The Buschtunnel in the south of Aachen (located on the line Aachen-Liège,
which is part of the line Cologne-Bruxelles) seen from the western side on 4
October 2007. The old tube on the left is currently the oldest operational
railway tunnel in Germany, it was built between 1838 and 1843. During the last
two years a new tube was excavated, it is nearly finished now and shall go into
service in November. The old tube used to be double-tracked, but after several
renovations (with additional layers of brickwork applied several times) it is
very short of space for that. So the new tube, which seems to be about the same
size, will be single-tracked with enough space to meet current safety
requirements. Later the old tube might be renovated to become a second
single-tracked tube, but the funding for this is not yet assured, so the line
will probably be single-tracked here for a while. At present the traffic is low
enough to allow this, due to the construction works this section of the line is
already single-tracked anyway.
<br>
The new track leading to the new tunnel on the right seems to be finished, but
the catenary (which will be operated with 3&nbsp;kV DC) is still missing. The
second new track which will join the first one at the switch in front of the
tunnel will be laid later, as the needed space is still occupied by the old
tracks further west. The blue handrails in the foreground belong to the new
bridge at the Entenpfuhler Weg. The old bridge had to be replaced to make room
for the new track alignment. The new bridge is not yet opened, the picture was
taken from the temporary bridge next to it.
<p>
Digital photo by
<a href="http://www-users.rwth-aachen.de/christoph.schmitz2/index.html">Christoph
Schmitz</a>
(<a href="mailto:christoph.schmitz2@post.rwth-aachen.de">christoph.schmitz2@post.rwth-aachen.de</a>)