Herbesthal Railway Station

Herbesthal Railway Station Bahnhof Herbesthal
Frontier station
Herbesthal Railway Station (ca 1900)
Location	Herbesthal (Lontzen), Prussia (1843–1871) Germany (1871–1920) Belgium (1920–1966)
Coordinates	50°39′37.8″N 5°59′10.7″E / 50.660500°N 5.986306°E / 50.660500; 5.986306Coordinates: 50°39′37.8″N 5°59′10.7″E / 50.660500°N 5.986306°E / 50.660500; 5.986306
Platforms	7
History
Opened	1843
Location
Herbesthal Railway Station (1843–1966) Location within Belgium

Herbesthal Railway Station was the Prussian/German frontier station on the main railway from Germany into Belgium between 1843 and 1920. It opened to rail traffic on 15 October 1843, and was thereby the oldest railway station frontier crossing in the world. It lost its border status on 10 January 1920, however, as a result of changes mandated in the Treaty of Versailles, which left Herbesthal more than 10 km (6 miles) inside Belgium.

The station reached its maximum extent following a major redevelopment in 1889. This left it with five mainline platforms (numbered 1-5) and, on the south side of these, two branch line platforms (numbered 12 & 13) for the local service connecting Eupen with the main line. The mainline platform by the newly, in 1889, rebuilt and enlarged station building, had a canopy: the other mainline platforms acquired canopies later.

After the closure of the station in 1966 the platforms were quickly torn up, but the main station building remained, standing empty for many years. Eventually, despite local protests, the main station building itself was torn down in 1983. All that now (2014) remains visible is a couple of foundation stones and steps. During the summer of 2014 the local municipality organised an exhibition on the site, dedicated to the station's history. Plans exist for a more permanent display or exhibition centre.

The goods station was located to the west of the passenger station. After the closure of the passenger station in 1966 part of the goods station was reallocated to Welkenraedt station, a short distance down the line. However, with transport users increasingly favouring roads, Welkenraedt lost its goods station during the 1980s. In 2012 the municipality decided to renovate and reassign some of the abandoned railway buildings. One of them is used for a Youth Club.

Belgium was the second country to start building a railway network, and plans drawn up for a national network in the 1830s already envisaged a connection to Cologne so that industry in Belgium could have a transport link through to the rapidly industrialising Ruhr region in western Prussia without incurring the intervening cost of high Dutch tolls. On the Prussian side of the border the industrialist-investors David Hansemann and Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen seized eagerly on the idea. The Rhine Railway Company ("Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft") obtained the king's agreement in 1837 to the construction of a rail link from Cologne to Aachen, crossing into Belgium at the frontier on the edge of . Herbesthal was a small village of around 300 people, and an earlier idea had been to have the frontier at Eupen, a more substantial town also, then, on the frontier, but this idea had to be rejected for topographical reasons. The company therefore undertook to build a rail link from the proposed mainline to Eupen. The Rhine Railway Company agreed with the Belgian National Railway Company to construct a joint frontier facility at Herbesthal where necessary customs clearance could be undertaken by officials from both countries.