Foundation The Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company was founded on 18 October 1843 in
Elberfeld (today a city district of
Wuppertal). Since the Cologne-Minden Railway Company had decided to build its route via
Duisburg rather than through the valley of the
Wupper river, the Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company (, BME) determined to build its own line through the Wupper valley, to create a link between the highly industrialised area of the
Bergisches Land with the east, particularly to connect with the
Märkische coal fields, near
Dortmund. The required concession for the railway was Granted by the
Prussian government on 12 July 1844. A link to the Rhine in the west had already been completed in 1841 by the
Düsseldorf-Elberfeld Railway Company, which had been founded in 1837.
Trunk routes in 1861 Its original, 56 km long
main line ran from Elberfeld to Dortmund via
Barmen (since 1929 part of Wuppertal),
Schwelm,
Hagen,
Wetter and
Witten and was completed in 1849. In the following years the company built other main and branch lines in the Ruhr along the
Hellweg an ancient highway and the
Ruhr and Rhine rivers. In 1862 it opened a profitable
east-west trunk line between Dortmund and Witten through
Bochum-
Langendreer,
Essen,
Mülheim an der Ruhr to Duisburg. The development of the Ruhr valley was largely a result of the opening of the BME’s trunk line. The company’s development was characterised by the acquisitions of many smaller railway companies to round out its network. However, its energetic board of directors and its chairman
Daniel von der Heydt (1802–1874, later a member of the
Prussian House of Lords), despite years of effort, were not able to take over the Prussian government-owned
Royal Westphalian Railway Company. Such a takeover would have allowed the BME to develop a connection via
Hamm to a German seaport via
Rheine.
Expansion Major expansion began in 1859 with the construction of the 106 km long
Ruhr–Sieg from Hagen to Siegen and its mines. The line opened on 6 August 1861 and cost 12.9 million
thalers. In 1858 it started to build its Witten–Duisburg trunk line through the Ruhr. The first section was opened between Duisburg and Hochfeld for freight trains only on 19 August 1859. The 52 km line from
Bochum-Langendreer to Steele, Essen and Mülheim an der Ruhr, with connections to various coal mines, was completed on 1 May 1862. At Steele it also connected with the northern end of the
Steele–Vohwinkel railway, which had been rebuilt in 1847 from the
Prince William Railway (opened as the first horse-powered railway in Germany in 1831) and acquired by the BME in 1854 for 1.3 million thalers. Logically, then its next step in 1866 was to cross the Rhine via the
Ruhrort–Homberg train ferry with the goal of connecting with
Belgium and
Netherlands through the purchase of the
Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company’s lines for seven million thalers. In 1870, it completed the
Hamm railway bridge across the Rhine in Düsseldorf-Hamm and opened the line from
Dusseldorf to Neuss. This created a second connection between its networks on the east and west banks of the Rhine. In addition the construction of several smaller routes followed up to 1876, an extension in an easterly direction, the
Upper Ruhr Valley Railway to
Arnsberg,
Bestwig,
Brilon-Wald and
Warburg and
Holzminden on the
Weser river. Here it connected with the
line to Kassel of the
Frederick William Northern Railway Company, which it took over on 17 April 1868, with its 130-kilometer line from
Gerstungen via
Bebra and
Kassel to
Bad Karlshafen for eight million thalers. After 1870 the network was extended on the west bank of the Rhine with the 66 km long line from
Rheydt-Odenkirchen to
Aue and
Düren. During the nationalisation of the company in 1880 the company took over the 78 km railway network of the
Dutch-Westphalian Railway Company from
Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck to
Dorsten,
Borken to
Winterswijk in the Netherlands, with a branch from Borken to
Bocholt.
Opening and acquisition of lines ==Nationalisation==