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

railway company A rail transport company is a company active within the rail industry. It can be: * a manufacturing company, * a rail transport operations, railway undertaking providing services through operating rolling stock, * a railway infrastructure manager ...

servicing the

Rur Rur or RUR may refer to: * Rur (river), a tributary of the Meuse, mostly in Germany * '' R.U.R.'', a 1920 Czech sci-fi play by Karel Čapek * Russian ruble, a currency (pre-1998 ISO 4217 code: RUR) * Ohaw, or rur, a Japanese soup dish * Rur., a ...

valley from

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

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'', , , Ripuarian: ''Jöllesch'') is a town in the district of Düren, in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. As a border region between the competin ...

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

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

area such as the BördeExpress. Rurtalbahn has a stake of 50% in the recently founded VIAS GmbH, a railway company servicing the

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

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