One of Germany’s most strategically important rail lines comes to Train Simulator, bringing the splendours of The Rhine Railway to life and featuring one of Europe’s largest freight marshalling yards.

The Rhine Railway runs from Mannheim to Rastatt, via Karlsruhe, and was opened in 1870 as an alternative route to the Baden Mainline. The line originally ran between Graben-Neudor and Karlsruhe, following a more western path to its current one, and is now called the Hardt Railway, partly used by lines S1 and S11 of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn.

In 1895, the current route was opened as far as Karlsruhe and extended to Rastatt. Being entirely within the Upper Rhine Plain, the line is almost entirely straight and there are no major engineering structures anywhere along its path, and runs almost parallel with the Rhine Valley Railway, which runs from Mannheim to Hiedelberg, Karlsruhe, Rastatt, Offenburg and Basel.