Railway line Lampertsmühle-Otterbach – Otterberg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lampertsmühle-Otterbach-Otterberg
Line of the railway line Lampertsmühle-Otterbach-Otterberg
Route number : 3305
Course book section (DB) : 272f
Route length: 3.9 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend
Route - straight ahead
 from Lauterecken-Grumbach
Station, station
 0.0 Lampertsmühle-Otterbach 218.2
   
 to Kaiserslautern
   
 Lauterstraße / Kreisstraße 62 , formerly Bundesstraße 270
   
 Main road
   
 2.5 Erlenbach (Palatinate) 235.9
   
 State road 387
   
 Kapellenweg / Kreisstraße 39
   
 3.9 Otterberg 240.1

The railway Lampert-Otterbach Otter Berg was a 3.9 km long branch line , which in Otterbach by the Lauter Valley Railway branched off. The line was opened in 1911 by the Royal Bavarian State Railways initially exclusively for freight traffic . Its main purpose was to connect the town of Otterberg , north of Kaiserslautern , to the railway network, which the latter had been demanding for decades. Passenger traffic existed from 1919 to 1954. The German Federal Railroad ran until 1969freight traffic through. After that it served as a siding for two companies. The operation was stopped in 1980 and the rails dismantled. Today a hiking and cycling path runs along part of the route .

history

Planning and construction

As early as 1856, the city of Otterberg tried to establish a rail connection. A corresponding committee proposed a railway line from Kaiserslautern via Otterberg and Kirchheimbolanden to the Grand Duchy of Hesse . A short time later it was discussed whether the planned Alsenz Valley Railway should run from Bad Münster to Kaiserslautern via Otterberg. After the Palatinate Ludwig Railway Company was initially open to this plan, it rejected it in 1863. She justified her position with the fact that this line layout was too expensive because of topographical problems. Furthermore, it is better for the Alsenz Valley Railway, which was designed as a long-distance route, in relation to the expected traffic in the north-south direction, if it branches off from the Ludwigsbahn at Hochspeyer .

Lampertsmühle-Otterbach station, starting point for the route to Otterberg from 1911, in 1887

In the same year, in connection with plans to build the Donnersbergbahn , the committee tried to implement a route from Langmeil via Otterberg to Kaiserslautern. This project also failed for cost reasons. At the same time there were efforts to create a railway line in the neighboring Lautertal , which was opened in 1883. Together with a committee in Wolfstein , the Otterberg counterpart issued a memorandum for a route from Kaiserslautern via Erlenbach and Otterberg, in which they advocated a route along the Lauter . On closer inspection, however, a direct connection from Otterberg turned out to be too cumbersome, so that the plan was discarded.

Around 1870, a branch line ending in Otterbach was planned, which should branch off from a full line running in the Lautertal . For financial and economic reasons - the construction of the Lauterstraße would have meant additional costs of nearly two million marks - the project was put on hold for the time being. It was not until 1898 that the plan to connect Otterberg to the Lautertal line was taken up again. The city council granted a concession for the planning, and the government also agreed in the same year. Two years later, the Kaiserslautern District Office also supported the city's efforts. A rail connection for Otterberg is necessary because the city has not grown for 60 years. The construction costs were estimated at a total of 390,000 marks . Since the Pfalzbahn expected to be nationalized, it no longer started building the line. It was only under the direction of the Royal Bavarian State Railways that the plans were implemented.

Follow-up period (1911–1945)

The branch line, the average gradient of which was 1: 180, was opened on December 1, 1911. It was initially used for freight traffic and was also released for passenger traffic by the railway administration in October 1919. The idea of extending the route along the Odenbach and Moschelbach to Obermoschel was not realized. In 1920 the newly founded Deutsche Reichsbahn became the owner of the line. In 1922 it was planned to shut down the Erlenbach station, the only stopover on the line, due to insufficient use. However, popular protests prevented this project.

In the 1930s, consideration was given to extending the line to the Alsenz Valley Railway from Hochspeyer to Bad Münster. In 1936 the Deutsche Reichsbahn dissolved the Reichsbahndirektion Ludwigshafen and incorporated the route into the Saarbrücken directorate .

1939 stayed Adolf Hitler along with security forces in his special train on the railway line when he started in 1938 to visit the construction activity on West Wall - the equivalent of the Maginot Line - traveled. On May 5, 1941, a directory was published under the title "Vital Trains" in order to maintain a minimum number of trains despite the restrictions imposed by the war. Accordingly, at least three trains had to run between Kaiserslautern and Otterberg, just like on the neighboring Lautertalbahn.

From the end of the war to decommissioning (1945–1994)

From 1947 to 1949 the line, like the entire railway network within the French occupation zone, was under the administration of the Works Association of Southwest German Railways (SWDE) before the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) was founded in 1949 . Due to the separation of the Saarland, the line changed to the area of ​​responsibility of the Mainz Federal Railway Directorate. In 1950, this caused general cargo traffic on the Kaiserslautern – Otterberg route to be transported by lorry due to the lack of appropriate wagons due to the war .

