Preußen–Münster railway

Preußen–Münster
Route number:	411
Line length:	45
Track gauge:	1435
Maximum speed:	160
Trunk line to Hamburg Line from Rheine, line from Enschede Warendorf Railway from Rheda-Wiedenbrück 45.2 Münster Hbf Baumberge Railway to Coesfeld 44.3 Münster freight yard Line to Hamm 42.3 Geist Line to Wanne-Eickel 42.1 Münster (Westf) Preußenstadion Münster freight bypass 36.2 Münster-Amelsbüren 29.2 Davensberg 25.2 Ascheberg (Westf) 19.9 Capelle (Westf) 12,4 Werne (a d Lippe) 10.0 IKEA Werne siding Line from Dülmen 3.3 Lünen HbfKeilbahnhof Connecting line to Lünen Süd Lünen Süd junction–Horstmar line Connecting line from Horstmar 0.0 Preußen Line to Dortmund

The Preußen–Münster railway is a 45 kilometre-long, largely single-track and electrified main line railway from Münster to Lünen in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is served by a Regionalbahn service called Der Lüner.

The line was built by the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (German State Railway Company) to create a direct connection between the Westphalian cities of Dortmund and Münster. The new line was built from the station of Preußen on the Dortmund–Enschede line to Munster and opened on 18 October 1928.

On 8 March 1990, the line had to be closed due to the collapse of an embankment. Repairs continued for more than a year, until the line was re-opened to passenger traffic was on 2 June 1991.

The line was originally built with a single-track with the embankment wide enough for a second track. With the increasing traffic volumes serving the mining and steel industry, the line was expected to be duplicated. However, this never occurred because of war and inflation.

Furthermore, there was a plan to build a line from a branch on the Dortmund–Hamm line east of Dortmund-Scharnhorst station to Werne on the line to Munster. This would have sped up long-distance services between Dortmund and Münster by avoiding the tight curves at the station exit from Dortmund and at Lünen and the tight curve on the approach to Werne. It would have also avoided the disruption to services caused by incoming and outgoing trains crossing each other's tracks on the eastern approach to Dortmund station. These plans were never implemented in practice.

The duplication of the line and upgrading of the track for a top speed of 200 km/h was listed in the 2003 Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan and classified as a "priority project". On 12 December 2008 the upgrading of the line was approved. The implementation of the plans, however, is still expected to take a few years.

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Wikipedia