History
On 18 December 1843, the CME was awarded the concession to build a railway line between the metropolis ofNetwork developments in 1847/48
On the same day as its line opened to Minden, the ''Royal Hanoverian State Railways'' opened its Hanover–Minden line. On 1 September 1847 the Saxon-Silesian Railway Company opened a line connectingCurrent significance
In modern times the trunk line is no longer a continuous main line. The section between Duisburg and Dortmund is not a regular route for long-distance trains; instead through trains run on the more central Witten/Dortmund–Oberhausen/Duisburg line of the former Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company. The line is now treated as four different lines as set out below with their current significance in terms of the number of trains running: * Cologne–Duisburg line (extremely high) * Duisburg–Dortmund line (Duisburg–Oberhausen and Gelsenkirchen–Wanne-Eickel: medium, otherwise low) * Dortmund–Hamm line (high) * Hamm–Minden line (very high) Railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia Railway lines opened in 1845 1845 establishments in Prussia