The Hellweg net consists of the four

Regionalbahn The ''Regionalbahn'' (; lit. Regional train; abbreviated ''RB'') is a train categories in Europe, type of Regional rail, local passenger train (stopping train) in Germany. It is similar to the Regionalzug (R) and Regio (Swiss railway train), R ...

lines in the German state of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

: RB 50 (

Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...

–

Lünen Lünen () is a town with around 86,000 inhabitants in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located north of Dortmund, on both banks of the Lippe (river), River Lippe. It is the largest town of the Unna (district), Unna district and part of the R ...

–

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

), RB 59 (Dortmund –

Unna Unna () is a city of around 59,000 people in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the seat of the Unna (district), Unna district. The newly refurbished Unna station has trains to all major cities in North Rhine Westphalia including Dortmund, Köln H ...

– Soest), RB 69 (Münster –

Hamm Hamm may refer to: Places ;Germany: * Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia, a city north-east of Dortmund * Hamm (Sieg), a municipality in the eponymous ''Verbandsgemeinde'' in the district of Altenkirchen, Rhineland-Palatinate * Hamm, Bitburg-Prüm, part ...

–

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region () of Detmold (region), Detmold and the L ...

) and RB 89 (Münster – Hamm –

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn (district), Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pade ...

–

Warburg Warburg (; Westphalian: ''Warberich'' or ''Warborg'') is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, central Germany on the river Diemel near the three-state point shared by Hessen, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is in Höxter distr ...

). It has a length of about 370 km. The RB 50 is referred to as ''Der Lüner'', the RB 59 as ''Die Hellweg-Bahn'' and the RB 69 and RB 89 together as ''Die Ems-Börde-Bahn''. On 14 December 2008 operations were taken over by ''

eurobahn Eurobahn GmbH & Co. KG is a railway operator in Germany, established in 1998. It operates 15 regional train services in 4 contracts in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with cross-border services including Lower Saxony and the Netherlands. ...

'' (own capitalisation). Previously these four Regionalbahn services were operated by ''

DB Regio DB Regio AG () is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn which operates regional and commuter train services in Germany. It is a 100% subsidiary of the Deutsche Bahn Group and therefore part of the DB Regio business segment, which also includes DB Regionn ...

NRW''.

Tender

The ''Hellweg'' network was announced in March 2006. This was one of the largest rail networks to be put to tender in Germany. Tenders were submitted by ''

Abellio Abellio (also Abelio and Abelionni) was a god worshiped in the Garonne Valley in Gallia Aquitania (now southwest France), known primarily by a number of inscriptions which were discovered in Comminges, in the Pyrenees. He may have been a god ...

Rail NRW'', ''DB Regio NRW'', ''Arriva Deutschland'' (now Netinera),'' Rhenus Keolis'' and the ''

Hamburger Hochbahn Hamburger Hochbahn AG (HHA), founded in 1911, operates the Hamburg U-Bahn, underground system and large parts of the bus system in Hamburg, Germany. Its name comes from the initial name given to the Hamburg metro system, ''Hochbahn'' (German: ''el ...

'' together with ''moBiel'' (the Bielefeld municipal transport company). The winner of the tender was the then ''Rhenus Keolis GmbH & Co. KG'', a joint venture, which on 1 January 2007 was divided between the two partners. It was put into operation by ''

Keolis Keolis is a French transportation company that operates public transport systems all over the world. It manages bus, rapid transit, tram, coach networks, rental bikes, car parks, water taxi, cable car, trolleybus, and funicular services. B ...

Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG'' under the brand name of ''eurobahn''.

General

The contract for the operation of the Hellweg network was closed on 14 July 2008. It covers a volume of 5.6 million train-km per year and is valid for ten years. The contractors are ''Nahverkehrsverbund Paderborn-Höxter'' (

Höxter Höxter () is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany on the left bank of the river Weser, 52 km north of Kassel. It lies the heart of the Weser Uplands, and is the seat of the Höxter district. The district of Höxter has a popul ...

local transport, nph),

Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (), abbreviated VRR, is a public transport association (Verkehrsverbund) in the Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It covers large parts of the Ruhr, Ruhr area, the Lower Rhine region including Düsse ...

