Heinsberg (Rheinland) station

Heinsberg (Rheinland)
Terminal station
Heinsberg (Rheinl) station, about 1900
Location	Heinsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia Germany
Coordinates	51°03′53″N 6°05′58″E / 51.064668°N 6.099558°E / 51.064668; 6.099558Coordinates: 51°03′53″N 6°05′58″E / 51.064668°N 6.099558°E / 51.064668; 6.099558
Line(s)	Heinsberg–Lindern railway
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	n/a
DS100 code	KHEB
IBNR	8002721
History
Opened	1890
Services
Preceding station   Deutsche Bahn   Following station Heinsberg Kreishaus toward Aachen Hbf RB 33 Rhein-Niers-Bahn Terminus

Heinsberg (Rheinland) station is a terminus in Heinsberg in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and is at the end of the Lindern–Heinsberg railway. The entrance building and the freight sheds were successively demolished in 1997 after the closure of the passenger service in 1980, the end of freight traffic to Heinsberg in 1994 and the closure of the line between Oberbruch and Heinsberg in 1997. In preparation for the reactivation of passenger services on 15 December 2013, a new island platform was erected to the east of the site of the demolished entrance building.

The station is located on the northeast edge of the town centre. The Heinsberg Galerie, a shopping centre, is next to the station. The station is bordered to the east by the Heinsberg commercial area, where there used to be a siding to a timber yard.

Heinsberg gained its first railway connection in 1890 with the construction of the Heinsberger Bahn (Heinsberg Railway), also called Wurmtalbahn (Wurm Valley Railway). After long consideration of the possibilities for extending the railway, the station was built as a terminus. The entrance building was then located on the area that is between the current bus station and medical centre. It was almost identical with that of the neighbouring Dremmen station, but the signal box was in the entrance building and not in a glass annex, as in Dremmen. There were two waiting rooms in Heinsberg. A freight handling facility was established directly next to the reception building with its own loading track.

The station was destroyed in the Second World War. The remains of the entrance building were demolished and were never rebuilt, instead a wood shed was built as a temporary station. The rail tracks were rebuilt by volunteers.

A new entrance building was opened in 1951 with a separate freight area to its south. On the tracks and the platform there was a glass annex, similar to at the Dremmen station. This contained a signal box and the ticket office. All part of the platform were covered. There was also a canopy over the entrance from the street. Passenger traffic was handled on only one track and the remaining tracks were used for freight and sidings to the timber yard and the gas works. The passenger traffic was abandoned in 1980. A few years later, the entrance building was demolished to make way for a new bus station. The track layout was partly demolished to make room for the Heinsberg-Galerie.

Heinsberg was originally intended to be reopened for rail traffic in 2008, but due to reductions in subsidies, the reactivation of the railway line was delayed, so that the reactivation was then due in 2012. In October 2011, the first edition of the West-Express, a publication of the infrastructure manager Rurtalbahn, announced that a Park and Ride facility would be built in Heinsberg. The journey time from Lindern to Heinsberg, including stops, would be 17 minutes.