[5] On 4 March 1850, the company was made subordinate to the Royal Division of the Aachen-Dusseldorf-Ruhrort Railway (German: Königliche Direction der Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn) based in Aachen by a royal decree.

In the same year, the BME gained its own access to the Dutch railway network with its line to Venlo, a year after its rival, the Rhenish Railway Company (Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, RhE), opened its line to Nijmegen and ten years after the Cologne-Minden Railway Company (Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, CME) opened its line to Arnhem.

The line to Venlo has never achieved genuinely international significance, but today it is used by passenger and freight traffic.

After the closing of the Ruhrort–Homberg train ferry in 1885, the northern section of line between Uerdingen and Homberg became virtually useless.

Despite this the line is now no longer significant for long-distance passenger rail traffic after most of the express trains on it were discontinued.