Bochum–Gelsenkirchen railway

The line from Bochum-Riemke to Wanne-Eickel via Wanne-Röhlinghausen was used by passenger and freight traffic from 1886 to 1960. The chainage starts at the former Bochum Präsident station. Apart from passenger services between Bochum-Langendreer and Wanne-Eickel, it was used by freight traffic to the Hannover colliery (until 1973) and the Mannesmann steelworks in Wanne-Eickel (until its closure in 1980).[12] The line went past the Hannover colliery to the east and the preserved Malakow tower of the mine is still recognisable. West of the mine and the neighbouring Königsgrube (“king's pit”) colliery was in places less than 100 metres away from the Gelsenkirchen-Wattenscheid–Wanne-Eickel railway (line 2232, see below). The Bochum-Riemke–Wanne-Eickel railway passed under the southern pair of tracks of the Gelsenkirchen–Wanne-Eickel main line at today's Görresstraße in Wanne-Eickel (exactly at the point where the parallel Gelsenkirchen-Wattenscheid–Wanne-Eickel line (line 2232) connected at a high level with the southern pair of tracks), then ran through Bickern junction and connected at Plutostraße with the northern tracks from Gelsenkirchen to Wanne-Eickel. This allowed Wanne-Eickel station to be reached by this line from the west, unlike the still operational Bochum–Gelsenkirchen line, which reaches Wanne-Eickel from the east.

This 10-km long line ran from Gelsenkirchen Central Station via Gelsenkirchen-Wattenscheid station, which is on the southern outskirts of the city, and back north to Wanne-Eickel. It was operated exclusively for freight, except for a brief period in the 1880s. However, the route was temporarily used in 1949 for the Katholikentag (“Catholic's day”) pilgrimages to Bochum, because the Bochum-Riemke–Wanne-Eickel line (discussed above) was overloaded. Originally built as a colliery railway (Carolinenglück Railway, see below), the section from Gelsenkirchen Hbf to Gelsenkirchen-Wattenscheid was dismantled in the 1960s, while the eastern branch to the Hanover and Königsgrube collieries was electrified in 1977 before its closure in 1990.[13]

A colliery railway connected from Gelsenkirchen-Wattenscheid station to the east to the Carolinenglück colliery nearby. Along with the neighbouring collieries of Hannover, Holland and Rheinelbe, the Carolinenglück colliery had a rail connection to Gelsenkirchen CME (now Gelsenkirchen Central Station) in the 1850s. It was connected in 1867 to the Rhenish Railway Company's new Osterath–Dortmund Süd railway.[14] Parts of the line at the Carolinenglück mine were used for the route of an iron ore railway built from the Rhine-Herne Canal to the Bochumer Verein steel works in the early 20th century.