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 11
May 2008. The old tube on the left used to be the oldest operational railway
tunnel in Germany (until it was taken out of service in November 2007), it was
built between 1838 and 1843. Since 2005 a new tube was excavated, it is in
service since November 2007. 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, is single-tracked with enough space to meet current safety
requirements. Later the old tube ought to be renovated to become a second
single-tracked tube, but it seems that the works were not started yet (the last
remaining track is still present in the tunnel), 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>
At present all trains have to use a single track up to the Hammerbr&uuml;cke
(south of Hergenrath, some kilometres towards Li&egrave;ge). A short section of
the second track is already visible, but the rest of it is still missing in this
area, as the needed space was occupied by the old tracks further west in the
past.
<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>)