State:

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz .... , Hesse Hesse Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

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The Lahn Valley Railway is a railway line between Niederlahnstein

Niederlahnstein

Niederlahnstein is a part of the city of Lahnstein in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany.-Description and history:Niederlahnstein is situated on the right bank of the Rhine. In 1905, it had a population of 4,351 people. By 1939, this had grown to 6,812. It has two Roman Catholic churches. In 1911, the...

 in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

 to Wetzlar

Wetzlar

Wetzlar is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. Located at 8° 30′ E, 50° 34′ N, Wetzlar straddles the river Lahn and is on the German Timber-Framework Road which passes mile upon mile of half-timbered houses. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Lahn-Dill-Kreis on the north edge of...

 in Hesse

Hesse

Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

. Its western terminus was originally in Oberlahnstein

Oberlahnstein

Oberlahnstein is a part of the city of Lahnstein in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. It lies on the right bank of the Rhine, at the confluence of the Lahn 4 m. above Koblenz, on the Right Rhine railway from Cologne to Frankfurt-on-Main...

. Trains now mostly operate between Koblenz and Gießen. The line was opened by the Nassau Rhine and Lahn Railway Company and the Nassau State Railway

Nassau State Railway

The Nassau State Railway took over the privately built railway lines on the Rhine and Lahn rivers in the Duchy of Nassau from the Nassau Rhine and Lahn Railway Company in 1861 and extended them further...

 between 1858 and 1863 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.

Route

The line is listed by Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

 as timetable route number 625 and track route number 3710.

The route is mostly not electrified, the exception is the short Eschhofen–Limburg an der Lahn section, which is part of the electrified Frankfurt Hbf–Limburg line, and the section between Wetzlar and Giessen, which is now part of the Dill Railway. The railway follows the largely winding course of the Lahn valley. It is only a few metres above the river’s surface and is characterised by numerous bridges and tunnels. It is therefore extremely scenic.

As the line has never been fundamentally modernised, its numerous engineering structures, semaphore signals

Railway semaphore signal

One of the earliest forms of fixed railway signal is the semaphore. These signals display their different indications to train drivers by changing the angle of inclination of a pivoted 'arm'. Semaphore signals were patented in the early 1840s by Joseph James Stevens, and soon became the most...

 and accompanying telegraph

Telegraphy

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...

 lines have been preserved. The Hessian section of the line is a listed monument under the Hessian Heritage Act.

The winding line is not suitable for higher speeds. The Lahn Valley line is one of few major lines in Germany, which is not electrified. Electrification would be very expensive since many of its 18 tunnels and bridges have low clearances, which would also prevent the use of double deck carriages.

History

After the Taunus Railway (Taunus-Eisenbahn) reached Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...

 from Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

 in 1840, a private company was founded to continue the line along the Rhine. This was originally called the Wiesbaden Railway Company (Wiesbadener Eisenbahngesellschaft). In 1853 it was renamed the Nassau Rhine Railway Company (Nassauische Rhein Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) when it received a concession to build and operate the Nassau Rhine Valley Railway between Wiesbaden and Niederlahnstein. The Nassau government initially opposed the construction of a line in the Lahn valley because it had invested massively since1844 in the development of the Lahn as a waterway. In 1855 the company received a provisional concession for the Lahn Valley Railway and it was renamed the Nassau Rhine and Lahn Railway Company (Nassauische Rhein- und Lahn Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft).The permanent concession for the Lahn valley line was issued on 31 March 1857. The first plan for the line was prepared by the Belgian railway engineer, Frans Splingard from 1849 to 1851.

A first section of the line from Oberlahnstein to Bad Ems

Bad Ems

Bad Ems is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the county seat of the Rhein-Lahn rural district and is well known as a bathing resort on the river Lahn...

 was opened on 1 July 1858, but shortly afterwards it was buried by a landslide. Since the Nassau Rhine and Lahn Railway Company lacked the will and the necessary capital for the speedy construction of the lines, the Duchy of Nassau in 1857 withdrew its concessions, nationalised the company, and built and operated the lines as the Nassau State Railway (Nassauische Staatsbahn). The Lahn Valley Railway, as it exists today was essentially conceived by the railway engineer, Moritz Hilf in 1860. It was opened in three sections and completed on 10 January 1863. The extension of the line had more than six kilometres of tunnels. The architect and royal railway and operations supervisor, Heinrich Velde was responsible for the buildings, particularly the railway stations, the station master’s houses and the tunnel portals.

With the end of the Duchy as an independent state as a result of the Austro-Prussian War

Austro-Prussian War

The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...

, the Nassau State Railway was absorbed by the Prussian State Railways

Prussian state railways

The term Prussian state railways encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia...

. Subsequently a direct connection was opened to Niederlahnstein on the main line on 15 May 1879.

Following the establishment of the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 in 1871, the Lahn Valley Railway from Koblenz to Wetzlar was extended to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 as the Berlin–Wetzlar railway, part of the so-called Cannons Railway

Cannons Railway

The Cannons Railway is the vernacular name of a former German military strategic railway between Berlin and Metz via Güsten, Wetzlar, Koblenz and Trier...

