Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company

The Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company (German: Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, 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-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CME) and the Rhenish Railway Company (Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, RhE) was one of the three (nominally) private railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia. Its name refers to Bergisches Land and the County of Mark.

The Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company was founded on 18 October 1843 in Elberfeld (Today Wuppertal). Since the Cologne-Minden Railway Company had decided to build its route via Duisburg rather than through the valley of the Wupper river, the Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company (German: Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BME) determined to build its own line through the Wupper valley, to create a link between the highly industrialised area of the Bergisches Land with the east, particularly to connect with the Märkische coal fields, near Dortmund. The required concession for the railway was Granted by the Prussian government on 12 July 1844. A link to the Rhine in the west had already been completed in 1841 by the Düsseldorf-Elberfeld Railway Company, which had been founded in 1837.

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