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On the 15th May, 1882 emperor Wilhelm I. authorized the government of Prussia to build a railroad line of Aachen to Prüm in the Eifel by law. A year later the governments of the German empire and Luxembourg agreed on a further construction of the connection to Luxembourg Troisvierges.
On the 30th June, 1885 the first section was put into operation from Aachen to Monschau.
Because the track ran in big parts through the high Venn, a high-level moor today's in Belgium, it was popularly called Vennbahn.
Today 130 years after opening of the track is left from the former railroad no more much. Now the Vennbahn is a premium cycle track, that connect Aachen with the north of Luxembourg.
The panoramas show a few remnants of the route used until the 1980's at the train station of Raeren. Up to the year 2001 still a museum railway was operated, but had to cease their operation.
Site of the former Vennbahn railway: http://www.vennbahn.de/
Page of the eisenbahnfreunde borderland: http://www.eisenbahnfreunde-grenzland.de/
Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. Founding member of the European Union, it covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 10.7 million. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, it was a prosperous centre of commerce and culture. Upon its independence, Belgium eagerly participated in the Industrial Revolution and, at the end of the nineteenth century, possessed several colonies in Africa. Today, Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transportation infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helps made it 2007 the world's 15th largest trading nation. Cultural life is nowadays concentrated within each language community and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Anyway, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Text extracted from wikipedia.
