Rurtalbahn (German for "Rur Valley Railway") is a

railway company A railway company is a company within the rail industry. It can be a manufacturing firm or an operator. Some railway companies operate both the trains and the track, while, particularly in the European Union, operation of the track is undertaken ...

servicing the

Rur The Rur or Roer (german: Rur ; Dutch and li, Roer, , ; french: Rour) is a major river that flows through portions of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. It is a right (eastern) tributary to the Meuse ( nl, links=no, Maas). About 90 perce ...

valley from

Linnich Linnich is a town in the Düren (district), district of Düren in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the Rur, River Rur (Roer river), approx. 10 km north-west of Jülich. Economy Linnich is the home of Schweizeris ...

Heimbach Heimbach is a town in the district of Düren of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the river Rur, in the Eifel hills, approx. 20 km south of Düren. Heimbach has the smallest population of any town in North Rhin ...

. Its major hub is

Düren station Düren station is located to the north of the centre of Düren and is the largest station in the city and the district of Düren. It is located at the intersection of the Cologne–Aachen high-speed line with the lines to Linnich, Heimbach and ...

, from where two train lines run to the two destinations. Rurtalbahn GmbH is owned by R.A.T.H GmbH (74.9%) and Dürener Kreisbahn (25.1%). It was outsourced from Dürener Kreisbahn in 2003, who had formerly promoted their railway network as Rurtalbahn. Dürener Kreisbahn had operated the two train lines since 1993 (however with the line to

being shorter - trains only went to

Jülich Jülich (; in old spellings also known as ''Guelich'' or ''Gülich'', nl, Gulik, french: Juliers, Ripuarian: ''Jöllesch'') is a town in the district of Düren, in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. As a border region betwe ...

). On weekends, Rurtalbahn runs several tourist trains in the

Eifel The Eifel (; lb, Äifel, ) is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Community of ...

area such as the BördeExpress. Rurtalbahn has a stake of 50% in the recently founded

VIAS The Vias GmbH (stylized VIAS) is a rail service company based in Frankfurt (Germany). The name of the company was taken from the Latin word via for ''way'' and the letter ''S'' for service. It operates rail services in the states of Hesse, Rhine ...

GmbH, a railway company servicing the

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

area. In the Düren area, Rurtalbahn runs its trainlines on behalf of Aachener Verkehrsverbund (AVV), the Bördeexpress is run on behalf of IG Rurtalbahn. Rurtalbahn is also expanding its freight branch.

References

External links

* Railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia {{Germany-company-stub