Left Rhine Railway through the Rhine Gorge

An InterCity cab ride up the left bank of the Rhine from Koblenz to Mainz, past Boppard, the Loreley, Oberwesel, Bacharach and the castles of the Rhine Gorge.

The route

The Left Rhine line, Linke Rheinstrecke in German, follows the west bank of the Rhine from Cologne through Bonn and Koblenz to Bingen and Mainz. It grew in stages from the Bonn–Cologne railway of 1844. The Rhenish Railway Company took the line over in 1857 and pushed it south, and on 15 December 1859 the section from Koblenz up the gorge to Bingerbrück opened. Two months earlier, on 17 October 1859, the Hessian Ludwig Railway had opened its line from Mainz to Bingen, so the two met at the mouth of the Nahe.

Between Koblenz and Bingen the river cuts a deep, winding gorge through the Rhenish Slate Mountains, and the railway shares a narrow strip of shore with the road, the towns and the vineyards, often squeezed between the water and the rock. The east bank carries a second line, so trains run along both sides of the river. The left bank line was electrified in 1959.

This stretch, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002. Its 65 km between Bingen, Rüdesheim and Koblenz hold some 40 hilltop castles and fortresses and around sixty small towns, with vineyards terraced into the slopes for more than a thousand years. The line is one of Germany's busiest: long-distance, regional and freight trains share it, and freight traffic grew after the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed line opened.

What you will see

The film is presented by a Deutsche Bahn long-distance driver and runs from Koblenz Hauptbahnhof to Mainz on an InterCity. Leaving Koblenz, the train heads upstream with the river on the left, past Stolzenfels and the small town of Rhens, to Boppard, where the Hunsrück Railway branches off; between Boppard and Boppard-Buchholz that line climbs 336 m and remains Germany's steepest adhesion railway.

Further south the valley tightens. At St. Goar the Loreley rock rises almost directly opposite, on the east bank, at the most famous of the river's narrows, no more than 130 m wide. The line runs on past the walled town of Oberwesel and the island castle of Pfalzgrafenstein near Kaub to Bacharach, with Burg Stahleck and the ruined Werner Chapel above the half-timbered streets.

Before Bingen the train passes the Mouse Tower on its island in the river and reaches Bingen (Rhein) Hauptbahnhof, called Bingerbrück until 1993, where the Nahe Valley Railway turns off to the south-west. Here the gorge ends. The last part of the journey runs through the open, vine-covered country of Rheinhessen, past Ingelheim, into Mainz.

Riding it for real

One InterCity or ICE an hour runs between Koblenz and Mainz, with few or no stops in the gorge. To see the valley town by town, the regional trains are the better choice: the RB 26 MittelrheinBahn runs hourly between Cologne, Koblenz and Mainz and calls at every station, and RE 2 and RE 17 trains also serve Boppard, Oberwesel and Bingen. On Sundays and holidays from May to October, excursion trains such as the Rheintal-Express and Weinstrassen-Express add further services. Check Deutsche Bahn or the regional operators for current timetables and fares before you travel.

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