The NRW-Express is a Regional-Express rail service in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), running from Aachen via Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Bochum and Dortmund to Hamm as line RE 1.

Today's NRW-Express replaced existing express services on individual sections of the route after the regionalisation of transport in Germany.

The service originally operated on the Aachen–Bielefeld route and was composed of class 110 locomotives hauling six partly modernised Silberling carriages.

RE 1 provided travel times that were very competitive with long-distance trains through North Rhine-Westphalia and had good connections in Bielefeld to Hanover, so the train on weekends was heavily used by long-distance travellers to Hamburg and Berlin as part of the so-called Wochenend-Ticket-Rennstrecke ("weekend-ticket race track").

On the section that was eliminated, the NRW-Express was replaced by the newly created Westfalen-Express (RE 6) from Düsseldorf via Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, Hamm and Bielefeld to Minden.

As a result of the shortening of the route of the trains, punctuality was significantly improved, although in the past most lost time could be made up between Hamm and Bielefeld.

However, DB Regio continued to operate the services with the existing rolling stock because Abellio had to suspend staff training due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, following the bankruptcy of Abellio, the line has been operated from 1 February 2022 under an emergency contract awarded to National Express.

The NRW-Express is linked in Aachen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, Hamm and Paderborn with the whole transport network of North Rhine-Westphalia.