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55-790: The founding of the Cologne-Minden Railway Company in 1843 in Cologne ended a long struggle for a railway line between the Rhineland and the German North Sea ports, as well as the Prussian capital of Berlin . From the 1830s several railway committees in the cities of Düsseldorf , Cologne and Aachen attempted to find a solution with each other and the Prussian government. The focus of all these efforts

110-722: A diplomatic test of will three years before the outbreak of the Second World War . To the west the area stretches to the borders with Luxembourg , Belgium and the Netherlands ; on the eastern side it encompasses the towns and cities along the river and the Bergisches Land area up to the Westphalian ( Siegerland ) and Hessian regions. Stretching down to the North Palatine Uplands in

165-426: A form of pontoon bridges, were also used. The earthworks started on 6 June 1855; the foundation stone was laid by Frederick William IV four months later, on 3 October. Only after construction work had begun were the designs altered to include dual railway tracks on the northern downstream side of the bridge. Since the early 1850s, the Prussian authorities emphasized on constructing state railways . This opened up

220-748: A railway line from Cologne via Aachen to the Belgian border, which was opened in sections between 1839 and 1843. Others saw advantages in a better connection between the Rhineland and the Weser with a terminus in Minden , which was connected by boat to the port of Bremen . At the same time they discussed with the Kingdom of Hanover the possibility of a rail link via Hanover , Braunschweig and Magdeburg to Berlin. Prolonged negotiations were conducted regarding

275-533: A rational, simplified, centralized system controlled by Paris and run by Napoleon's relatives. The most important impact came from the abolition of all feudal privileges and historic taxes, the introduction of legal reforms of the Napoleonic Code , and the reorganization of the judicial and local administrative systems. The economic integration of the Rhineland with France increased prosperity, especially in industrial production, while business accelerated with

330-655: A tradition that continued in the naming of the current German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia . In the early 1800s, Rhinelanders settled the Missouri Rhineland , a German cultural region and wine producing area in the U.S. State of Missouri , and named it after noticing similarities in soil and topography to the Rhineland in Europe . By 1860, nearly half of all settlers in Missouri Rhineland came from Koblenz , capital of

385-684: Is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine , chiefly its middle section . It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy Roman Empire , Prussia and the German Empire . Historically, the term " Rhinelands " refers (physically speaking) to a loosely defined region embracing the land on the banks of the Rhine, which were settled by Ripuarian and Salian Franks and became part of Frankish Austrasia . In

440-466: Is one of the prime German industrial areas, containing significant mineral deposits ( coal , lead , lignite , magnesium , oil , and uranium ) and water transport. In Rhineland-Palatinate agriculture is more important, including the vineyards in the Ahr , Mittelrhein , and Mosel regions. Cathedral Bridge The Cathedral Bridge ( German : Dombrücke , pronounced [ˈdoːmˌbʁʏkə] )

495-664: The Britannia Bridge successfully took increasingly heavy railway trains across the Menai Strait from its opening in 1850 until it was seriously damaged by fire in 1970. Designed by Robert Stephenson as a tubular bridge , the longest spans of the Britannia Bridge measured 140 metres (460 ft), with a width of 16 metres (52 ft). The wrought iron latticework of the Cathedral Bridge

550-612: The High Middle Ages , numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the former stem duchy of Lotharingia , without developing any common political or cultural identity. A "Rhineland" conceptualization can be traced to the period of the Holy Roman Empire from the sixteenth until the eighteenth centuries when the Empire's Imperial Estates (territories) were grouped into regional districts in charge of defence and judicial execution, known as Imperial Circles . Three of

605-769: The North German plain is marked by the lower Ruhr . In the south, the river cuts the Rhenish Massif . The area encompasses the western part of the Ruhr industrial region and the Cologne Lowland . Some of the larger cities in the Rhineland are Aachen , Bonn , Cologne , Duisburg , Düsseldorf , Essen , Koblenz , Krefeld , Leverkusen , Mainz , Mönchengladbach , Mülheim an der Ruhr , Oberhausen , Remscheid , Solingen , Trier and Wuppertal . Toponyms as well as local family names often trace back to

