The Cross Eifel Railway (German: Eifelquerbahn) is a non-electrified railway line between Andernach and Gerolstein in the Eifel in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. From Andernach to Mayen Ost (East), it is classified as main line and it has two tracks as far as Mendig.
Services on the Cross Eifel Railway currently[when?] operate about every 30 minutes between Andernach and Mayen Ost and continue to Kaisersesch hourly as part of the Lahn-Eifel-Bahn service.
The rail service between Andernach and Kaisersesch operated for a long time under the name of Pellenz-Eifel-Bahn (the Pellenz is a hilly area between Andernach and Mayen) and the section between Kaisersesch and Gerolstein was for a time operated as the Vulkan Eifel-Bahn. This service was discontinued in 2013.
History
Kottenheim station (1892)Cross Eifel Railway in Ulmen (2006)On 10 September 2011, a railbus in Kaisersesch awaits the return trip to Gerolstein
The Cross Eifel Railway was opened in several stages, with the first section opening from Andernach to Niedermendig on 1April 1878. The second section opened from Niedermendig to Mayen Ost on 29May 1880 and the third section opened from Mayen Ost to Gerolstein on 15May 1895. The building of a connection to Karden between Mayen West and Monreal was considered. From about 1880 the Cross Eifel Railway was administered by the Eisenbahndirektion (railway division of) Cologne of the Prussian state railways.
At the end of the Second World War, the line from Andernach to Mayen Ost was reopened by 8April 1945. The part from Mayen Ost to Gerolstein did not follow until 29August 1946.
On 13January 1991, passenger traffic from Gerolstein to Mayen West was discontinued. Freight transport was initially continued between Ulmen und Kaisersesch; it was abandoned on 1January 1998 between Gerolstein and Ulmen and on 28May 2000 between Mayen and Kaisersesch.
On 6August 2000, a few months after trans regio had taken over the operation between Andernach and Mayen, the line was reopened for passenger traffic from Mayen West to Kaisersesch.
The section from Gerolstein to Kaisersesch was used for tourist traffic in the season from May to October from 2June 2001. Services ran at two-hour intervals on Sundays and holidays only; later the excursions also ran on Saturdays. Because of the poor state of the line, services were terminated in Ulmen. A daily tourist service ran in the summer from Gerolstein to Daun from 18July 2005. After restoring and securing the section between Ulmen and Kaisersesch, the Cross Eifel Railway was once again open to traffic from 26April 2008.
In an accident[2] on 6June 2009 at an open level crossing near Hohenfels, a railbus collided with a truck-trailer combination. The crowded train derailed and fell down a slope. In all, there were 26 injured, five people were severely injured and the train driver and guard were seriously injured.
Reactivation plans and closure of the infrastructure
In the course of the pre-planning for the Rhineland-Palatinate regular interval timetable to be introduced in 2015, several options were investigated to reactivate the Kaisersesch–Gerolstein section, which is not currently[when?] served by regular rail passenger transport. This study showed that the reactivation of part of the route would not to be useful in macroeconomic terms. Only the start-up of the entire route had a benefit-cost ratio above one and could thus be supported by the state. In this case, the journey time between Andernach and Gerolstein would be around two hours and patronage of up to 1900passengers per day was estimated. The costs were then estimated to be about €20million. On 9June 2009, the SPNV Nord/Rheinland-Pfalz (north Rhineland-Palatinate municipal association for rail transport) approved the complete reactivation of the Cross Eifel Railway for local public transport by December 2014.[3] However, the cost estimate had to be corrected to €40million in 2011 after a revision of the cost-benefit analysis, which meant that the reactivation of the overall route was no longer economically viable.
On the basis of the new figures, the municipality of Daun expressed its opposition to the reactivation of the Gerolstein–Daun–Kaisersesch section of the Cross Eifel Railway in December 2012. The previous operator announced shortly afterwards that it had not requested an extension of its operating license after 2013.
