The Altenbeken–Kreiensen railway is part of a former long-distance route in Germany from the

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km2 and a populati ...

area via

Altenbeken Altenbeken (, , in contrast to " New Beken") is a municipality in the district of Paderborn, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Altenbeken is situated in the Eggegebirge, approx. northeast of Paderborn. To the west of the town is t ...

, Höxter-Ottbergen,

Holzminden Holzminden (; ) is a town in southern Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Holzminden (district), Holzminden. It is located on the river Weser, which at this point forms the border with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...

Kreiensen Kreiensen is a village and a former municipality in the district of Northeim, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2013, it is part of the town Einbeck. Geography Kreiensen is situated on the river Leine, approx. north of Northeim, and s ...

and

Seesen Seesen () is a town and municipality in the district of Goslar, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the northwestern edge of the Harz mountain range, approx. west of Goslar. History The Saxon settlement of ''Sehusa'' was first mentio ...

towards

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. The once continuous double track main line railway is now operated as a single track east of Ottbergen. It runs through the Egge ridge and along the northern edge of the

Solling The Solling () is a range of hills up to high in the Weser Uplands in the German state of Lower Saxony, whose extreme southerly foothills extend into Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. Inside Lower Saxony it is the second largest range of hill ...

hills. The section in North Rhine-Westphalia up to and including Holzminden is also known as the Egge Railway ().

History

The line from Altenbeken to Godelheim was opened on 1 October 1864 by the

Royal Westphalian Railway Company The Royal Westphalian Railway (, KWE) was a German rail company established in 1848 with funding from the Prussian government, which later became part of the Prussian State Railways. The network eventually extended about 315 km from Rheine v ...

and extended on 10 October 1865 to Holzminden. It connected with the

Brunswick Southern Railway Brunswick is the historical English name for the German city of Braunschweig (Low German: ''Brunswiek'', Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek''). Brunswick may also refer to: Places and other topographs Australia *Brunswick, Victoria, a suburb of ...

, which was opened by the

Duchy of Brunswick State Railway The Duchy of Brunswick State Railway (''Herzoglich Braunschweigische Staatseisenbahn'') was the first Länderbahnen, state railway in German Confederation, Germany. The first section of its Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway line between Braunschweig ...

between Holzminden and Kreiensen on 10 October 1865, creating a link with Brunswick (Braunschweig). To connect with the Brunswick area the line bypassed the town of Einbeck with two tunnels and a long climb. Originally the route was considered a long distance line from the Ruhr to Brunswick and Berlin. The section east of Ottbergen remained a secondary line because after

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

’s annexation of the

Kingdom of Hanover The Kingdom of Hanover () was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Hanover, and j ...

in 1866 a bypass of Hanover was no longer necessary. The section from Altenbeken to Ottbergen connected with the

Solling Railway The Solling Railway ( is a non-electrified, single track standard gauge railway connecting Höxter-Ottbergen station, Höxter-Ottbergen in the east of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Northeim in southern Lower Saxony. It takes its n ...

(''Sollingbahn''), opened in 1873, and the

South Harz Railway The South Harz Railway ( or ''Südharzbahn'') is a railway line through the German states of Lower Saxony and Thuringia. It runs from Northeim to Nordhausen, Thuringia, Nordhausen, via Herzberg am Harz, Bad Lauterberg-Barbis, Bad Sachsa, Walkenr ...

(''Südharzstrecke''), opened 1868–69, creating an important west-east connection to

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, Halle and

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. The line lost importance because more traffic shifted to the north-south direction over the decades after 1945 as a result of the

division of Germany Division may refer to: Mathematics *Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication *Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division Military *Division (military), a formation typically consisting of 10,000 to ...

. The most striking construction on the Egge Railway is the 1,631 m long Rehberg Tunnel at Altenbeken. As late as the 1980s there had been for years a continuous long distance express ("D-train", ''D-Zug'', short for ''Durchgangszug'', literally “corridor train”) with through carriages that were separated in Altenbeken and continued towards Höxter. In the 1990s through trains also ran on the line from Ottbergen to

Nordhausen Nordhausen may refer to: *Nordhausen (district), a district in Thuringia, Germany ** Nordhausen, Thuringia, a city in the district ** Nordhausen station, the railway station in the city *Nordhouse, a commune in Alsace (German: Nordhausen) * Narost, ...