(Rhine-Ruhr transport association, VRR), ''VerkehrsVerbund OstWestfalenLippe'' (

Ostwestfalen-Lippe Ostwestfalen-Lippe (, literally ''East(ern) Westphalia-Lippe'', abbreviation OWL) is the eastern region of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, congruent with the administrative region of Detmold and containing the eastern part of Wes ...

transport association, VVOWL), ''Zweckverband Ruhr-Lippe'' (Ruhr-Lippe purpose association, ZRL) and ''Zweckverband SPNV Münsterland'' (Münsterland public transport association, ZVM) as public transport authorities and Eurobahn as operator. The existing timetable was maintained. The Eurobahn bought 25 new four-part

Stadler FLIRT Stadler FLIRT (, ) is a passenger multiple unit trainset made by Stadler Rail of Switzerland. The baseline design of FLIRT is an electric multiple unit Articulated car, articulated trainset that can come in units of two to twelve cars with two t ...

railcars for operation on the Hellweg network. These replaced older

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

vehicles. The increased comfort of the new train sets as well as the fully functioning ticket machine in the train were well received by passengers. A workshop was built in Hamm-Heessen for servicing Eurobahn's Flirt railcars with a capacity of 43 vehicles. It was taken into full operation in the summer of 2009. The company plans to employ 200 people there.

RB 50: Der Lüner

''Der Lüner'' (meaning the person/thing from Lünen) connects Dortmund via Lünen with Munster. Services run from

Dortmund Hauptbahnhof Dortmund Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The station's origins lie in a joint station of the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn and Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn which was built north of the city cen ...

via

Münster Hauptbahnhof Münster Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in the city of Münster in Germany. History The original Münster station was opened in 1848 by the Münster-Hamm Railway Company, when it opened by the Münster–Hamm railway to the then capit ...

initially over a section of the

Dortmund–Gronau railway The Dortmund–Gronau railway is an international railway connecting the eastern Ruhr district of Germany to Gronau, which was built by the ''Dortmund-Gronau-Enschede Railway Company''. History The ''Dortmund-Gronau-Enschede Railway Company'' ...

. From Lünen they run on the

Preußen–Münster railway 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''. Hi ...

Development

The RB 50 had a difficult start. Because the workshop in Hamm-Heessen had not yet been completed, the maintenance of all new railcars was carried out in the

WestfalenBahn WestfalenBahn is a railway company operating regional train service in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, Northern Germany. It was founded in 2005 by Essener Versorgungs & Verkehrsgesellschaft, Minden Museum Railway, moBiel and Verkehrsb ...

workshop in

Rheine Rheine () is a city in the district of Steinfurt (district), Steinfurt in Westphalia, Germany. It is the largest city in the district and the location of Rheine Air Base. Geography Rheine is on the river Ems (river), Ems, about north of Münster ...

. Hence, bottlenecks often occurred that initially forced to use of one-part train sets. In the winter of 2008/2009 the entire Hellweg network was affected, but RB 50 was most frequently operated with one-part trains, which reduced the space available for passengers and caused crowded trains. The state of a platform in Preußen station, which serves the districts of Lünen-Horstmar and Lünen-South, prompted the

Federal Railway Authority The German Federal Railway Authority (, ) has been the independent federal authority for the regulation of the railways in Germany since 1 January 1994. It is under the supervision and direction of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transpo ...

in early May 2009 to ban the trains stopping at a curved part of the platform there. As a first response, Eurobahn again ran one-part trains that did not have to stop on the curved part of the platform. In mid-May the originally planned two-part trains ran again, but with trains running from Dortmund to Preußen not stopping, which also solved the problem. Preußen station was only served by trains from Dortmund by the parallel service, the RB 51 ( Westmünsterland-Bahn). Eurobahn put additional assisting staff in Preußen station at the beginning of 20 May 2009, so that the operation of the full timetable was possible. Eurobahn called on

DB Station&Service DB Station&Service was a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, responsible for managing over 5,400 train stations on the German railway network. On 1 January 2024, it merged with DB Netz to form DB InfraGO.Gronau to

Enschede Enschede (; local ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the province of Overijssel and the Twente region of the eastern Netherlands. The east of the urban area reaches ...

RB 59: Hellweg-Bahn

The ''Hellweg-Bahn'' follows the

Dortmund–Soest railway The Dortmund–Soest railway is a line in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It runs from Dortmund Hauptbahnhof through the southern Dortmund district of Holzwickede to Unna and from there through the Hellweg Börde parallel to the Haar ...

