Deutz–Gießen railway

The Deutz–Gießen railway is a line between Deutz and Gießen that was built from the late 1850s to connect the Ruhr and the Rhine-Main area, now parts of the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse.

Prussia was interested in building a railway to connect the coal mines in the Ruhr, the steel mills in the Rhineland and the iron ore deposits in the Sieg, Heller, Dill and Lahn valleys.

The Cologne-Minden Railway Company (Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CME) obtained a concession to build the line from Deutz to Gießen.

Construction started at a branch from the CME’s existing Deutz–Minden mainline at Deutz, which was subsequently connected to Cologne by a bridge over the Rhine, completed in November 1859.

[1] At the same time, marshalling and shunting facilities were established nearby at Deutzerfeld, creating a direct link towards the Ruhr.

East of Betzdorf to Dillenburg it had to cross a low mountain range (Mittelgebirge), requiring, among other things, a horseshoe curve to be built.

A major operational problem for the line at the time of its construction was that it was not possible to build a direct link between Siegen and Dillenburg.