Hasselt-Maastricht railway

Hasselt-Maastricht railway
	Hasselt-Maastricht railway connection
Overview
Status	out of order
Locale	The Netherlands and Belgium
Termini	Hasselt railway station; Maastricht railway station
History
Opened	1 October 1856
Closed	4 April 1954
Technical
Line length	17.2 km
Number of tracks	single
Track gauge	1435 mm standard gauge
Electrification	no
Route map

Hasselt-Maastricht railway is a railway track that goes from the Y-intersection Beverst with the Hasselt-Liège railway from Hasselt to Maastricht. The line is 17,2 km long.

The first plans for a Hasselt - Maastricht - Aachen rail connection date back to 1849. At the beginning of 1853, an approval by Royal order was given for a construction of the Belgian part of the connection. The Hasselt-Maastrich line through Beverst and Lanaken was built by the Aachen-Maastricht Railway Company (AM) which operated the Aachen-Maastricht section since 1853. In Hasselt, a connecting curve was also constructed to the railway to Landen. On October 1, 1856, the railway was put into service and the AM took over also its operation.

During the construction of the Albert Canal in 1930-1939, the originally straight line between Eigenbilzen (village in the municipality of Bilzen) and Lanaken was changed. The track was moved to go on the railway bridge in Gellik constructed over the Albert Canal in Gellik.

The section between Beverst and Maastricht was closed to passenger transport on 4 April 1954 and finally to goods transport on 24 November 1992. Between Beverst and Munsterbilzen, the tracks have been broken up except for a few remnants. Between Munsterbilzen and the bridge over the Albert Canal near Gellik the tracks are still present. On the section between Munsterbilzen and Eigenbilzen there is a railbike in operation. The rail connection between the Albert Canal by Gellik and Lanaken is broken again.

The railway line between Maastricht and Lanaken has been refurbished with a subsidy from the European Union and has been reused for freight transport. Strukton has been working on this revitalization since 2007.[1]

A special condition is that Maastricht is a natural habitat of the wall lizard and the slowworm, two very rare animal species in The Netherlands, what had to be taken into account when constructing the Dutch part in Maastricht. A monumental railway bridge over the Brusselseweg in Maastricht also has to be renovated. In July 2009, the section between Lanaken and Maastricht was completed.

On Wednesday, June 8, 2011, for the first time in years, a train ran over the railway line between Maastricht and Lanaken. The train was coming from Aachen and was going through Maastricht to Lanaken. There, on Thursday, 9 June 2011, the train was loaded with 1200 tons of sand. On Friday, 10 June 2011 the train left with 22 wagons for Romania.[2] The closure was announce in September 2016.[3]

According to the Infrabel's "Technical Network Card" edition from 01/01/2019, the section Lanaken – border is "temporarily out of order"; the section border – Maastricht "exists", everything else (west of Lanaken) doesn't exist anymore. The line is designated there as single track and not electrified.

Stations and buildings

Below is an overview of all stations along the line:

Station	Opened	Closed	Current building
Munsterbilzen	1856	1954	none
Eigenbilzen	1856	1954	none
Gellik	1899	1954	none, station closed between 1914-1921
Lanaken	1856	1954	none, building burned down in 2006 and demolished in 2010
Maastricht Boschpoort	1856	1954	none, building demolished in 1955
Maastricht	1853	-	1913, SS, 2nd building, unique design by George van Heukelom

Future

The Flemish government and the Flemish transport company De Lijn want to reestablish the Maastricht - Lanaken - Diepenbeek - Hasselt line in the context of the Spartacusplan for improving public transportation in Flemish province of Limburg with the use of express trams (lightrail). As a result, the travel time between Maastricht and Hasselt, with stops in Lanaken and Diepenbeek, could be reduced from the current 61 minutes (by bus) to 37 minutes. Up to Diepenbeek, the light rail line will follow the old route of line 20 and the line Liège - Hasselt. A separate express tram line will be constructed between Diepenbeek and Hasselt, going by the campus of the University of Hasselt and through the center of Hasselt up to the train station.

The main costs of the project are connected to the clean-up and redevelopment of the remaining ten kilometers of track between Lanaken and Beverst and the construction of the new tram line between Diepenbeek and Hasselt. The current plans are to have the line commissioned around 2018.

Since 1 August 2015, operations on the Munsterbilzen-Gellik section started, using a railbike. The concession was approved for three years, until 2018, when the light rail would start operating.. However, due to delays, the commissioning of the light rail was postponed until 2024.[4]

Connections

In the following places there is or was a connection to the following railway lines:

Y Beverst: Hasselt-Liège railway between Hasselt and Liège-Guillemnins
Maastricht: Liège-Maastricht railway between Y Val Benoît and Maastricht; Aachen-Maastricht railway between Aachen Hbf and Maastricht; Maastricht-Venlo railway between Maastricht and Venlo

Pictures

Train bridge over the river Maas in Maastricht on the railway to Hasselt
Viaduct on the railway to Hasselt over the Brusselseweg in Maastricht

References

Strukton Rail (in Dutch)
Website L1 (in Dutch)
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/journaal/2.46957?playlist=7.39637&video=1.2779280
"Waar staan we nu?". Tram Maastricht-Hasselt (in Dutch). De Lijn. Retrieved 2019-09-07.

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[1] Strukton Rail (in Dutch)

[2] Website L1 (in Dutch)

[3] ttp://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/journaal/2.46957?playlist=7.39637&video=1.2779280

[4] "Waar staan we nu?". Tram Maastricht-Hasselt (in Dutch). De Lijn. Retrieved 2019-09-07.