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

. The

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn (district), Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pade ...

–Holzminden–Kreiensen service ended with the handover of passenger operations between Paderborn and Holzminden on the line to

NordWestBahn The Austrian Northwestern Railway (German: ''Österreichische Nordwestbahn'', ÖNWB, Czech: ''Rakouská severozápadní dráha'') was the name of a former railway company during the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Today, the term is still ...

in December 2003. The line is now double track between Altenbeken and Ottbergen and between

Stadtoldendorf Stadtoldendorf is a town in the center of the Holzminden district, Lower Saxony, Germany. Stadtoldendorf is the seat of the ''Samtgemeinde A (, ; plural: ''Samtgemeinden'') is a type of administrative division in Lower Saxony, Germany. ''Sam ...

and Vorwohle. Since October 2008 it has been controlled by an

electronic interlocking In railway signalling, an interlocking is an arrangement of signal apparatus that prevents conflicting movements through an arrangement of tracks such as junction (rail), junctions or crossings. In North America, a set of signalling appliances a ...

operating from

Operations

Between December 2003 and December 2013, passengers operations on the line was divided into two sections at Holzminden. The

Regionalbahn The ''Regionalbahn'' (; lit. Regional train; abbreviated ''RB'') is a train categories in Europe, type of Regional rail, local passenger train (stopping train) in Germany. It is similar to the Regionalzug (R) and Regio (Swiss railway train), R ...

service RB 84 (''Egge-Bahn'') ran hourly throughout every day of the week. In Paderborn it became RB 74 Senne-Bahn running to

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region () of Detmold (region), Detmold and the L ...

on the Senne Railway. The eastern section was operated every two hours by

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

with

Alstom Coradia LINT The Alstom Coradia LINT is an Articulated car, articulated railcar of the Alstom Coradia family manufactured by Alstom since 1999, offered in diesel and hydrogen fuel models. The acronym ''LINT'' is short for the German ''"leichter innovativer Na ...

diesel single-units. Most services continued over the Kreiensen–Brunswick line to

Bad Harzburg Bad Harzburg (; Eastphalian dialect, Eastphalian: ''Bad Harzborch'') is a spa town in central Germany, in the Goslar (district), Goslar district of Lower Saxony. It lies on the northern edge of the Harz mountains and is a recognised saltwater spa ...

. With the timetable change on 15 December 2013, both services were combined as RB 84 (Paderborn–Höxter-Ottbergen–Kreiensen) in the ''OWL'' diesel network and operated by

. The service continued over the Paderborn–Holzminden section each hour. The section east of Holzminden was only operated every the two hours. The service was operated with

Bombardier Talent The Talent is a multiple unit light train manufactured by Bombardier that was developed by Waggonfabrik Talbot in Aachen shortly before the company was acquired by Bombardier in 1995. The name ''Talent'' is an acronym in German for ''TALbot L ...

DMUs able to run at 120 km/h. The route east of Altenbeken is mostly able to be run at 100 km/h. The average speed is 66 km/h. In December 2015,

portion working A dividing train is a passenger train that separates into two trains partway along its route, so as to serve two destinations. Inversely, two trains from different origins may be railway coupling, coupled together mid-route to reach a common end ...

was introduced Ottbergen with an RB 84 service (Kreiensen–Holzminden–Paderborn) and a RB 85 service (Ottbergen–Göttingen). Passengers can now travel from both Göttingen and Kreiensen to Paderborn. To implement the measure

Höxter-Ottbergen station Höxter-Ottbergen is a railway station located in Ottbergen, Germany. The station is located on the Eggebahn and the Sollingbahn railway lines. The train services are operated by NordWestBahn. Train services The station is served by the followin ...

had to be rebuilt with a storage track and track connections. The implementation of these measures began in September 2014 within the "Modernisation Initiative 2" (''Modernisierungsoffensive 2'').

References

External links

NRW rail archive of André Joost:
Description of line 1760

Photographs from Tunnelportale at eisenbahntunnel-portal.de:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Altenbeken-Kreiensen railway Railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia Railway lines in Lower Saxony Railway lines opened in 1864 Buildings and structures in Paderborn (district) Buildings and structures in Höxter (district) Holzminden (district) Buildings and structures in Northeim (district)