Lower Ruhr Valley Railway


The Lower Ruhr Valley Railway is a former railway in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was opened on 24 January 1876 by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company along the Ruhr to the southwest of the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr and connects Mülheim-Styrum on the Witten/Dortmund–Oberhausen/Duisburg railway and Essen-Kettwig on the Ruhr Valley Railway.

Passenger services

The first passenger services in 1876 ran from Kettwig over the Kettwig railway bridge and the Ruhr bridge in Mülheim to the Mülheim station of the BME, which was later renamed as Mülheim and is now Mülheim West. The passenger service was moved in 1909 to Styrum because the connecting curve to Mülheim BME was upgraded for the expansion of Friedrich Wilhelms-Hütte steel works and Mülheim West station was in the way. At the end of World War II, the two Ruhr bridges were destroyed. Consequently, passenger services from Mülheim had to stop short of the Ruhr bridge at Kettwig and later a station was built there called Kettwig Stausee as a terminus. In Mülheim, the passenger service was diverted over the Broich connecting curve to Speldorf. After the re-establishment of the Mülheim bridge in 1954 both of the north-west end points were served until the abandonment of passenger services in 1968.

History