Since 1January 2013, the infrastructure of the Cross Eifel Railway has been partly closed to traffic, because train operations are not possible without a new bridge at Pelm.[4] This also eliminates the steam trains operated by Lokschuppen Gerolstein; the associated Anheizparty ("heating party") was replaced by the Lokschuppen-Sommer ("locomotive shed summer").[5]
In the autumn of 2016, a separate cost-benefit analysis for the disused Kaisersesch–Gerolstein section was to be carried out on a basis that will allow local authorities and districts to decide on the future of the line. In this case, the estimated rehabilitation costs of €24million (of which €6million alone was for the necessary construction of the Pelm bridge) are likely to play a decisive role.[6]
The whole line is owned by DB Netz. The Ulmen–Kaisersesch section was finally returned to traffic after a comprehensive refurbishment in April 2008 for a railway station festival in Ulmen, but it is currently[when?] out of operation.
Trans regio operated passenger services on the line, including the reactivated section between Mayen and Kaisersesch, with Regio-Shuttles from 28May 2000 to about 13December 2008.
Since 14December 2008, it has been operated by DB Regio with class 628.3 (double-deck) sets at hourly intervals. The trains cross in Mayen Ost, although the symmetry minute of the line is about four minutes earlier than usual.
Since the timetable change in December 2014, the service operated by DB Regio continues to operate as the Lahn-Eifel-Bahn hourly from Kaisersesch via Mayen to Andernach (RB38) as well as from Mayen via Andernach to Koblenz and continues to Limburg an der Lahn (as RB23). This gives an approximately 30-minute cycle in both directions on the section between Mayen and Andernach, as well as significantly improving the accessibility of the Koblenz inner city from the stations of the Cross Eifel Railway. At the same time the class 628 cars, which had been used since 2008, were replaced by class 643 (Bombardier Talent), class 648 (Alstom Coradia LINT 41) and class 640 (LINT 27) railcars.
Kaisersesch – Daun – Gerolstein
The Vulkan-Eifel-Bahn (VEB) operated the section of line from Kaisersesch to Pelm from 2000 and operated a two-hour cycle on weekends and public holidays from May to October using railbuses. In the summer months services were also operated between Gerolstein and Ulmen during the week. In addition, during the summer holidays on Wednesdays, a steam train, consisting of a class 52 steam locomotive and historical passenger cars, ran between Gerolstein and Ulmen.
At the end of 2012, the political committees rejected the investment in the rail infrastructure, so the VEB announced that from 2013 no excursions would run on this section of the line.
At the end of March 2013, it became known that the state of Rhineland-Palatinate would provide €13million for the repair of the infrastructure to enable the tourist excursions to run again.[8]
Planning
Two further stations are to be built up to the middle of the 2020s: Andernach Süd[9] (in the Straße Leibnizhof area) and Mayen-Brückentor[10] (at the level crossing on Straße Auf der Eich). The SPNV Nord assumes daily patronage of 700 (Andernach Süd) and 500 (Mayen-Brückentor).
Vulkaneifel is a district (Kreis) in the northwest of the state Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the least densely populated district in the state and the fourth most sparsely populated district in Germany. The administrative centre of the district is in Daun. Neighboring districts are Euskirchen, Ahrweiler, Mayen-Koblenz, Cochem-Zell, Bernkastel-Wittlich, and Bitburg-Prüm.
Mayen-Koblenz is a district (Kreis) in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Ahrweiler, Neuwied, Westerwaldkreis, district-free Koblenz, Rhein-Lahn, Rhein-Hunsrück, Cochem-Zell, and Vulkaneifel.
Mayen is a town in the Mayen-Koblenz District of the Rhineland-Palatinate Federal State of Germany, in the eastern part of the Volcanic Eifel Region. As well as the main town, additional settlements include Alzheim, Kürrenberg, Hausen-Betzing, Hausen and Nitztal. Mayen is the administrative centre of the Vordereifel ‘Collective Municipality’, although it is not part of the municipality.
Daun is a town in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the district seat and also the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Daun.
Gerolstein is a town in the Vulkaneifel district of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Gerolstein is a local municipality of the Verbandsgemeinde Gerolstein. It has been approved as a Luftkurort.
