The Münster–Hamm railway is an almost 36 kilometre-long, continuous double-track and electrified main line railway from

Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...

to Hamm in the

German state The Federal Republic of Germany is a federation and consists of sixteen partly sovereign ''states''. Of the sixteen states, thirteen are so-called area-states ('Flächenländer'); in these, below the level of the state government, there is a ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

. It was one of Germany's oldest railways, built by the ''Munster Hamm Railway Company'', which was established for this purpose, and opened on 26 May 1848.

History

The Cologne-Minden Railway Company (, CME) built its

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 ...

directly across

Westphalia Westphalia (; ; ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the region is almost identical with the h ...

, bypassing the region around the town of Münster. The ''Munster Hamm Railway Company'' (''Münster-Hammer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', MHE) was established to build a branch line to connect with the CME line. This line was opened on 26 May 1848 for passengers and on 8 July 1848 for freight traffic. The company and line were taken over in 1855 by the

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, ...

n government-funded

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 ...

(KWE). The line was extended in the following year to

Rheine Rheine () is a city in the district of Steinfurt (district), Steinfurt in Westphalia, Germany. It is the largest city in the district and the location of Rheine Air Base. Geography Rheine is on the river Ems (river), Ems, about north of Münster ...

as the Münster–Rheine line.

Operations

Although, formerly individualNot repeated through the day

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the train categories in Europe, classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to InterRegio, regional train, r ...

services ran on the line, it is now mainly used by regional (

Regional-Express In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (; RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with a top speed of and an average speed of about as it calls at fewer stations than ''R ...

and

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 ...

) services running through western Westphalia and southern Münsterland. It is served by: *the hourly Rhein-Münsterland-Express (RE7) with stops in Hamm,

Drensteinfurt Drensteinfurt (in low German ''Stewwert'') is a town in the district of Warendorf, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated approximately 15 km north of Hamm and 20 km south of Münster. The villages Rinkerode in the north a ...

, Münster-Hiltrup and

Münster Hauptbahnhof Münster Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in the city of Münster in Germany. History The original Münster station was opened in 1848 by the Münster-Hamm Railway Company, when it opened by the Münster–Hamm railway to the then capit ...

. *every half-hour during the day Monday to Friday, otherwise hourly, the

Ems-Börde-Bahn The Hellweg net consists of the four Regionalbahn lines in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia: RB 50 (Münster – Lünen – Dortmund), RB 59 (Dortmund – Unna – Soest), RB 69 (Münster – Hamm – Bielefeld) and RB 89 (Münster – ...

(RB69/89) with stops at all stations.

Notes

External links

NRW rail archive of André Joost: * trecken/2931.htm Description of line 2931 Münster ↔ Hamm * trecken/2011.htm Description of line 2011 Lechtenberg junction ↔ Kanal * trecken/2920.htm Description of line 2920 Feldmark junction ↔ Hamm Rbf Hvn {{DEFAULTSORT:Munster-Hamm Railway Railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia Münster (region) Buildings and structures in Hamm Railway lines opened in 1848 1848 establishments in Prussia nl:Spoorlijn Münster - Hamm