. Its name refers to the Westphalian

Hellweg In the Middle Ages, Hellweg was the official and common name given to main travelling routes in Germany. Their breadth was decreed as an unimpeded passageway a lance's width, about three metres, which the landholders, through which the Hellweg pa ...

, a medieval road that followed a similar route.

Development

Eurobahn took over from three-part

push–pull train Push–pull is a configuration for locomotive-hauled trains, allowing them to be driven from either end of the train, whether having a locomotive at each end or not. A push–pull train has a locomotive at one end of the train, connected vi ...

s operated by DB Regio NRW. Its trains consisted of modernised, red

Silberling The n-Wagen ("n-coaches") are a type of passenger coach used by Deutsche Bundesbahn and subsequently Deutsche Bahn. With two double-leafed doors per side to enable a high passenger throughput rate, the coaches were conceived for short dwell ...

carriages hauled by class 110 locomotives, veteran rollingstock from the days of

Deutsche Bundesbahn Deutsche Bundesbahn (, ) or DB () was formed as the state railway of the newly established West Germany (FRG) on 7 September 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). The DB remained the state railway of West Germany u ...

. At the end of 2007 these trains were so often affected by dirt and technical defects that the ''Zweckverband Ruhr-Lippe'' sought an early takeover of the operation by Eurobahn in November 2007. However, this could not be realized.

Service

The service runs every half hour during the week and every hour on the weekend. In Soest, there is a guaranteed connection to the RB 69/RB 89 towards Paderborn.

RB 69/89: Ems-Börde-Bahn

The ''Ems-Börde-Bahn'' consists of the two services, the RB 69 and the RB 89, connecting Bielefeld and Paderborn hourly with Hamm and Munster. Its name refers to the

Ems river The Ems ( ; ) is a river in northwestern Germany. It runs through the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, and discharges into the Dollart Bay which is part of the Wadden Sea. Its total length is . The state border between th ...

and the

Hellweg Börde The Hellweg Börde (German: ''Hellwegbörde'') is a '' börde'' landscape and natural region on the southern edge of the Westphalian Lowland in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which embraces the old Hellweg trading route cities and tow ...

(a fertile plain). Services start in Munster and run over the

Münster–Hamm railway The Münster–Hamm railway is an almost 36 kilometre-long, continuous double-track and electrified main line railway from Münster to Hamm in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was one of Germany's oldest railways, built by the ''Mu ...

to Hamm. From there the RB 69 runs over the

Hamm–Minden railway The Hamm–Minden Railway is an important and historically significant railway in Germany. It is completely quadruple track. It is a major axis for long distance passenger and freight trains between the Ruhr and the north and east of Germany. ...

to Bielefeld and the RB 89 runs over the

Hamm–Warburg railway The Hamm–Warburg railway is a 131 km long main line railway in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is part of an east-west line, known as the ''Mid-Germany Connection'' (), and is served by Intercity (Deutsche Bahn), InterCity t ...

to Warburg.

Development

The predecessors of the services were the DB Regio NRW-operated ''Westfalenbahn'' from Bielefeld/Paderborn via Hamm and Münster to Rheine. Because of the similarity of the name with the WestfalenBahn GmbH company, which was established in 2005, it was renamed the Ems-Börde-Bahn, referring to the

and the county of

Börde A ''börde'' (; plural: ''börden'') is a region of highly fertile lowland in North Germany, a "fertile plain". These landscapes often cover great areas and are particularly important for arable farming on account of their rich soils. These reg ...

Service

The RB 89 service runs between Münster and Paderborn every half hour from Monday to Friday and every hour on weekends. The RB 69 runs between Münster and Bielefeld hourly each day, this service route connects with the RB 89 in Hamm, where trains on the two routes are coupled (or uncoupled if running in the opposite direction). The section of the train running as RB 89 continues from Hamm via Soest and

Lippstadt Lippstadt () is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the largest town within the district of Soest. Lippstadt is situated about 60 kilometres east of Dortmund, 40 kilometres south of Bielefeld and 30 kilometres west of Paderborn. Geo ...

to Paderborn, continuing every two hours to Warburg. Individual services in the morning and evening hours since December 2010 have operated to/from Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. Especially on weekends there are additional services to/from Warburg, providing an hourly service during parts of the day on this section. Some trains running to/from Warburg do not stop on weekends at the stations of Borgeln, Dedinghausen, Ehringhausen and Scharmede. In Hamm there are also connections with

Intercity-Express Intercity Express (commonly known as ICE () and running under this Train categories in Europe, category) is a high-speed rail in Germany, high-speed rail system in Germany. It also serves destinations in Austria, France, Belgium, Switzerland an ...

