The Preußen–Münster railway is a 45 kilometre-long, largely single-track and electrified main line railway from Münster to Lünen in the German state of

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 is served by a

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 called ''Der Lüner''.

History

The line was built by the

Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' (), also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the re ...

(''German State Railway Company'') to create a direct connection between the

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 ...

n cities of

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

and Münster. The new line was built from the station of Preußen on the Dortmund–Gronau line to Munster and opened on 18 October 1928. On 8 March 1990, the line had to be closed due to the collapse of an embankment. Repairs continued for more than a year, until the line was re-opened to passenger traffic was on 2 June 1991.

Planned upgrade

The line was originally built with a single-track with the embankment wide enough for a second track. With the increasing traffic volumes serving the mining and steel industry, the line was expected to be duplicated. However, this never occurred because of

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

and

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...

. Furthermore, there was a plan to build a line from a branch on the Dortmund–Hamm line east of Dortmund-Scharnhorst station to

Werne Werne an der Lippe (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Wäen'') is a town in the Federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Unna (district), Unna district in Germany. It is located on the southern edge of the Münster (region), Münsterla ...

on the line to Munster. This would have sped up long-distance services between Dortmund and Münster by avoiding the tight curves at the station exit from Dortmund and at Lünen and the tight curve on the approach to Werne. It would have also avoided the disruption to services caused by incoming and outgoing trains crossing each other's tracks on the eastern approach to Dortmund station. These plans were never implemented in practice. The duplication of the line and upgrading of the track for a top speed of 200 km/h was listed in the 2003 ''Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan'' and classified as a "priority project". On 12 December 2008 the upgrading of the line was approved. The implementation of the plans, however, is still expected to take a few years. The development cost was estimated in December 2008 to be €180 million. After in-depth investigations, the cost had increased at the end of April 2010 to around € 377 million. On 20 August 2009, the German Ministry of Transport and

Deutsche Bahn AG (, ; 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 ...

signed a contract for the project. The plan is to complete technical planning in late 2011 with environmental approval procedures beginning in 2012. The German government funded the cost of preliminary planning.

Operations

The

service RB 50 (''Der Lüner'') from Dortmund (running via the Dortmund–Gronau line) runs once an hour in the window between long-distance trains, stopping at all stations. Since the distance between Lünen and Münster is only single track until the planned upgrade is carried out no increase of this service is possible.

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 ...

trains from the Ruhr area to the north of Germany run over the one-track line between Dortmund and Münster only on the basis of one train per hour in each direction. Every two hours, a pair of trains run on the Wanne-Eickel–Hamburg line.

Notes

External links

NRW railway archive of André Joost: * trecken/2900.htm Description of line 2900 Lünen Süd ↔ Lünen * trecken/2901.htm Description of line 2901 Preußen ↔ Horstmar junction {{DEFAULTSORT:Preussen-Munster railway Railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia Railway lines opened in 1928 1928 establishments in Germany Ruhr Münster (region)