Liège–Maastricht railway

The railway Liege -Maastricht is a 31-kilometer long, the two Meuse connecting cities, international railway line.

Geography

The double-track electrified rail link running and follows in her northern part of the scenic banks of the Meuse and crosses in its southern part, coined by heavy industry Liege industrial space.

Significant nodes

The route has its starting point in the passenger station of Liège - Guillemin, the new Liège main station, from where connections are made in the direction Hasselt / Antwerp, Maastricht, Luxembourg, Namur and Brussels. Train technical reasons, however, the chainage starts only at Liege route cross Y Val Benoit.

In railhead Maastricht you can connect to Sittard and Roermond. In addition, you can reach via Heerlen with the euregiobahn Aachen.

Branching routes

• Aachen -Liège ( Liège on track cross Y Val Benoit )
• High-speed line Aachen -Liège
• Bressoux - Chertal (industrial track )
• Montzenroute at the tower station Vise ( with connecting loop and reversing triangle )

Operation and history

The line was opened in 1861 and electrified as part of a modernization campaign of SNCB in the 1980s.

Since the transport has always played a somewhat subordinate role in this connection to the international long-distance traffic, numerous traffic weaker stations and stops were abandoned in the postwar period.

( - Liege - Brussels Maastricht) By 2012, the route long-distance transport on weekdays from the Belgian trains Intercity line O is frequented by the hour. Here, the usual for Belgium IC sets came from a locomotive of the NMBS / SNCB - row 13 and | 11- car used. In low traffic time and on weekends the line was to the section Liege - Maastricht limited and traveled with conventional railcar sets of NMBS / SNCB AM series 62-79.

Since there are connections to Paris and London in Brussels, could be achieved with the new IC O Maastricht, in 2 hours and 58 minutes, for example, Paris, to London four hours and 20 minutes is estimated.

In 2012, the intercity connection was reset. It now moves back a local train which stops in Eijsden and Maastricht Randwyck. Thus Eijsden is connected to the railway network after five years.

Trivia

• The breakpoint Liège Vennes (H ) was opened in 1905 explicitly only for a year for the local World Exhibition. Successor station was built in 1928 and in 1956 abandoned train station of Liège Vennes.