(ICE),

Intercity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the train categories in Europe, classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to InterRegio, regional train, r ...

(IC) and

Regional-Express In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (; RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with a top speed of and an average speed of about as it calls at fewer stations than ''R ...

(RE) services on line RE 1 (

NRW-Express The NRW-Express is a Regional-Express rail service in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), running from Aachen Hauptbahnhof, Aachen via Köln Hauptbahnhof, Cologne, Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof, Düsseldorf, Duisburg Hauptbahnhof, Duisbur ...

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

–

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

–Hamm). In Warburg it connects with the RE 17 ( Sauerland-Express) to Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. Once a day, in both directions, the RB 89 runs directly to Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. The section of the train running as RB 69 continues from Hamm via

Ahlen Ahlen (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Aulen'') is a Town#Germany, town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, 30 km southeast of Münster. Ahlen is part of the Warendorf (district), District of Warendorf and is economically the most impo ...

and Gutersloh to Bielefeld. This service together with the

Rhein-Weser-Express The Rhein Weser Express (RE 6) is a Regional-Express service route in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, connecting some of the most important cities in Westphalia (among others Minden, Bielefeld and Hamm) with the Ruhr (especially Dort ...

(RE 6, Düsseldorf–

Minden Minden () is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the largest town in population between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district () of Minden-Lübbecke, situated in the cultural region ...

) produce a service every half hour. This service is complemented by the RB 67 ( Der Warendorfer) service, which also runs between Münster and Bielefeld (operated until December 2013 by

NordWestBahn The Austrian Northwestern Railway (German: ''Österreichische Nordwestbahn'', ÖNWB, Czech: ''Rakouská severozápadní dráha'') was the name of a former railway company during the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Today, the term is still ...

, but now operated by Eurobahn), but uses the

Warendorf Railway The Warendorf Railway () is a single-track branch line from Münster Hauptbahnhof, Münster via Warendorf to Rheda-Wiedenbrück station, Rheda-Wiedenbrück in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is now served by a train that continues ...

. Although the Warendorf line between

Rheda-Wiedenbrück Rheda-Wiedenbrück (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Raie-Wienbrügge'') is a city in the Gütersloh (district), district of Gütersloh, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography The twin community lies within the valley of the river E ...

and Münster is shorter, Ems-Börde-Bahn services running via Hamm are about 10 minutes faster because of their higher average speed. The ''Ems-Börde-Bahn'' and ''Warendorfer'' operate to the same endpoints in both Rheda-Wiedenbrück and Gütersloh. There are also ICE and IC services between Hamm and Bielefeld.

Fares

The following regional fares apply to the Hellweg network:

(Rhine-Ruhr transport association, based in Dortmund), ''Verkehrsgemeinschaft Münsterland'' (transport community of Münsterland, based in Münster; the fare is called the ''Münsterlandtarif''), ''Verkehrsgemeinschaft Ruhr-Lippe'' (transport community of Ruhr-Lippe, based in Hamm and Soest; the fare is called the ''Ruhr-Lippe-Tarif''), ''Nahverkehrsverbund Paderborn-Höxter'' (local transport association of Paderborn-Höxter; the fare is called the ''Hochstifttarif'', referring to the

Hochstift In the Holy Roman Empire, the German language, German term (plural: ) referred to the territory ruled by a bishop as a prince (i.e. prince-bishop), as opposed to his diocese, generally much larger and over which he exercised only spiritual auth ...

of Paderborn), and ''Verkehrsverbund OstWestfalenLippe'' (transport association of ''OstWestfalenLippe'', based in Bielefeld; the fare is called ''Der Sechser'', meaning “the six”, referring to cooperation zone (''Kooperationsraum'') 6 of the state) and the statewide ''NRW-tariff'' (fare).

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hellweg Net Rail services in North Rhine-Westphalia

Tender

General

RB 50: Der Lüner

Development

RB 59: Hellweg-Bahn

Development

Service

RB 69/89: Ems-Börde-Bahn

Development

Service

Fares

See also

Notes

External links