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Description
Lindern is a town somewhere north of Aachen with a station along the Aachen-Mönchengladbach rail line, and incredibly boring. It did make for a nice picture, though.

There is one interesting thing, though: Lindern is the start of the rail line Lindern-Heinsberg, now called Wurmtalbahn (Wurm valley line; the Wurm is a river). This line has been closed for a while, making Heinsberg the only german district capital with no rail access. But right now, work is underway to open it again. If all goes well, it should open in the middle of 2013.

The plan calls for hourly service with class 425 EMUs, with one-seat connections to Aachen and changing trains to Mönchengladbach (and further Duisburg and Krefeld), as part of the existing RB 33 line ("Rhein-Niers-Bahn", roughly "Rhine Niers local line", with Niers being another river). A train consisting of two 425s will leave Aachen towards Mönchengladbach. Here, in Lindern, the train will split up, with the rear (south) part driving to Heinsberg and the front end continuing to M'gladbach.

This is not some pipe dream; work for this is actively underway, but right now, there is a problem since some people living near the old track want to sue. Apparently they feel that the electrical fields from the overhead lines would harm them somehow (despite staying far below legal limits), and also that some form of financial compensation could effectively avert this harm.

If you want to get confused a bit: The line is owned by WEST, the local (district-owned) bus company, but infrastructure operations will be handled by Rurtalbahn. The actual trains will be run by DB Regio, at least for now. It's all managed by NVR, and in particular its AVV part.

Personally, I'm all in favor of reopening new lines, but I can for the life of me not figure out why people would want to go to Heinsberg. Although I can understand their desire to leave for Aachen…

Description
Lindern is a town somewhere north of Aachen with a station along the Aachen-Mönchengladbach rail line, and incredibly boring. It did make for a nice picture, though.

There is one interesting thing, though: Lindern is the start of the rail line Lindern-Heinsberg, now called Wurmtalbahn (Wurm valley line; the Wurm is a river). This line has been closed for a while, making Heinsberg the only german district capital with no rail access. But right now, work is underway to open it again. If all goes well, it should open in the middle of 2013.

The plan calls for hourly service with class 425 EMUs, with one-seat connections to Aachen and changing trains to Mönchengladbach (and further Duisburg and Krefeld), as part of the existing RB 33 line ("Rhein-Niers-Bahn", roughly "Rhine Niers local line", with Niers being another river). A train consisting of two 425s will leave Aachen towards Mönchengladbach. Here, in Lindern, the train will split up, with the rear (south) part driving to Heinsberg and the front end continuing to M'gladbach.

This is not some pipe dream; work for this is actively underway, but right now, there is a problem since some people living near the old track want to sue. Apparently they feel that the electrical fields from the overhead lines would harm them somehow (despite staying far below legal limits), and also that some form of financial compensation could effectively avert this harm.

If you want to get confused a bit: The line is owned by WEST, the local (district-owned) bus company, but infrastructure operations will be handled by Rurtalbahn. The actual trains will be run by DB Regio, at least for now. It's all managed by NVR, and in particular its AVV part.

Personally, I'm all in favor of reopening new lines, but I can for the life of me not figure out why people would want to go to Heinsberg. Although I can understand their desire to leave for Aachen…