Cologne-Minden Railway Company

From the 1830s several railway committees in the cities of Düsseldorf, Cologne and Aachen attempted to find a solution with each other and the Prussian government.

Interested parties from Bergisches Land and the Wupper valley supported a direct route through the local hills.

On 18 December 1843, the Prussian government granted a concession to the CME for the line from Deutz (now a suburb of Cologne) through Mülheim am Rhein, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Oberhausen, Altenessen, Gelsenkirchen, Wanne, Herne and Castrop-Rauxel to Dortmund and on to Hamm, Oelde, Rheda, Bielefeld and Herford to Minden.

The decisive factor favouring the route north of the Ruhr was the influence of David Hansemann, who was then briefly Prussian Minister for Finance.

The Prussian state acquired one seventh of the share capital of the company at its foundation.

On 15 October 1847 the last section to Minden (Hamm–Minden line) was opened, thus completing the entire 263 kilometre long, single track railway.

The government had pressed the company since the early 1850s to build a railway bridge over the Rhine in Cologne.

The foundation stone for its construction was laid by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV on 3 October 1855.

The first railway bridge across the Rhine had opened in the same year far upstream at Waldshut, which had spans of only 52 metres at most.

During the Franco-Prussian War large parts of the line were temporarily put into operation: On 1 January 1870 to Munster, on 1 September 1871 to Osnabrück, on 15 May 1873 to Bremen-Hemelingen.

From 1871 to 1878 the CME built another line from Duisburg to Dortmund along the Emscher valley largely parallel to its trunk line via Osterfeld Süd and Wanne through the northern Ruhr to service the growing industries and prosperous coal mines.