German state:	North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

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The NRW-Express is a Regional-Express service in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

 (NRW), running from Aachen

Aachen Hauptbahnhof

Aachen Central Station is the train station for the city of Aachen, in the far west of Germany near the Dutch and Belgian border. It is the largest of the four currently active Aachen stations, and is integrated into the long-distance network.- History :...

 via Cologne

Köln Hauptbahnhof

Köln Hauptbahnhof is the central railway station in Cologne, Germany.The station is an important local, national and international hub, with many ICE, Thalys and Intercity trains calling there, as well as regional RegionalExpress, RegionalBahn and local S-Bahn trains...

, Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Düsseldorf in Germany, state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia.-History:The station was opened on 1 October 1891 opened as Düsseldorf Central Station...

, Essen

Essen Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof for the city of Essen in western Germany. It is situated south of the old town centre, next to the A 40 motorway.It was opened in 1862 by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn...

, Dortmund

Dortmund Hauptbahnhof

is the central station for the city of Dortmund in 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 centre in 1847. That station was replaced by a new station, erected in 1910 at the current site....

 and Hamm to Paderborn

Paderborn Hauptbahnhof

is the main passenger station in the city of Paderborn in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the Hamm–Warburg line, part of the Mid-Germany Connection from Cologne or Düsseldorf to Thuringia and Saxony...

 as line RE 1. The line is operated by DB Regio NRW.

The service has one of the highest levels of patronage in Germany (about 34,500 persons per day, mainly commuters and students) and is susceptible to delays of 3.5 minutes on average per journey.

History

Today's NRW-Express replaced existing express services on individual sections of the route after the regionalisation of transport in Germany. A number of stations previously served by long-distance trains, such as Düsseldorf-Benrath

Düsseldorf-Benrath station

Düsseldorf-Benrath station is about 10 kilometres south of Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof in the Düsseldorf district of Benrath. It is on the Cologne–Duisburg line, and is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 3 station. In addition, Düsseldorf Benrath station is served by two Regional-Express...

 and Wattenscheid

Wattenscheid station

Wattenscheid station is on the Witten/Dortmund–Oberhausen/Duisburg railway. It is one of two stations in the formerly independent city of Wattenscheid, now a district of the city of Bochum in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The other station is Wattenscheid-Höntrop...

 came to be served by regional services only. The NRW-Express was first classified as Regionalschnellbahn ("regional fast train") RSB 1, then as StadtExpress ("city express") SE 1 and eventually as Regional-Express RE 1, when it was also given the name of NRW-Express.

The service originally operated on the Aachen–Bielefeld

Bielefeld Hauptbahnhof

is the central railway station of the city of Bielefeld in Germany. The station was opened in 1847 as part of the Cologne-Minden trunk line. The current building was built in 1910 in the Art Nouveau style.-Train services:...

 route and was composed of class 110 locomotives

DB Class E 10

The class E 10 is an electric locomotive of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, introduced in 1952. It belongs to the Einheits-Elektrolokomotiven program and was built for express passenger service. In 1968 the series was redesignated as class 110 and class 112...

 hauling six partly modernised 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. If necessary, trains had an additional carriage. From the mid-90s, the trains were formed of non air-conditioned double-deck carriages and class 111 locomotives

DB Class 111

The Baureihe 111 is a class of electric locomotives built for the Deutsche Bundesbahn, and now owned by Deutsche Bahn AG.- History :Class 111 is the successor of the Class 110 express Einheitslokomotive...

. Shortly later control cars

Control car (rail)

A control car is a generic term for a non-powered railroad vehicle that can control operation of a train from the end opposite to the position of the locomotive...

 were added, so that push–pull operations could be introduced. From 1998, air-conditioned double-deck carriages were introduced, but only after Expo 2000

Expo 2000

Expo 2000 was a World's Fair held in Hanover, Germany from Thursday, June 1 to Tuesday, October 31, 2000. It was located on the Hanover fairground , which is famous for hosting CeBIT...

 in Hanover

Hanover

Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

 were all services of the NRW-Express operated with new air-conditioned carriages equipped to operate at 160 km/h. The sets were now mostly hauled by class 145 locomotives

DBAG Class 145 and 146

The DBAG Class 145 and DBAG Class 146 are Bo'Bo' mainline electric locomotives built by Adtranz primarily for the Deutsche Bahn at the end of the 1990s. The Class 145 is the freight version for DB Cargo; the Class 146 is the passenger version for DB Regio...

, which had originally been supplied for the Expo.

The class 145 locomotives, with their AC engines, had performed well on services at Expo 2000, so their introduction on the NRW-Express services was hoped to improve on-time running with their better acceleration. A passenger version of class 145, which has a top speed of 140 km/h, was ordered as class 146 with a top speed of 160 km/h in the autumn of 2001 and was first used for the NRW-Express services.

