Ruhrort-Crefeld District Gladbach Railway Company

The Royal Division of the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway (German: Königliche Direction der Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn) was a railway division controlled by the Prussian government that was founded in 1850 and taken over by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company in 1862. It was based in Aachen and founded on 4 March 1850, taking over the operation from 1 April 1850 of two railway companies that had been working together since their founding:

The Ruhrort-Crefeld District Gladbach Railway Company built the Homberg am Rhein via Krefeld to Viersen with a length of 33.6 kilometres and opened it on 15 October 1849. Because of financial difficulties, the company received a government guarantee on its interest payments. Under an agreement of 26 September 1846, it was agreed that the Prussian state would be responsible for both companies in order to promote construction and operation of the railways.

As of 1 April 1850, the two railway companies came under the management of the Royal Division of the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway in Aachen.

Lines were opened as follows:

Rheinstation was a freight station only, where goods could be transferred to river boats on the Rhine or loaded on carts to be hauled over the Düsseldorf pontoon bridge, opened in 1839.

The initiative for the railway line came from the industrialists of Krefeld and Mönchengladbach, who intended to give domestic industry cheap access to raw materials from overseas via the port of Antwerp and to cheap supplies of coal from the Ruhr. At the same time the rail links would facilitate the marketing of their products. To avoid the difficult transhipment of goods for the crossing of the Rhine–the military had not allowed the construction of a railway bridge from Ruhrort to Homberg–the Ruhrort-Crefeld District Gladbach Railway Company signed a contract on 29 March 1849 with the Cologne-Minden Railway Company to operate a train ferry for freight wagons and passenger carriages across the river between Ruhrort and Homberg.

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