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660-527: The Rhine Province . The western part of the Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces from the end of the First World War until 1930. Under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles , German military presence in the region was banned, a restriction which the government of Weimar Germany pledged to honor in the 1925 Locarno Treaties . Nazi Germany remilitarized the territory in 1936 as part of

715-540: The Ruhrort-Homberg train ferry . The government had pressed the company since the early 1850s to build a railway bridge over the Rhine in Cologne. Because it was not yet possible to build strong bridges with spans of over 100 metres, it was initially planned to build a bridge capable of carrying individual carriages pulled by horses. This was intended to avoid the unloading of cargo on to ferries and its reloading on

770-738: The 183 kilometre long railway between 1859 and 1862 from Deutz via Betzdorf , Dillenburg and Wetzlar to Gießen , with a branch to the mines in Siegen . In Siegen, it connected with the Main-Weser line . This line now forms the northern part of the Sieg line , the Heller Valley Railway and the southern part of the Dill line . At the end of the 1860s the Cologne-Minden Railway Company built its largest project, when Prussia decided that

825-740: The Dutch Railways on 3 October 1936. The rest between Straelen, Wesel and Haltern is also now largely closed. On the other hand, the line from Wanne-Eickel to Hamburg is one of the busiest railway lines in Germany, however, and is now sometimes referred to as the Rollbahn ("rolling line"). From 1871 to 1878 the CME built another line from Duisburg to Dortmund along the Emscher valley largely parallel to its trunk line via Osterfeld Süd and Wanne through

880-888: The East bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Lahn, were the settlements of the Mattiaci , a branch of the Germanic Chatti , while farther to the north were the Usipetes and Tencteri . Julius Caesar conquered the Celtic tribes on the West bank, and Augustus established numerous fortified posts on the Rhine, but the Romans never succeeded in gaining a firm footing on the East bank. As

935-773: The Frankish heritage. The lands on the western shore of the Rhine are strongly characterized by Roman influence, including viticulture . In the core territories, large parts of the population are members of the Catholic Church . At the earliest historical period, the territories between the Ardennes and the Rhine were occupied by the Treveri , the Eburones and other Celtic tribes , who, however, were all more or less modified and influenced by their Germanic neighbors. On

990-590: The Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Public Works appointed the Prussian chief civil engineer Karl Lentze to design the bridge. The initial drawings of the bridge allowed only one horse-drawn carriage to cross the bridge. On the western bank, the road was led in northeastern direction past the Cologne Cathedral. The deck load was to be kept low, because at that time it was not possible to build heavy load bridges spanning over 100 metres (330 ft);

1045-693: The Rhine and within 50 kilometers east of the Rhine. In 1920, under massive French pressure, the Saar was separated from the Rhine Province and administered by the League of Nations until a plebiscite in 1935, when the region was returned to Germany. At the same time, in 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium (see German-Speaking Community of Belgium ). In January 1923, in response to Germany's failure to meet its reparations obligations , French and Belgian troops occupied

1100-505: The Rhineland and other regions along the Rhine. German territory west of the Rhine had been off-limits to the German military. In 1945, the Rhineland was the scene of major fighting as the Allied forces overwhelmed the German defenders. In 1946, the Rhineland was divided into the newly founded states of Hesse , North Rhine-Westphalia , and Rhineland-Palatinate . North Rhine-Westphalia

1155-589: The Rhineland disintegrated into numerous small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes and special chronicles. The old Lotharingian divisions became obsolete, and while the Lower Lorraine lands were referred to as the Low Countries , the name of Lorraine became restricted to the region on the upper Moselle that still bears it. After the Imperial Reform of 1500/12,

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1210-450: The Rhineland until 1814 and radically and permanently liberalized the government, society and economy. The Coalition of France's enemies made repeated efforts to retake the region, but France repelled all the attempts. The French swept away centuries worth of outmoded restrictions and introduced unprecedented levels of efficiency. The chaos and barriers in a land divided and subdivided among many different petty principalities gave way to

1265-634: The Ruhr district, strictly controlling all important industrial areas. The Germans responded with passive resistance, which led to hyperinflation , and the French gained very little of the reparations they wanted. French troops left the Ruhr in August 1925. The occupation of the remainder of the Rhineland ended on 30 June 1930. On 7 March 1936, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, German troops marched into

