweiler section is documented as starting in 1848 and was completed in 1852. The Rhenish Railway Company covered the cost by issuing shares and taking out loans. During the German revolutions of 1848–1849, the Cologne–Aachen railway was used for occasional arms shipments.
Numerous factories were soon established along the line and coal mining was also important from the start. The Eschweiler Mining Association (Eschweiler Bergwerks-Verein) established coal storage at the stations of Aachen, Düren and Cologne immediately after the opening of a coal loading track. As a result of the opening of the line, the EBV's transport costs fell by two-thirds and contracts were also concluded with the Rhenish Railway Company for coal deliveries to supply its steam locomotives. Every second freight train on the Cologne–Aachen line transported coal from the Aachen coalfield in 1847. The coal from the individual mines was originally carried to the railway line by horsecars on field railway tracks, but were increasingly replaced by standard gauge steam trains. The Reserve colliery (Grube Reserve) was connected to the railway line between Eschweiler Hauptbahnhof and Nothberg in 1865 and the Mariagrube-Stolberg railway was opened in 1870.
First World War and the Occupation
The Cologne–Aachen railway also became increasingly strategic for military traffic to Belgium and for connecting the strategically important Vennbahn. Numerous improvements were carried out from 1912 to 1914 to improve the performance of the line, including the upgrade of tracks and the establishment of an overtaking loop in Derichsweiler. Quadruplication between Langerwehe and Nothberg was planned in 1914, but this was prevented by the outbreak of the First World War. During the war, the railway was used to transport troops and supplies to the western front. After the German declaration of war on France on 3 August 1914, the line was closed to civilian traffic and only used for the transport of troops. Regular traffic resumed in mid-September. The marshalling yard in Düren was extended for military reasons as late as 1917.
After the First World War, the Cologne–Aachen railway was located in the French occupation zone. France intended to transport raw materials via this line from the Ruhr, which was also occupied, but the German railway workers refused to work with them as passive resistance. During the occupation, the line was blocked to regular traffic several times so that French crews could operate coal trains from the Ruhr to France without having to observe German signalling and rail regulations. Occasional acts of sabotage to prevent these operations were mostly unsuccessful. The line was returned to German control with the end of the occupation of the Rhineland.
The Buir rail accident occurred between Düren and Horrem on 25 August 1929, resulting in 14 dead and 43 people injured. Due to construction work, trains towards Cologne had to be diverted on the wrong line and the affected points should have been operated at . Due to a mistake on the part of the dispatcher, the Paris–Warsaw express ran over these points at full speed and derailed.
Second World War The Cologne–Aachen railway was used for military purposes again during the Battle of France. Trains carrying troops and war equipment ran over the line. During the war, the line was a frequent target of air raids, causing damage particularly in Aachen and Cologne. The last through train from Aachen to Cologne ran on 12 September 1944. A refugee train from Eschweiler was strafed on 15 September 1944. The locomotive of a passenger train occupied by about 200 was attacked, so it stopped at Hücheln near Langerwehe. Subsequently, a train formed of locked freight wagons was attacked with bombs and gunfire. About 80 people died in the process. Rail traffic from Eschweiler was discontinued on that day. Rail traffic from Düren was discontinued after the air raid on Düren on 16 November 1944. When German troops withdrew, they blew up bridges, such as parts of the Burtscheid Viaduct and the Three Arch Bridge (Dreibogenbrücke).
Postwar period After the withdrawal of German troops, Allied troops gradually took over the towns along the line and restored operations, initially on one track. The first passenger trains ran from Aachen to Düren on 10 September 1945. A bus service between Düren and Cologne was temporarily established in January 1946. Operations were resumed on the whole line on 15 May 1946. Immediately after the line was restored to traffic, the volume of traffic was very high. On the one hand, there was a lack of alternative means of transport, such as trucks and private cars, on the other hand the number of passengers rose due to the return of soldiers, Heimatvertriebene ("homeland expellees") and Hamsterfahrten ("hamster trips", that is travel by townspeople to the countryside to barter for food). It was announced on 18 November 1947 that services would be severely limited due to a coal shortage.
The most significant single structure of this line was the -long Königsdorf Tunnel, which was demolished in 1954. A serious railway accident occurred in the resulting cutting on 27 May 1983 when an express crashed into a landslide at a speed of after heavy rainfall. Seven people died and 23 were injured. The cutting at Königsdorf was widened for the quadruplication of the line in 2000.