By JENS HÖHNER
(Translation from German by Detlef Zirpel/Don Payne)

Waldbröl. - No go-ahead for re-opening the Wiehltalbahn as far as Waldbröl is in sight! Acting on a motion of the Green Party group on the council, Waldbröl's Mayor, Peter Koester, promised to attend to the matter and to bring Mayor Rüdiger Gennies of Reichshof in, as a company in the Denklingen area had erected a building too close to the railway tracks.

From the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (daily paper in Cologne): Saturday/Sunday, February 4th/5th, 2017

Former Railway Property Comprising 23,000 m² Was Purchased By Morsbach Town Council
BY CHRISTOPH BUCHEN AND JENS HÖHNER 
 (Translation from German by Detlef Zirpel/Don Payne)
 
Morsbach. This is definitely a historic day for Morsbach: Effective from March 1st, the station building and adjoining railway area pass into the ownership of Morsbach Town Council. In November of last year, the Western Office of the 'Federal Railway Assets' agency (located in Cologne) offered the area of 23,000 m² in a public bidding process.

"That was a very positive surprise at the end of year" said Gerhard Mansel, chairman of the 'Society For The Preservation Of The Wiehltalbahn', about the external evaluation of the Wiehltalbahn by Ulrich Stücker, Mayor of Wiehl. “Particularly that the linked offer for talks with the ‘Preservation Society’ and the ‘Rhine-Sieg-Railway (RSE)’ is future-oriented. We will mobilise all our strengths and spare no effort to make these talks the starting-point of a story of development.”

The 'Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger – Oberberg' wrote on December 14th, 2016:

POLICY: Mayor Ulrich Stücker wishes to discuss own ideas for the line

Wiehl. The Mayor of Wiehl, Ulrich Stücker. gave an outline of his strategy for dealing with the long-disputed Wiehltalbahn line in his speech on the budget for 2017. According to that, he foresees a "great importance of this railway infrastructure for town development policies".

Quotation from his speech on the budget by Mayor Ulrich Stücker (Wiehl), made on December 6th, 2016:

"The town-owned railway line of the Wiehltalbahn leads right through Wiehl's centre.  The course of this line furthermore connects the districts of Weiershagen, Bielstein, the centre of Wiehl and Oberwiehl. The course of this line alone demonstrates the vast town developmental significance of this railway infrastructure for the town of Wiehl."