RE 1 provided very attractive travel times between long-distance trains through North Rhine-Westphalia and had good connections in Bielefeld to Hanover, so the train on weekends was heavily used by long-distance travellers to Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 and 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 part of the so-called Wochenend-Ticket-Rennstrecke ("weekend-ticket race track"). This attractiveness became a problem since the trains were often overcrowded. An extension of the trains with an additional carriage failed to overcome this problem because the trains still used single-deck carriages and some platforms were too short for the extra carriage. At the time double-deck carriages were in short supply and their increased weight caused travel times to be extended (only during a few timetable periods were services formed with six double-deck carriages). The high loadings often meant that the scheduled stopping times were insufficient, so delays were created. Delays to long-distance trains also had a strong influence on the punctuality of the NRW-Express. The situation was aggravated several times when DB Regio tried to change the timetable by shortening the turnaround time in Bielefeld from 70 to 10 minutes to save a train set. These trials were always given up after a few weeks at the most.

With the timetable change in December 2002, the route was cut back from Bielefeld to Hamm. On the section that was eliminated, the NRW-Express was replaced by the newly created Westfalen-Express (RE 6) from Düsseldorf via Duisburg, Essen, Hamm and Bielefeld to Minden. On the last section from Dortmund, the NRW-Express, however, now stopped only in Kamen, except every second hour it stopped at all five stations on the section. As a result of the shortening of the route of the trains, punctuality was significantly improved, although in the past most lost time could be made up between Hamm and Bielefeld. RE 1 therefore remains one of the lines in North Rhine-Westphalia that is most vulnerable to delay.

A bomb plot on the train

2006 German train bombing plot

On July 31, 2006, two people placed two suitcases filled with bombs on regional trains in Germany. The bombs were supposed to go off near Hamm and Koblenz and according to German investigators, would have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people...

 in 2006 failed due to faulty construction.

Since the timetable change in December 2010, services have been extended every 2 hours to run between Hamm an Paderborn. In the off-peak it also stops only at Dortmund-Scharnhorst, Dortmund-Kurl, Kamen-Methler and Nordbögge. The first morning service to Paderborn stops at all stations between Hamm and Paderborn.

Route

The NRW-Express runs daily every hour from Aachen to Hamm on the Aachen–Cologne line (built by the former Rhenish Railway Company

Rhenish Railway Company

The Rhenish Railway Company was along with the Cologne-Minden Railway Company and the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company one of the railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia.-Foundation :The...

), the Cologne–Duisburg line

Cologne–Duisburg railway

The 64 km long Cologne–Duisburg railway is one of the most important lines in Germany. It is the main axis for long distance and urban passenger rail services between Cologne and the Ruhr, served by Intercity Express, Intercity, Regional Express, regionalbahn and S-Bahn trains...

 (built by the former Cologne-Minden Railway Company

Cologne-Minden Railway Company

The Cologne-Minden Railway Company was along with the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company and the Rhenish Railway Company one of the railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia.-Founding :The founding of the...

, CME), the Ruhr line between Duisburg and Dortmund (built by the former Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company), the Dortmund–Hamm line (built by the CME) and every two hours on the Hamm–Paderborn line.

Other Regional-Express services run on sections of the route, at least doubling or tripling the frequency of Regional-Express services. The Rhein-Sieg-Express (RE 9) runs between Aachen and Cologne; the Rhein-Hellweg-Express (RE 11) runs between Duisburg and Hamm; the Rhein-Express (RE 5) runs between Cologne and Duisburg and the Westfalen-Express (RE 6) runs between Düsseldorf and Hamm.

Extra trains run in the peak hour between Aachen and Köln Messe/Deutz.

Large parts of the route of the NRW-Express runs parallel with Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn lines, and it has some of the character of a fast S-Bahn service and is perceived by the passengers accordingly. The push–pull trains currently consist of five to six double-deck carriages, mostly hauled by class 146 locomotives

DBAG Class 145 and 146

The DBAG Class 145 and DBAG Class 146 are Bo'Bo' mainline electric locomotives built by Adtranz primarily for the Deutsche Bahn at the end of the 1990s. The Class 145 is the freight version for DB Cargo; the Class 146 is the passenger version for DB Regio...

 at speeds of up to 160 km/h.

The NRW-Express is linked in Aachen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, Hamm and Paderborn with the whole transport network of North Rhine-Westphalia. It also has direct connections at these stations with long-distance passenger services.

Three public transport associations are involved in the operation of the Rhein-Express: the Zweckverband Nahverkehr Rheinland (local transport association of Rhineland, NVR), Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr

Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr

The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr is the public transport association covering the area of the Rhine-Ruhr megalopolis in Germany...

 (transport association of the Rhine-Ruhr, VRR) and the Zweckverband Nahverkehr Westfalen-Lippe (local transport association of Westphalia-Lippe).

Future

The NRW-Express is being extended from five to six carriages in stages in March and August 2011.

A reorganisation of services is planned in 2020 between Cologne and Dortmund, under the program known as the Rhine-Ruhr Express (RRX). As part of the planning for the Rhine-Ruhr Express, the NRW-Express will operate from the timetable change in December 2016 as line RRX 1. The course of the line RRX 1 will run between Aachen and Hamm only. The Hamm–Paderborn section will be taken over by line RRX 2 (Düsseldorf–Paderborn).

See also

• List of regional rail lines in North Rhine-Westphalia
• List of scheduled railway routes in Germany