The Düsseldorf–Elberfeld railway is a 27 km long main line railway in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, originally built by the

Düsseldorf-Elberfeld Railway Company The Düsseldorf-Elberfeld Railway Company (German language, German: ''Düsseldorf-Elberfelder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', DEE) was founded in October 1835 and officially recognised by a Prussian government statute on 23 September 1837. This gave the ...

, connecting

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

and Elberfeld (now

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...

) via

Erkrath Erkrath () is a town in the Mettmann (district), district of Mettmann, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Erkrath is situated on the river Düssel, directly east of Düsseldorf and west of Wuppertal, close to the famous Neandertal. It ...

, Hochdahl and Vohwinkel. It is served by Regional Express,

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 ...

and

S-Bahn The S-Bahn ( , ), , is a hybrid urban rail, urban–suburban rail system serving a metropolitan region predominantly in German language, German-speaking countries. Some of the larger S-Bahn systems provide service similar to rapid transit syst ...

trains.

History

The Düsseldorf–Elberfeld railway was built from 1838 to 1841 by the ''Düsseldorf-Elberfeld Railway Company'' (''Düsseldorf-Elberfelder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', DEE), which had been established for this purpose. It was taken over by the

Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company The Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company (, BME), also referred to as the Berg-Mark Railway Company or, more rarely, as the Bergisch-Markische Railway Company, was a German railway company that together with the Cologne-Minden Railway (''Cöln-Min ...

(''Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', BME) in 1857 and a continuous second track was built by 1865.

Realignment of lines in Düsseldorf

The Düsseldorf Central Station opened on 1 October 1891 replaced the three stations of the recently nationalised, formerly (nominally) private railway companies. The new line from the Düsseldorf station ran north along the existing route of the

trunk line In telecommunications, trunking is a technology for providing network access to multiple clients simultaneously by sharing a set of circuits, carriers, channels, or frequencies, instead of providing individual circuits or channels for each clie ...

of the Cologne-Minden Railway Company to Wehrhahn CME junction. It then swung east and followed the Düsseldorf-Derendorf–Dortmund Süd line of the

Rhenish Railway Company The Rhenish Railway Company (German language, German: ''Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', RhE) was along with the Cologne-Minden Railway Company (CME) and the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (BME) one of the railway companies that in the m ...

. East of the intersection with the Troisdorf–Mülheim-Speldorf freight line it rejoined it original route. The Düsseldorf Valley Railway separates at the same place and runs to the northeast.

Erkrath-Hochdahl incline

Beginn der Steilstrecke Erkrath Hochdahl Erkrath S-Bahnhof

The biggest challenge in the construction of the line was dealing with the climb between Erkrath and Hochdahl. The line has a gradient of 3.33% and rises in about . For more than one hundred years, this was the steepest main line in Europe. For many years trains had to be hauled by cable, originally driven by a stationary steam engine. A few months later haulage by cable attached to a stationary steam engine was changed to haulage by cable attached via pulleys to a locomotive running downhill on an additional track. With the duplication of the remainder of the line in 1865, the steep section of line became three-track, until the electrification of the line in 1963. The third track was rebuilt in 1985, as part of the additional third track built for the planned S-Bahn line. In 1926, cable haulage on the incline was replaced by

bank engine A bank engine (United Kingdom/Australia) (colloquially a banker), banking engine, helper engine or pusher engine (North America) is a railway locomotive that temporarily assists a train that requires additional power or traction to climb a grad ...

Current situation

Between Gruiten junction and the Düsseldorf-Gerresheim station the long distance line is only single track. Regional Express lines RE 4 '' Wupper-Express'' and RE 13 ''

Maas-Wupper-Express The Maas-Wupper-Express (RE 13) is a Regional-Express service in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), running from the Netherlands, Dutch border town of Venlo railway station, Venlo to Hamm (Westfalen) station, Hamm in Westphalia. Rou ...

'' run on this line, stopping only at Düsseldorf, Vohwinkel and Wuppertal. S-Bahn line S 8 services runs on the parallel two-track S-Bahn line.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dusseldorf-Elberfeld Railway Railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia Railway lines opened in 1838 1838 establishments in Prussia Buildings and structures in Wuppertal Buildings and structures in Mettmann (district) Transport in Düsseldorf