Royal Westphalian Railway Company

The cause of the bankruptcy of the KMTVEG was the difficulty of building a 600-metre-long tunnel at Willebadessen under the main ridge of the Eggegebirge range.

The main line of the Royal Westphalian Railway ran from Hamm via Soest, Lippstadt, Paderborn and Altenbeken to Warburg.

[1] Together with the Royal Hanoverian State Railways, it built a connection from Rheine to the German ports on the North Sea.

This was a very important connection for Prussia because of the high tariffs charged by the Dutch Rhine ports.

The Kingdom of Hanover was annexed by Prussia after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and two years later this line became part of the Westphalian Railway.