Erft Railway

Bedburg–Horrem
Current course of the Erft Railway
Overview
Locale	North Rhine-Westphalia
Line number	2581 (Bedburg–Martinswerk) 2601 (Martinswerk–Horrem)
Technical
Number of tracks	Grevenbroich–Holzheim
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Operating speed	100 km/h (62.1 mph) (maximum)
Route number	481
Route map  Operating points and lines  Line from Neuss 0.2 Bedburg (Erft) former line to Ameln Line to Düren 2.5 Glesch 4.1 Paffendorf 4.3 Bergheim RWE(siding) Hambachbahn 6.0 Line from Elsdorf Ost 6.1 Zieverich(halt+siding) 6.3 Zieverich industrial track(siding) 7.6 Bergheim (Erft) Bergheim District Railway to Niederaußem Strategic Railway Embankment from Neuss 9.7 20.0 Martinswerk(Strw, former junction) 19.7 Quadrath 18.7 Quadrath-Ichendorf 15.9 Horrem High-speed line to Cologne line to Erftstadt High-speed line to Düren

The Erft Railway (German: Erftbahn is a line in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The non-electrified main line was originally built as a line of the Bergheim District Railway (Bergheimer Kreisbahn) and operated as a metre gauge railway. Later, the line was converted to standard gauge. The Erft Railway is now only served by a Regionalbahn service.

The Bedburg–Horrem–Mödrath line was opened in 1896 as part of the Bergheim District Railway. In 1983, the Horrem–Quadrath-Ichendorf section was electrified because of its high freight traffic, but in 1996 its catenary was dismantled. As of 2 June 1991, trains ran through from Neuss to Horrem, continuing in the peak hour to Cologne. From 15 December 2002, the rail service was extended throughout the day to Cologne.

On 1 November 2007, the rest of the line was also connected to the electronic signalling centre. At the same time, all older level crossings were upgraded to the state of the art with flashing lights. The crossing at Bahnhofstraße in Holzheim had been equipped with a full barrier and a gatekeeper who visually checked whether the tracks were free of vehicles; this is now done with a radar scanner.

The Regionalbahn service (Erft-Bahn) operates from Düsseldorf Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) to Cologne Messe/Deutz via Neuss, Grevenbroich, Bedburg, Bergheim without stopping in Horrem, although half the services terminate in Horrem instead of running to Cologne. The service has the line number of RB 38 and is operated every half hour (between Neuss and Grevenbroich and between Bedburg and Quad-Ichendorf) or hourly (elsewhere) by DB Regio NRW. Between Düsseldorf and Neuss it runs along the Mönchengladbach–Düsseldorf line and between Horrem and Cologne it runs along the Cologne–Aachen high-speed line.