Citizens' Rail

Tag: eilendorf

  • Pupils brighten up Eilendorf station

    Pupils brighten up Eilendorf station

    Local children have given Aachen’s Eilendorf station a whole new look – and grabbed the media spotlight in the process.

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    In a great example of community participation and the Citizens’ Rail approach, pupils from Maria Montessori Gesamtschule Aachen have been painting the station’s shelter and noise reduction wall based on their own vivid artwork.

    Aachen City Council ran a competition with the school to produce designs to brighten up the station’s shelters, noise reduction wall, entrance and signage. The children visited the station to take a look for themselves and get inspired. They then produced a wide range of concepts, from which the winners were picked by a panel of judges from the City Council, the school, Deutsche Bahn and other project partners.

    Now the students have returned to make their designs a reality – and have attracted plenty of media attention. They were featured on local TV news (watch here at 16min 30 – available for the next seven days), and were saluted on the front page of free local newspaper “Super Mittwoch”, distributed to every household in the city. Further press articles are expected in the coming days.

    Waiting shelter

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    Noise reduction wall

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    The project has also been praised by partners and elected officials. District Mayor Elke Eschweiler said: “I think it’s great, the wealth of ideas which the students have brought to their designs is fantastic.” She announced that Aachen-Eilendorf District Council will soon be looking at further children’s projects, which could lead to a re-design of the neighbouring playground into a “station playground”. Deutsche Bahn’s Abdelhafid Tahri was also full of praise for the students’ work, as well as thanking Aachen City Council and the EU Citizens’ Rail project – which has helped to involve citizens in planning significant improvements at the station.

    For more information, visit www.aachen.de/bahnhof.



  • Young artists to bring Eilendorf station to life

    Young artists to bring Eilendorf station to life

    School children are set to give Eilendorf station a whole new look, thanks to an art competition that is a great example of the Citizens’ Rail approach.

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    Eilendorf is one of our target stations in Aachen (Germany). As part of Citizens’ Rail, the local community has helped to plan major improvements at the station. Now pupils from Maria Montessori Gesamtschule Aachen are getting ready to make a big impact of their own.

    Aachen City Council has run a competition with the school to produce artistic designs to brighten up the station’s shelters, noise reduction wall, entrance and signage. The children visited the station to take a look for themselves and get inspired. They then produced a wide range of concepts, from which the winners (see below) were picked by a panel of judges from the City Council, the school, Deutsche Bahn and other project partners.

    As the next step in the project, the pupils will be returning to the station later this month with paint brushes in hand, ready to turn their vision into reality…

    Photos

    The pupils explore the station and surrounding neighbourhood on their site visit:

    The winning design for the station shelter:

    The winning design for the noise reduction wall:

    Check back soon to see the finished artwork…

  • Station improvements – good news from Aachen

    Station improvements – good news from Aachen

    Citizens’ Rail’s station improvement projects have taken another step forward thanks to a pair of positive council verdicts about Eilendorf station.

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    This month the city’s mobility committee and Aachen-Eilendorf district council both agreed that the transformation of the station should move to the next stage of planning.

    The current station has very poor access for people wishing to get from one platform to the other, involving a long walk via the bridge to the west or tunnel to the east. Passengers have been known to illegally cross the tracks.

    The centre piece of the proposed design is a bridge with barrier-free access. This emerged as the best solution through close engagement with the local community as part of the Citizens’ Rail project. This included consultation events attended by approximately 50 people held in the local neighbourhood.

    Read more about the project on Aachen City Council’s Eilendorf page (in German).

  • Eilendorf community event gets residents involved

    Eilendorf community event gets residents involved

    As part of Citizens’ Rail, approximately 50 local residents in Eilendorf (in Aachen, Germany) attended a community engagement event in October to have their say on potential improvements to their local station.

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    Eilendorf station has considerable access issues – if passengers want to get from one side of the track to the other, this currently involves a long walk to the nearest bridge in one direction or tunnel in the other. Representatives from Citizens’ Rail’s German partners (Stadt Aachen, AVV and RWTH Aachen University) gave presentations setting out four options for improvements to the station (see visualisations below).


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    The presentations are available (in German) in the Dokumente section of Stadt Aachen’s Eilendorf station page. Residents then had the chance to ask questions and give their own views on each of the four options.

    The main reaction from the community was that they welcomed the chance to get involved in planning the improved station at this early stage. Personal safety at the station emerged as a high priority. The options with the best visibility (the first and second slides above) were residents’ favoured options as a result.

    [icon size=”14px” color=”#d42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-circle-arrow-right” spacing=”0px” /] Visit our Eilendorf page to find out more about the project and next steps for improving the station.


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  • Transnational masterclass

    Transnational masterclass

    Students from all four of the Citizens’ Rail partner countries came together in Heerlen in the Netherlands and Aachen in Germany for a two-day masterclass to learn, collaborate and generate radical new visions for local stations.

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    The masterclass on Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th October 2013 included site visits to stations including Nuth, Aachen Eilendorf and Aachen West. The 48 students (from Plymouth University, the University of Central Lancashire, L’Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique, Hogeschool Zuyd and RWTH Aachen University) came from a range of disciplines including geography, tourism, design and civil engineering. They formed four international multi-disciplinary teams to create impressive visions for improvements to Nuth and Eilendorf stations (PDFs):

    [box close=”false” color=”#36A9E1″ icon=”” ]Eilendorf
    Blue team[/box]
    [box close=”false” color=”#93c01f” icon=”” ]Eilendorf
    Green team[/box]
    [box close=”false” color=”#d42053″ icon=”” ]Nuth
    Red team[/box]
    [box close=”false” color=”#F29100″ icon=”” ]Nuth
    Yellow team[/box]

    The students also benefited from thought-provoking presentations from Prof Martina Fromhold-Eisebith (RWTH Aachen University), UK-based community rail champion Paul Salveson and artist Michel Huisman, the man behind the spectacular “Maankwartier” redevelopment of the nearby Heerlen station.

    The masterclass was organised by Citizens’ Rail partners RWTH Aachen University, the City of Aachen, Aachen Transport Authority (AVV) and Parkstad Limburg.