Cologne-Minden Railway Company

The founding of the Cologne-Minden Railway Company in 1843 in Cologne ended a long struggle for a railway line between the Rhineland and the German North Sea ports, as well as the Prussian capital of Berlin. From the 1830s several railway committees in the cities of Düsseldorf, Cologne and Aachen attempted to find a solution with each other and the Prussian government. The focus of all these efforts was to avoid the Dutch duties on trade on the Rhine, which significantly increased the cost of import and export of goods via the Rhine. Some of the Cologne committee members under David Hansemann (1790–1864)—a merchant and banker from Aachen—and the Aachen Committee favoured a railway line through Belgium to the seaport of Antwerp. The Rhenish Railway Company–which had already been established on 9 July 1837 in Cologne–began construction of a railway line from Cologne via Aachen to the Belgian border, which was opened in sections between 1839 and 1843. Others saw advantages in a better connection between the Rhineland and the Weser with a terminus in Minden, which was connected by boat to the port of Bremen. At the same time they discussed with the Kingdom of Hanover the possibility of a rail link via Hanover, Braunschweig and Magdeburg to Berlin.