German trains from the Bentheimer Eisenbahn will soon be allowed to continue to Coevorden. This has taken an important bump in the transport by rail between Coevorden and the German Bad Bentheim and the connection seems to be there definitely.
The trains between Drenthe and Germany must run from December 13, 2026.
The big obstacle for the train connection was that the Netherlands and Germany have various safety systems for the track. German trains do not have the Dutch ATB on board but PZB, the German system. Rail manager ProRail makes an adjustment so that the Dutch rail security system can still ‘see’ a train with the German PZB and ‘talk to it.’
The Bentheimer Eisenbahn has now also received formal permission to drive the last 500 meters to the Coevorden station with its equipment on Dutch Spoor. Now that this last bump has been taken, the tenders for refurbishing the Coevorden rail project can begin to Neuenhaus.
In September 1939, the last passenger train left from Coevorden to Bad Bentheim for the time being. Also on the regional railway to Bad Bentheim, less and less was driven on German territory. Traveler transport disappeared there in 1974. Buses became better and more comfortable, were faster and the infrastructure was less expensive.
Many regional railway lines in Germany were closed or there was only goods transport left at low speed. This is also the case on the railway line from Coevorden to Bad Bentheim.
But more than ten years ago that turned. For example, road traffic increased and it became so busy in public transport that the maximum capacity came into view. Add to that the higher emissions and nuisance of road traffic. All this made Germany think about the re -use of the stopped rail lines. This is also the case for Bad Bentheim-Coevorden.
The trains in the Bad Bentheim-Neuenhaus part have been running again since 2019, with success. Not the expected 1,700, but 2,200 to 2,500 travelers make use of it per day. The expectation is that driving to Coevorden will yield 900 to 1,000 travelers per day.
The railway lines from Neuenhaus to Coevorden will be refurbished in the coming period and better secured. For this, almost 28 million euros is invested on the Dutch side, the rest of the 65 million euros needed comes from Germany.
In the future, the train connection must be extended to Emmen and Rheine. In the SCHAFTER NACHORGEN reports Bentheimer Eisenbahn board chairman Joachim Berends that will also be worked on realizing a rail arch in Bad Bentheim that has to make a fast connection between Emmen and Rheine possible.
At Bad Bentheim, the railway line of the Bentheimer Eisenbahn is now only bending to the west to connect at the border station. Travelers now have to switch to Bad Bentheim if they want to go to Rheine. If an arc also comes to the east, a direct connection with Rheine is possible.
But also on the Dutch side the necessary happen does not want to be done to Coevorden but to Emmen. A large piece of double track is still needed between Coevorden and Emmen, because there are also the trains from Emmen to Zwolle. That piece of single track track is already ‘full.’ Possibly in Emmen something needs to be done about the train capacity for trains, because that site behind the station is already at its maximum capacity.
If the bow comes at Bad Bentheim and the track between Coevorden to Emmen is adjusted, only then can the train run from Emmen to Rheine. Until then, the train runs from Coevorden to Bad Bentheim and you have to switch to travel to Emmen or Rheine.