Koblenz Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the city of Koblenz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is the focal point of rail transport in the Rhine-Moselle-Lahn area. It is a through station in southern Koblenz built below Fort Großfürst Konstantin and opened in 1902 in the Neustadt, which was built after the demolition of the city walls in 1890. The station replaced two former stations on the Left Rhine railway, which were only 900 m apart, and the former Moselle line station. Koblenz-Stadtmitte station opened in April 2011 in the old centre of Koblenz. Koblenz Hauptbahnhof is on the West Rhine Railway and connects to the Moselle line, the East Rhine Railway and to the Lahn Valley Railway. It is used daily by about 40,000 travelers and visitors. In the station forecourt are a bus station and a pavilion.
Dockweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Daun, whose seat is in the like-named town.
Kolverath is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kelberg, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.
The Volcanic Eifel or Vulkan Eifel is a region in the Eifel Mountains in Germany that is defined to a large extent by its volcanic geological history. Characteristic of this volcanic field are its typical explosion crater lakes or maars, and numerous other signs of volcanic activity such as volcanic tuffs, lava streams and volcanic craters like the Laacher See. The Volcanic Eifel is still volcanically active today. One sign of this activity is the escaping gases in the Laacher See.
Trier Hauptbahnhof is a railway station for the city of Trier, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is a through station, about 500 metres (550 yd) east of the inner city and the Porta Nigra.
Wittlich Hauptbahnhof is a railway station for the town of Wittlich in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and is on the Koblenz–Trier line. Until the closure of the Wengerohr–Daun and Wengerohr–Bernkastel-Kues lines, it was a junction station and a regional rail node. Today it is the only station in Wittlich.
The Saarbrücken–Trier railway, known in German as the Saarstrecke in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. It connects Saarbrücken and Trier. It was opened in 1858 and 1860 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.
Andernach station is the transportation hub of the city of Andernach in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is a mid-sized station with thousands of passengers each day. It is currently classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 3 station. It has four passenger platforms, three with a length of more than 280 m, and sidings and freight tracks. It is on the Left Rhine line and is the terminus of the Cross Eifel Railway (Eifelquerbahn). In addition to passenger operations, the station has container and freight operations to the east of the station, particularly serving the tin plate manufacturer, Rasselstein.
The Hürth-Kalscheuren–Ehrang railway is a non-electrified line in the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate running from Hürth-Kalscheuren via Euskirchen and Gerolstein to Trier-Ehrang through the Eifel hills.
The Limburg–Altenkirchen railway is a 65.1 km long branch line from Limburg via Westerburg to Altenkirchen and connecting via the Engers–Au railway to Au through the Westerwald. The line is also known in German as the Oberwesterwaldbahn. It runs through the German states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Niederlahnstein station is, along with Oberlahnstein and Friedrichssegen, one of three stations in the town of Lahnstein in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is a separation station on the East Rhine Railway and the Lahn Valley Railway and is located in the Niederlahnstein district and forms a public transport hub for the Rhine-Mosel-Lahn area.
The Lahn-Eifel-Bahn is a rail passenger service in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse that runs as the RB 23 from Limburg an der Lahn via Koblenz and Andernach to Mayen, as RE 25 from Gießen via Limburg to Koblenz and as RB 38 from Andernach via Mayen to Kaisersesch.
Mendig is a station in the town of Mendig in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was called Niedermendig until 1877. It is located on the Cross Eifel Railway (Eifelquerbahn), which has two tracks from Andernach station and continues as a single track to Gerolstein station. The only set of points at the station is located west of the platform just before the Bahnstraße level crossing and has the points number of 23.
Gerolstein station is a station on the Eifel Railway in Gerolstein in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Its former function as an important junction station, however, has been lost with the closure of the Cross Eifel Railway (Eifelquerbahn) and the West Eifel Railway (Westeifelbahn). It is the only remaining station in the town.
Ehrang station is, after Trier Hauptbahnhof, the second most important station in the city of Trier in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The station forms a railway junction with a former marshalling yard that is still partly used as a freight yard. At the station, the Eifel Railway from Cologne connects with the Koblenz–Trier railway. Until 1983, Ehrang station was also the starting point of the Trier West Railway to Igel that connected with Wasserbillig / Luxembourg.
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