1320-593: The construction, it was estimated the bridge had cost nearly 4 million (Prussian) thalers . The bridge was unable to meet the increased demands imposed on it by the new Cologne Central Station (1894). After construction work had already started for the Hohenzollern Bridge in 1907, the Cathedral Bridge was deconstructed in stages between 1908 and 1910. The Hohenzollern Bridge was completed 1911, destroyed in 1945 during World War II and subsequently rebuilt. The current Hohenzollern Bridge's southern foundation

1375-647: The east of the river fell to East Francia , while that to the west remained with the kingdom of Lotharingia . By the time of Emperor Otto I (d. 973) both banks of the Rhine had become part of the Holy Roman Empire , and in 959 the Rhenish territory was divided between the duchies of Upper Lorraine , on the Mosel, and Lower Lorraine on the Meuse. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened,

1430-523: The first bridge that was subjected to a full structural analysis was the Göltzsch Viaduct only 9 years prior, which is a brick arch bridge with its widest arch spanning 30.9 metres (101 ft) and having a width of 9 metres (30 ft) at the top. Conversely, the Cathedral Bridge was a lattice truss bridge with spans up to 103.2 metres (339 ft) and a collective width of 16.73 metres (54.9 ft). It might, however, be mentioned that

1485-545: The intelligentsia demanded the maintenance of the Napoleonic Code (which stayed in effect for a century). A Prussian influence began on a small scale in 1609 by the occupation of the Duchy of Cleves . A century later, Upper Guelders and Moers also became Prussian. The Congress of Vienna expelled the French and assigned the whole of the lower Rhenish districts to Prussia, who left them in undisturbed possession of

1540-549: The liberal institutions to which they had become accustomed under the French. The Rhine Province remained part of Prussia after Germany was unified in 1871. The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918. The occupying armies consisted of American , Belgian , British and French forces. Under the Treaty of Versailles , German troops were banned from all territory west of

1595-474: The line was completed. The line south towards Venlo reached Wesel on 1 March 1874, but was delayed by the need to build the longest railway bridge in Germany over the Rhine Bridge at Wesel, which was opened on 31 December 1874. During the planning phase had been argued that no financial return could be expected from this section. So not surprisingly the section Venlo–Straelen was closed at the initiative of

1650-523: The local nickname " mouse trap " ( Kölsch : Muusfall , pronounced [ˈmus²fal] ). The bridge was also referred to as solid bridge , because it was the first immovable bridge in between Basel and the Netherlands since the Roman bridge , built near Cologne in the 4th century. Since the Middle Ages , reaction ferries formed flying bridges and since Prussian times, ship's bridges ,

1705-548: The new efficiency and lowered trade barriers. The Jews were liberated from the ghetto. There was limited resistance; most Germans welcomed the new regime, especially the urban elites, but one sour point was the hostility of the French officials toward the Roman Catholic Church, the choice of most of the residents. The reforms were permanent. Decades later workers and peasants in the Rhineland often appealed to Jacobinism to oppose unpopular government programs, while

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1760-551: The northern Old Town of the Cologne Innenstadt . As the Cathedral Bridge could not support the increased traffic of the new Köln Hauptbahnhof in 1894, it was replaced by the Hohenzollern Bridge in 1911. The Cathedral Bridge was the second railway bridge to be built over the river Rhine, after the significantly shorter Waldshut–Koblenz Rhine Bridge with spans of up to 52 metres (171 ft), which

1815-691: The northern Ruhr to service the growing industries and prosperous coal mines. A law for the nationalisation of the Railway Company was proclaimed on 20 December 1879. At this time the Prussian government held 74 per cent of the share capital of the company. It placed the railway under the management of the Königliche Direction der Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn zu Köln ( Royal directorate of the Cologne-Minden railway of Cologne ) since 1 January 1879. On 23 February 1881 this directorate

1870-455: The old mining areas but travelled through more open terrain. This route is similar to that advocated by the economist Friedrich List in 1833. The decisive factor favouring the route north of the Ruhr was the influence of David Hansemann, who was then briefly Prussian Minister for Finance. The Prussian state acquired one seventh of the share capital of the company at its foundation. The first section from Cologne to Düsseldorf ( Cologne–Duisburg )