 (Kanonenbahn), a strategic military railway from Berlin to Metz

Metz

Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...

 via Wetzlar, Koblenz and Trier

Trier

Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....

. As a result the Lahn valley line was upgraded with a second track, laid between 1875 and 1880. While the whole line was duplicated at that time, several sections between Koblenz and Limburg were rebuilt with single track after the Second World War, between Niederlahnstein and Hohenrhein, between Dausenau

Dausenau

Dausenau is a municipality in the district of Rhein-Lahn, in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany.Dausenau was one of the oldest possessions of the counts of Nassau and the arms thus show the lion of Nassau. The village was granted city rights in 1348, but these west later lost again...

 and Nassau

Nassau, Germany

Nassau is a town located in the German Land of Rhineland-Palatinate. It lies in the Lahn River valley between the cities of Bad Ems and Limburg an der Lahn. Nassau is the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Nassau. The town is on the German-Dutch holiday road, the Orange Route...

 and between Fachingen and Balduinstein

Balduinstein

Balduinstein is a municipality in the district of Rhein-Lahn, in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany....

.

Operations

During the planning for the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line consideration was given to relocating the Lahn Valley Railway between the stations of Limburg

Limburg (Lahn) station

Limburg station is a station of the city of Limburg an der Lahn in the German state of Hesse. It is on the Lahn Valley Railway , running between Koblenz and Gießen. The only section of this that is electrified in the Limburg area is between Limburg freight yard and Eschhofen station...

 and Eschhofen so that a common interchange station could be built near Limburg. It was determined that this would have incurred significant additional costs. Instead it was decided to relocate the Lower Westerwald Railway from Limburg to Siershahn

Siershahn

Siershahn is an Ortsgemeinde – a community belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde – in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.-History:Clay finds from La Tène times have been unearthed here...

, moving Montabaur

Montabaur

Montabaur is a town and the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. At the same time, it is also the administrative centre of the Verbandsgemeinde of Montabaur – a kind of collective municipality – to which 24 other communities belong...

 station to the new ICE station.

Passengers

Until the late 1970s, there were long-distance trains on the Lahn Valley Railway, including a pair of express trains to and from Trier to Westerland. Some timetables had an express train on the Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

–Trier–Koblenz route, continuing on the Lahn valley line to Gießen.

Services on the Lahn valley line were for many years shared between locomotive-hauled trains and diesel multiple unit

Diesel multiple unit

A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple unit train consisting of multiple carriages powered by one or more on-board diesel engines. They may also be referred to as a railcar or railmotor, depending on country.-Design:...

s (DMUs). Express trains were usually formed with class V 200 locomotives

DB class V 200

DB Class V 200.0 was one of the first diesel-hydraulic express locomotives of the German Deutsche Bundesbahn and - as Am 4/4 - of the SBB-CFF-FFS in Switzerland.-DB Service:...

 and "standard carriages" (UIC-X-Wagen). At the end of the 1980s, the picture changed with the arrival of brand-new class 628

DB Class 628

The DB Class 628 is a twin-car, diesel multiple unit operated by the Deutsche Bahn AG for local passenger rail services.- Design :...

 DMUs, which eventually displaced many DMUs and locomotive-hauled trains. The latter services continued until December 2004, initially for many years with class 212

DB Class V 100

These DB Class V 100 diesel locomotives were produced in the late 1950s by the Deutsche Bundesbahn for non-electrified branch lines as a replacement for steam locomotives...

 and 216

DB Class V 160

The Class V 160 is a class of diesel-hydraulic locomotives of the German railways. It is the first variant of the V160 family, built for the Deutsche Bundesbahn for medium/heavy trains....

 locomotives, which were from 1998 onwards replaced by class 215s

DB Class 215

The DB Class 215 is a 4 axle diesel locomotive of the V 160 type. They were built for the German Federal Railways for passenger and freight service on secondary and primary routes, and later passed to the Deutsche Bahn AG....

, which were in turn replaced in December 2002 with class 218s

DB Class 218

The DB Class 218 are a class of 4 axle, diesel hydraulic locomotives acquired by the Deutsche Bundesbahn for use on main and secondary lines for both passenger and freight trains....

. The trains initially consisted of standard carriages, and later were formed increasingly from Silberling

Silberling

Silberling is the colloquial name for the n-coaches of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, a type of regional passenger coach of which more than 7,000 units were built from 1958 to 1981...

 carriages. Except for commuter and school services, passenger trains were almost entirely provided by DMUs.

Since the timetable change in December 2008, Regional-Express services have been provided by class 612

RegioSwinger

The RegioSwinger is a tilting Diesel Multiple Unit passenger train used for fast regional traffic on unelectrified lines.- Development and Service :...

 DMUs with active tilting technology

Tilting train

A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest due to...

, which allowed travel times between Limburg and Gießen to be shortened by about eleven minutes. Since the end of October 2009, two incidents in relation to the tilting system has led to it being switched off, delaying trains by about 10 to 15 minutes.

