Hürth-Kalscheuren–Ehrang railway

The Hürth-Kalscheuren–Ehrang railway (also known in German as the Eifelstrecke—Eifel Railway) is a non-electrified line in the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate running from Hürth-Kalscheuren via Euskirchen and Gerolstein to Trier-Ehrang through the Eifel hills. The line is predominantly duplicated north of Densborn. Today it is only served by trains running as far as Köln Messe/Deutz station or Trier Hauptbahnhof. In 1864, the Rhenish Railway Company began construction of the Eifel line from Düren via Euskirchen and Gerolstein to Trier. The section from Düren to Euskirchen is now known as the Börde Railway (Bördebahn). On 1 October 1875, it was connected from Euskirchen with the Left Rhine line at Kalscheuren. Numerous bridges and tunnels on the line as well as the stations at Euskirchen, Weilerswist and Kierberg were built by Hermann Schmalenbach. Before World War I the Prussian railway administration planned that the Eifel line would be one of the first lines in Germany to be electrified. But this failed because of the opposition from the military on the ground that the line was too close to the French border. Also, a connection of the Eifel line with the Bonn–Koblenz line near Sechtem was planned, which was also never implemented (this was part of the Strategischer Bahndamm—"Strategic railway embankment"—a plan to build a western bypass of the rail nodes at Cologne and Düsseldorf to accelerate military mobilisation, although only the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen was ever completed). By the end of World War II, the entire line was duplicated. After the war, the second track in the south was largely dismantled on the orders of the French occupation forces and the track material was taken to France. In the northern section (which was in the British zone), the second track remained in place over almost its entire length, while the southern section continues to be mainly single track. Today the reconstruction of the second track in many places is difficult since its location has been put to other uses, often as a bicycle path parallel to the railway.