Heller Valley Railway

Betzdorf–Haiger railway
Overview
Native name	Hellertalbahn
Locale	Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia
Line number	2651
Technical
Line length	36.4 km (22.6 mi)
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Route number	462
Route map  Operating points and lines  Sieg Railway from Cologne 82.9 Betzdorf (Sieg)(wedge station) Sieg Railway to Siegen Alsdorf Tunnel (131 m) Daade Valley Railway to Daaden 84.7 Grünebacherhütte (works) 85.7 Grünebach Ort 86.9 Sassenroth 88.0 Königsstollen Herdorf Tunnel (137 m) 90.1 Herdorf Freier Grund Railway Rhineland-Palatinate–NRW state border 91.5 Struthütten 92.9 Altenseelbach 93.9 Neunkirchen (Kr Siegen) 95.4 Zeppenfeld 96.8 Wiederstein 98.9 Wahlbach (Kr Siegen) 100.9 Burbach (Kr Siegen) 104.7 Würgendorf Ort Connection to Dynamit Nobel 105.9 Würgendorf 109.0 Holzhausen (Kr Siegen) 111.3 Niederdresselndorf NRW–Hesse state border 116.3 Allendorf (Dillkr) 117.3 Haiger Obertor to Breitscheid from Siegen 119.3 Haiger(wedge station) to Gießen

The Betzdorf–Haiger railway, also known in German as the Hellertalbahn (Heller Valley Railway), is a 36 kilometre long, single-track main line from Betzdorf to Haiger. The end points of the line are in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. Between Struthütten and Niederdresselndorf it runs through North Rhine-Westphalia. It was built by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company between 1859 and 1862 as part of its line from Deutz and is one of the oldest railways in Germany. Passenger services are operated by the DreiLänderBahn. Trains run from Betzdorf via Haiger to Dillenburg, partly over a section of the Dill line.

The Heller Valley Railway was built in several stages between 1859 and 1862 by the Cologne-Minden Railway as part of the Deutz–Gießen railway, the main line connecting Cologne-Deutz and Gießen. Because of increasing traffic and its military significance in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, track on the line was duplicated in 1871.

The decline of the Heller Valley Railway began in 1915 when the extension of the Dill line was opened to Siegen via Rudersdorf. Both the high-quality passenger services and the bulk of freight traffic now used the new route to Gießen and onto the Rhine-Main area. In addition ore mining had begun to decline in the Siegerland. The line was further downgraded with the electrification of the Ruhr-Sieg and Dill lines in the mid-1960s. This was followed in 1965 by the dismantling of the second track between Herdorf and Haiger. Due to the decline in passengers, Deutsche Bundesbahn eventually requested permission to close the line. There were plans for the line to be electrified together with the Sieg line, but they were not followed up.

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Wikipedia