The Ahr Valley Railway

When the railway up the Ahr valley was rebuilt, it was built against the river. On the night of 14 to 15 July 2021 the Ahr flooded and destroyed most of the line above Walporzheim: track, embankments, stations and bridges. Deutsche Bahn's brief for the new one was that it should stand up to the next flood. Where the line crosses the river, the new bridges were designed with no pier standing in the water, so a flood meets as little of them as possible; nine of them span the Ahr in a single steel structure of 61 to 75 metres. At Heimersheim, where the old station sat at a narrowing of the river, the stop was moved 700 metres downstream.

The line reopened all the way to Ahrbrück on 14 December 2025, after four years and about €590 million, and for the first time it runs under electric wires. It leaves the Rhine at Remagen and climbs 29 kilometres through Bad Neuenahr, the walled town of Ahrweiler and the red-wine villages of Dernau, Rech and Mayschoß, where the valley narrows to rock and terraced vineyards, to Altenahr under its ruined castle.

Two lines share the track: the RB 30, which starts in Bonn, and the RB 32 from Remagen. Between them they run two trains an hour, and the ride from Remagen takes about 45 minutes. It is an ordinary regional train: no reservation, no supplement, and a Deutschlandticket covers it.

Remagen is a station on the left bank of the Rhine, on the main line between Cologne and Koblenz. The Ahr valley trains turn west, away from the river, through Bad Bodendorf and the new stop at Heimersheim/Lohrsdorf, opened in December 2024 to replace the old Heimersheim station. Bad Neuenahr is the spa town, with its Kurpark beside the Ahr. Two stops later, Ahrweiler Markt is the stop for the walled old town.

Into the vineyards

After Walporzheim the valley closes in. The train passes the Bunte Kuh rock and the former convent of Marienthal, crosses and recrosses the river, and reaches Dernau, Rech and Mayschoß, villages that live from red wine, with vineyards climbing the slopes above the line. This is the stretch the flood destroyed. Between Walporzheim and Ahrbrück the last 14 kilometres were rebuilt almost as a new railway: 15 new bridges, 7 repaired, five tunnels renovated and enlarged for the overhead line, and the stations rebuilt. The last bridge, at Pützfeld, 64 metres long, was slid into place over the Ahr in July 2025.

Altenahr is the line's great view: the castle ruin of Burg Are on its rock above the village, and the river bending under it. Kreuzberg follows, and then Ahrbrück, where the line now ends. It once went on to Adenau, but that end closed in stages, in 1985 and 1999.

A line with a strategic past

The railway opened from Remagen to Ahrweiler in 1880, to Altenahr in 1886 and to Adenau in 1888. Before the First World War it was given a strategic role: a second track was laid from 1910, and in 1918 the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen linked it across the Rhine. A further strategic line from the north was begun towards the valley and never finished; its tunnels later held the federal government's nuclear bunker. After 1945 the second track was taken up as reparations, and between Rech and Altenahr its bed is now a cycle path.

The trains

The valley's trains used to be diesel railcars. Now there are two electric types. Trans Regio runs the RB 32 with Siemens Mireo units, some of them in a livery advertising the Ahrtal, and DB Regio runs the RB 30 with Bombardier Talent 2 units, from March 2026. By the reopening every one of the 13 stations between Remagen and Ahrbrück had step-free access, except one platform at Ahrweiler Markt.

From 13 December 2026 two trains an hour run the whole line every day, about half an hour apart. The RB 30 starts in Bonn and runs through Remagen to Ahrbrück; the RB 32 starts at Remagen, and every two hours runs on beyond Remagen to Koblenz and Boppard. Both stop at every station. No reservation is needed or possible.

Times below are from the timetable valid from 13 December 2026, read in October 2026. Check departures at bahn.de (opens in a new tab).

Up the valley — every hour, at the same minutes

So the 08:46 from Bonn reaches Ahrbrück at 09:56, and the 08:32 from Remagen at 09:15. The first train leaves Remagen at 04:01 on weekdays and the last at 23:32.

Down the valley

The RB 30 runs through to Bonn until the 20:02 from Ahrbrück; later ones end at Remagen. At weekends there are a few trains fewer early in the morning, and on Sundays the RB 32 starts later.

Until 12 December 2026

While the last works are finished, the RB 32 ends at Altenahr, leaving Remagen at :48 and Altenahr at :34, and the RB 30 runs only between Remagen and Ahrbrück, leaving Remagen at :18 and Ahrbrück at :04. For Bonn, change at Remagen.

The line is in the fare zone of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Mosel (VRM), and singles are priced by how many zones you cross: in 2026 from €2.60 for one zone to €16.20 for the longest trips, with children aged 6 to 14 paying less. Buy them from DB ticket machines, at bahn.de (opens in a new tab) or in the DB Navigator app. Bicycles travel free after 09:00 on weekdays and all day at weekends.

For a day of getting on and off, the Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket covers every regional train in the state, the whole line included, for €30, plus €10 for each extra traveller up to five. The Deutschlandticket, €63 a month and €66.80 from 1 January 2027, covers it too.

Interrail and Eurail passes cover this line. Interrail's table of German operators includes regional trains (RB) run by DB "and all other Regional carriers", with no reservation, so both the DB Regio RB 30 and the Trans Regio RB 32 are covered. The only German trains it excludes are FlixTrain and GoVolta.

For this journey alone a pass is not worth buying. A VRM single or a €30 Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket costs far less than a pass day. It earns its price when the Ahr is a day out on a longer trip through Germany, as a detour from the Rhine.

Pass conditions checked against Interrail's railway-companies page, last updated 21 October 2026. Conditions change with each season, and the pass issuer's page is the one that binds.

The valley is short enough to see in a day, with a stop or two on the way up and the castle at the top. Ahrweiler's old town is beside Ahrweiler Markt station. The government bunker is a walk uphill from Ahrweiler or Walporzheim, and must be booked ahead. Burg Are is a steep climb from Altenahr station. The bridge towers at Remagen are by the Rhine, before or after the ride.

The whole line takes under an hour, so the valley is easy to visit from Bonn or Koblenz. To stay in it, Bad Neuenahr has the spa hotels, Ahrweiler has rooms inside its medieval walls, and the vineyards above the valley have hotels with a view down over it.

The places below keep their own websites and take direct bookings.

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