| | The Vennbahn - Belgium's railway through Germany |
 | | The first section of main line, 48km in length from Aachen to Monschau, was opened on 30 June 1885, only three years after the Act, such were the pressures from the local population to connect up their peripheral region with the rest of the German Empire. |
 | | Even though some of the lands to the west of the line were part of Kreis Monschau, which was to remain in Germany, Belgium claimed sovereignty over the trackbed of this part of the Vennbahn. |
 | | The Belgians reckoned that the line was at the time an essential communication route for the eastern territory given them by the Treaty, inasmuch as it linked the ceded districts from north to south, and they argued that the line was therefore Belgian property. |
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