1925-493: The other side. It was then decided during the Cathedral Bridge 's construction to build a two-track bridge capable of supporting a locomotive, which had a swing bridge (which could be disabled in the event of war) on the west bank. This was required by the military, which had to give its consent for all bridge projects. It was a truss bridge with spans of 131 and 101 metres. The foundation stone for its construction

1980-541: The possibility for the Cologne-Minden Railway Company to co-finance the bridge to extend the Deutz–Gießen line into the heart of Cologne, and integrate the previously separate railways on either side of the river Rhine. At the request of the Prussian Army , who had to approve every bridge design before it was carried out, it included a swing bridge on the western side which could be closed in case of war. The design

2035-581: The power of the Roman empire declined the Franks pushed forward along both banks of the Rhine, and by the end of the 5th century had conquered all the lands that had formerly been under Roman influence. By the 8th century, the Frankish dominion was firmly established in western Germania and northern Gaul. On the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun the part of the province to

2090-496: The right to connect the proposed line from Venlo via Wesel , Münster and Osnabrück to Bremen and Hamburg to its existing line between Cologne and Minden. Therefore, on 1 January 1870 it began construction of a new line between the two routes from Wanne-Eickel to Haltern . During the Franco-Prussian War large parts of the line were temporarily put into operation: On 1 January 1870 to Munster, on 1 September 1871 to Osnabrück, on 15 May 1873 to Bremen -Hemelingen. On 1 June 1874,

2145-624: The route between Cologne and Dortmund . Interested parties from Bergisches Land and the Wupper valley supported a direct route through the local hills. This was rejected by the company because of the high costs for the necessary engineering works. On 18 December 1843, the Prussian government granted a concession to the CME for the line from Deutz (now a suburb of Cologne) through Mülheim am Rhein , Düsseldorf, Duisburg , Oberhausen , Altenessen , Gelsenkirchen , Wanne , Herne and Castrop-Rauxel to Dortmund and on to Hamm , Oelde , Rheda , Bielefeld and Herford to Minden. This route bypassed

2200-489: The section of a French railway company's project for a line from Paris to Hamburg (called the "Paris-Hamburg line") in Germany would need to be owned and operated by a German railway company. The Cologne-Minden Railway Company won the tender to build the approximately 550 kilometre long Hamburg- Venlo line against the competition of the Rhenish Railway Company. The cost of its construction was calculated to be 43 million thalers . The Cologne-Minden Railway Company had reserved

2255-435: The south, this area, except for the Saarland , more or less corresponds with the modern use of the term. The southern and eastern parts are mainly hill country ( Westerwald , Hunsrück , Siebengebirge , Taunus and Eifel ), cut by river valleys, principally the Middle Rhine up to Bingen (or very rarely between the confluence with the Neckar and Cologne ) and its Ahr , Moselle and Nahe tributaries. The border of

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2310-441: The ten circles through which the Rhine flowed referred to the river in their names: the Upper Rhenish Circle , the Electoral Rhenish Circle and the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle (very roughly equivalent to the present-day German federal state of North Rhine Westphalia ). In the twilight period of the Empire, after the War of the First Coalition , a short-lived Cisrhenian Republic was established (1797–1802). The term covered

2365-402: The territory was part of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian , Upper Rhenish , and Electoral Rhenish Circles . Notable Rhenish Imperial States included: In spite of its dismembered condition and the sufferings it underwent at the hands of its French neighbors in various periods of warfare, the Rhenish territory prospered greatly and stood in the foremost rank of German culture and progress. Aachen

2420-439: The whole French conquered territory west of the Rhine (German: Linkes Rheinufer ), but also including a small portion of the bridgeheads on the eastern banks. After the collapse of the French empire , the regions of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Lower Rhine were annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia . In 1822 the Prussian administration reorganized the territory as the Rhine Province ( Rheinprovinz , also known as Rhenish Prussia),