Between Limburg and Gießen Regionalbahn

RegionalBahn

The Regionalbahn is a type of local passenger train in Germany.-Service:Regionalbahn trains usually call at all stations on a given line, with the exception of RB trains within S-Bahn networks, these may only call at selected stations...

 trains operate usually hourly Monday to Friday, and half hourly in peak periods. On weekends they operate every two hours. The regional train services are operated by DB Regio

DB Regio

DB Regio AG is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn which operates short and medium distance passenger train services in Germany, and operates light and heavy rail infrastructure in the United Kingdom.-Germany:...

 with class 628 DMUs. Since the timetable change in 2006, some regional services are provided by Vogelsbergbahn and run continuously between Limburg and Fulda.

On the Rhineland-Palatinate section between Limburg and Koblenz, Regionalbahn services are now mainly operated by the private operator vectus Verkehrsgesellschaft, using LINT 27 and LINT 41 railcars, usually every hour.

The following is a summary of the current passenger service on the Lahn Valley Railway (DB Timetable 2010):

Type		Line	Comments	Train class	Company
Regional-Express		Koblenz Hbf–Limburg (Lahn) Limburg (Lahn) station Limburg station is a station of the city of Limburg an der Lahn in the German state of Hesse. It is on the Lahn Valley Railway , running between Koblenz and Gießen. The only section of this that is electrified in the Limburg area is between Limburg freight yard and Eschhofen station... -Gießen Gießen station Gießen railway station is the main railway station in Gießen, Hesse, Germany. The station is a Category 2 station is used by 20,000 passengers daily. The station was opened on 25 August 1850 and is located on the Main-Weser Railway and Dill railway . The current station reception building was...	120 minute frequency	DB BR 612	DB Regio AG
Regionalbahn		Koblenz Hbf–Nassau–Bad Ems Bad Ems Bad Ems is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the county seat of the Rhein-Lahn rural district and is well known as a bathing resort on the river Lahn... –Limburg (Lahn) Limburg (Lahn) station Limburg station is a station of the city of Limburg an der Lahn in the German state of Hesse. It is on the Lahn Valley Railway , running between Koblenz and Gießen. The only section of this that is electrified in the Limburg area is between Limburg freight yard and Eschhofen station...	60 minute frequency plus extras in peak	Coradia Lint 27 / 41	vectus Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH
Regionalbahn		Limburg (Lahn) Limburg (Lahn) station Limburg station is a station of the city of Limburg an der Lahn in the German state of Hesse. It is on the Lahn Valley Railway , running between Koblenz and Gießen. The only section of this that is electrified in the Limburg area is between Limburg freight yard and Eschhofen station... -Weilburg-Wetzlar Wetzlar station Wetzlar station is a through station in the city of Wetzlar in the German state of Hesse on the Dill and Lahn Valley Railways. It is the most important public transport node in Wetzlar together with the adjacent bus station.-History:... -Gießen Gießen station Gießen railway station is the main railway station in Gießen, Hesse, Germany. The station is a Category 2 station is used by 20,000 passengers daily. The station was opened on 25 August 1850 and is located on the Main-Weser Railway and Dill railway . The current station reception building was...	60 minute frequency extras in peak / partly by connection with Alsfeld (Oberhessen), Fulda	DB BR 628	DB Regio AG

Freight

Since the decline of mining in the Lahn valley there has been little freight on the line. Up to the 1990s regular freight traffic gradually came to a standstill. The Löhnberg

Löhnberg

Löhnberg is a community north of Weilburg in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany.- Neighbouring communities :Löhnberg borders in the north on the community of Greifenstein, in the east on the towns of Leun and Braunfels , in the south on the town of Weilburg, and in the west on the...

–Wetzlar section for many years had no freight. Many goods yards and the extensive system of track that existed before the turn of the century were largely eliminated.

The situation has changed since the 1980s as all trains for the transport of clay mined in the Westerwald

Westerwald

The Westerwald is a low mountain range on the right bank of the River Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhine Massif...

 and bound for Italy have since the closure of the Brexbach Valley Railway between Engers

Engers

Engers is an district of Neuwied on the right banks of the river Rhine in Germany located next to Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate.Engers has 5,367 inhabitants. It is highwater-endangered by its direct contact with the river Rhine.- City history :...

 and Siershahn

Siershahn

Siershahn is an Ortsgemeinde – a community belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde – in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.-History:Clay finds from La Tène times have been unearthed here...

 travelled via Limburg. Loaded clay wagons from the Westerwald are assembled into unit trains in Limburg. These trains then run over the Main-Lahn line to Frankfurt, Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

 and Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, mainly continuing to Domodossola in northern Italy. Therefore, Limburg station still has an extensive goods yard. Clay is transported by truck from the mines in the adjacent Westerwald to Löhnberg station, where it is loaded on the Lahn Valley Railway. Thus, Limburg and Löhnberg are the only stations on the Lahn valley line that still handle freight.