Welcome to our English summary

The objective of our association "BIN gegen Bahnlärm" - a german word play " I am against rail noise" - is to fight rail noise that stems from the heavy freight trains running through the Rhine valley. William Turner, the famous english painter, once praised the "romantic Rhine" with the "Drachenfels" at Königswinter and the Loreley further down south. Thousands of english tourist came in the 19th century to admire the wonderful landscape with the unrivalled vinyards on the steep banks of the river and brought unprecedented wealth to the region. Today the section between Koblenz an Bingen is part of the UNESCO world cultural heritage. The rail tracks on both banks served to bring tourists to each and every town along the river and to supply the necessary transport connections for small and medium sized industry.

However today the Rhine valley is one of the most frequented European rail freight corridors with more than 500 trains running per day on the tracks on both sides of the valley. And more to come when the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland will be operational foreseen in 2016.

We are not against freight trains, but we are against the excessive noise that is emmanating from old running stock with cast iron brakes.

This noise up to 100 decibel and the untolerable vibrations are severely damaging our health, our houses and the economic basis of thousands of families who since generations earn their living in the tourist industry.

We are fighting for 3 major objectives:

short term: faster retrofitting of the old running stock with modern composite brakes - so called LL brakes "Low noise - Low friction"; as long as this retroffiting is not completed trains must run at lower speed or stop running during the night.

Our health is more important than profit.

mid term: enable existing alternative rail tracks to reduce the heavy burden on the people in the Rhine valley.

long term: build a new alternative track, preferably a visionary tunnel from St. Augustin near Bonn through the Westerwald and Taunus region to Wiesbaden or even Groß Gerau south of Frankfurt.

In the future you might find more detailed information in English on the project and our activities here. We believe it is important to bring this information to you also in English as the RFC - Rail Freight Corridor 2 from the ZARA ports Zeebrugge, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp to Genova is part of the EU TEN-T initiative - the Trans European Network - Transport. It is a necessary investment for the economic future of the EU and Germany. But it has to take into account the health and well being of the people that live here since generations.

For further information please contact us at info@bingegenbahnlaerm.de