25th Anniversary Of The 'Society For The Preservation Of The Wiehl Valley Railway'

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On October 10th, 2019, it was 25 years to the day that committed citizens from the 'Upper Berg County’ (Oberberg) gathered and founded the 'Society For The Preservation Of The Wiehl Valley Railway’ (Förderkreis zur Rettung der Wiehltalbahn) as a charitable organisation.

Back then, there were reports about this event in the "Lokalanzeiger (PDF - sorry, German text only!)" in its edition of October 19th, 1994, and the "Waldbröler Echo (PDF - sorry, German text only!)" in its October 1994 edition.
 
Our goal was and still is the reinstatement of local public rail transport on the Wiehl valley line, as well as taking back goods transport from the roads onto rails (as far as possible) for the relief of the environmant and to utilise unemployed infrastructure as intended.

 
This is what we have achieved in the past 25 years:
• The line has NOT - as demanded by the adjacent local authorities - been lifted,
• but is now listed in its entirety.
• We demonstrated the value of this line for goods transport by the removal of trees felled by Cyclone Kyrill in 2007.
• We have won all 14 lawsuits the adjacent local authorities had filed against us and were granted a 50-year operating licence for the Wiehl valley line.
• We made the line operable again up to Waldbröl and offered services as far as Waldbröl in 2010.
• Subsequent to the 2010 season we restored the Denklingen Railway Bridge.
• Two stations (Bielstein, Wiehl) have been modernised by us and now comply with the the actual standards for local public transport.
• We  conduct annual trips on the line very successfully and thus have made people conscious of the line - also at a more than local level.

The 'Society For The Preservation Of The Wiehl Valley Railway' is organising an information evening on the occasion of its 25th anniversary.
This event will take place on October 11th, 2019, at 6:00 pm in the community hall of the 'Bürgerdorf am Alsberg', 18, Nümbrechter Str., 51545 Waldbröl.
Dr. Martin Henke from the 'Association Of German Transportation Companies’ (VDV) will give a lecture on 'Reactivation Of Railway Lines - On The Political Agenda' as guest speaker.

Interested citizens are cordially invited to attend the event.
Bookings please via e-mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.