2475-411: Was a railway and street bridge crossing the river Rhine in the German city of Cologne . It was owned by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company and named after the Cologne Cathedral , which is located on the same longitudinal axis. It was built in combination with the original Central Station (German: Zentralbahnhof [tsɛnˈtʁaːlˌbaːnhoːf] ) and a new ground-level railway track through

2530-447: Was designed by hydraulic engineer Hermann Lohse and formed an intricate network of diagonal lattices both on the inside and outside of the bridge. The bridge's gates, erected out of gray Udelfanger sandstone and holding heavy iron doors to close either side of the bridge, were designed by Heinrich Strack and added after the bridge had been completed. The combination of a cage -like structure that could be closed on either side inspired

2585-455: Was inspired by the railway bridges over the river Vistula at Tczew and over the river Nogat at Malbork , both of which were finished in 1857 as part of the Prussian Eastern Railway . The same chief superintendent for those bridges, Hermann Lohse, also led the construction work for the Cathedral Bridge. The Cathedral Bridge was inaugurated on 3 October 1859, exactly four years after construction work had officially begun. Forty years after

2640-450: Was laid by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV on 3 October 1855. It was opened in 1859 and was the second rail bridge over the Rhine, together with a road bridge that had been built in parallel. The first railway bridge across the Rhine had opened in the same year far upstream at Waldshut , which had spans of only 52 metres at most. The bridge was demolished and replaced by the Hohenzollernbrücke between 1907 and 1911. The next line to be opened

2695-405: Was opened just a few months prior on 18 August 1859. The Prussian authorities pressed for a bridge due to increasing road traffic between Cologne and the eastern river bank . Before the Cathedral Bridge, passengers and goods had to be transported across the river by reaction ferry or pontoon bridge . The city council filed a request with Frederick William IV of Prussia in 1847, who through

2750-444: Was opened on 20 December 1845. Only a few weeks later, on 9 February 1846, the second section was completed to a temporary terminus at the site of present-day Duisburg Hauptbahnhof called Duisburg Cologne-Minden station , the first of three train stations built at the same site. The next sections ( Duisburg–Dortmund and Dortmund–Hamm lines ) were opened on 15 May 1847. On 15 October 1847 the last section to Minden ( Hamm–Minden line )

2805-451: Was opened, thus completing the entire 263 kilometre long, single track railway. On the same day the Royal Hanoverian State Railways opened its Hanover-Minden Railway , completing a connection to Berlin and northeastern Germany. In 1848 the CME built a branch line to the docks at Ruhrort from Oberhausen station and agreed with the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company ( Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft ) to construct

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2860-563: Was renamed Königliche Eisenbahn-Direktion zu Köln rechtsrheinisch ( Royal directorate of right Rhine railways of Cologne ). The nationalization of the company involved about 619 locomotives and 17,023 wagons, operating on a 1,108 kilometre long railway network, of which 467 kilometres had been duplication. The purchase price financed through government bonds was 509,326,500 marks . Rhineland The Rhineland ( German : Rheinland [ˈʁaɪ̯nˌlant] ; Dutch : Rijnland ; Kölsch : Rhingland ; Latin : Rhenania )

2915-429: Was the 73 km-long Holland line from Oberhausen via Wesel and Emmerich to the German/Dutch border at Elten and on to Arnhem . It was put into operation in sections from 15 February to 20 October 1856. The CME left operations on the section from Emmerich to the border of to the Dutch Rhine Railway Company ( Dutch : Nederlandsche Rhijnspoorweg-Maatschappij , (NRS). The Cologne-Minden Railway Company built

2970-429: Was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine played a large role in German history. At the Peace of Basel in 1795, the whole of the left bank of the Rhine was taken by France. The population was about 1.6 million in numerous small states. In 1806, the Rhenish princes all joined the Confederation of the Rhine , a puppet of Napoleon. France took direct control of

3025-453: Was to avoid the Dutch duties on trade on the Rhine , which significantly increased the cost of import and export of goods via the Rhine. Some of the Cologne committee members under David Hansemann (1790–1864)—a merchant and banker from Aachen—and the Aachen Committee favoured a railway line through Belgium to the seaport of Antwerp . The Rhenish Railway Company –which had already been established on 9 July 1837 in Cologne–began construction of

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