With the beginning of the summer timetable on May 23, 1954, passenger train journeys on Sundays ceased. A few months later - when the winter timetable came into force on October 3, 1954 - passenger traffic between Lampertsmühle-Otterbach and Otterberg was completely stopped. The line was one of the first branch lines to lose passenger traffic on the Deutsche Bundesbahn. However, the book timetable of the Federal Railway Directorate in Mainz in the summer of 1958 contained two passenger freight trains, for which, however, it is still not clear whether they ever operated. Officially, all operations on the line were stopped in 1969, but it was agreed to convert the railway line into a private siding for two companies.

In the next ten years, the tracks were not maintained, so that their condition deteriorated continuously and ultimately it was impossible to drive on. On February 1, 1980, the service was completely stopped and two years later the line was dismantled. Only the first 200 meters were sporadically used as an access track to a neighboring tank farm until 1994, but then also dismantled.

business

passenger traffic

Track plan in the Lampertsmühle-Otterbach station at the time of the branch line to Otterberg, the track of which is shown in the lower part

After the line was opened for passenger traffic, the trains ran along the Lautertal line initially from or to the Kaiserslautern Westbahnhof , later often to the main station of the "Barbarossastadt". The trains in the Lampertsmühle-Otterbach station always had to go crazy , which in combination with the similarly cumbersome connection in Kaiserslautern West significantly increased the journey time. For example, the 12.5-kilometer journey from Otterberg to Kaiserslautern Central Station took more than half an hour. This contributed significantly to the fact that passenger traffic on the route only lasted three and a half decades. The road competed and ultimately the route lost its importance in passenger transport. Until 1929 the number of pairs of trains on weekdays fluctuated between three and five. By the late 1930s that number rose to eight and then gradually decreased. In the 1944 timetable, only a few trains starting in Otterberg ran to Kaiserslautern, in the opposite direction they only started at the Lampertsmühle-Otterbach station.

When passenger transport was discontinued, only two pairs of trains ran on working days. The route was last listed in the timetable under number 272f . The trains were popularly known as the “Krakow Express” .

Freight transport

In terms of freight transport, the railway was mainly used to transport agricultural products. After passenger traffic had opened on the route, the freight wagons were carried on the passenger trains. After the Second World War, freight customers included the company Eugen Hubing and the Raiffeisengenossenschaft Frankfurt , to whose private siding the railway was rededicated in 1969.

Vehicle use

The nearby Kaiserslautern depot was responsible for the use of vehicles . Initially, steam locomotives from the Palatinate P5 series were used on the route . The timetable of 1930 also has inserts of T 4.I on. From 1938 to 1941, class 70.1 locomotives, which were modeled on the Baden I g , took over part of the services. From 1939 the class 50 , which was very widespread on the neighboring routes, was to be found on the Otterberger Bahn. Due to the fact that many locomotives of the Kaiserslautern railway depot were defective as a result of the Second World War, the 75.4 / 10-11 series helped out from January 1950 to mid-1951 , before the 86 series then arrived in the West Palatinate. From 1952 the 71.0 series was also used, which was designed primarily for routes with low demand.

From 1933 diesel locomotives of the type Köf II could also be found on the route. The V 100 series was also used from the mid-1960s.

Operating points

Lampertsmühle-Otterbach

The station existed since 1883 as an en route station for the Lautertal Railway. In 1911, with the opening of the branch line to Otterberg, it became a separation station. In 1914 the Bach Railway followed, leading to Weilerbach, which was tied through to Reichenbach in 1920. After the two lines were closed, the track systems were significantly dismantled. The traffic to Otterberg turned out to be very complex, as the trains first had to leave the station in a northerly direction in order to then change direction to the branch line.

Former railway line near Erlenbach

Erlenbach (Palatinate)

Erlenbach was the only stopover on the route. Although it was built in 1916, the site had not yet officially opened. It was almost two kilometers away from the town of the same name, immediately west of the district road to the town, today's state road 387. Because of this distance, its importance for passenger traffic was always very low. Not least because of this, it was planned in 1922 to shut down the station due to insufficient use, which was thwarted by protests by the population. The station had two tracks that were 92 and 93 meters long, respectively, as well as two loading bays on its southern side, one of which was slightly elevated and had an access road. There was a storage area on the other side. On December 1, 1952, parallel to the closure of the railway agency, the station was converted into an unoccupied stop.

Otterberg

The otter Bergbahnhof had a side of the track traufständig positioned single storey reception building with a waiting and a service area. A goods shed was attached to the building, the outer walls of which were clad with wood. There were also loading ramps on both the road side and the track side. In addition, the comparatively large station had six switches and side tracks with a total length of 255 meters. In 1934, 26,088 tickets were sold at the station, while a total of 49,445 people left. In addition, 11,907 tons of goods were received and 4,410 tons were sent. When the line was officially closed in 1969, the station had only received four carloads; at this point it had already played no role in shipping.

History and relics

The Otterbach within the municipality of the same name viewed from the north. In the background, but before the rise to the Roman Catholic Church, was the railway line.

The route began in the Lampertsmühle-Otterbach station and left it in an easterly direction. At the northern part of the station there was a stump track on which the trains had to change direction . Immediately afterwards, the track crossed Lauterstraße, which was previously part of Bundesstraße 270 , and headed east through the middle of the Otterbach settlement area . The entire length of the route ran along the orographic left bank of the Otterbach , a tributary of the Lauter. After about four kilometers she reached the entrance to Otterberg, where the railway line ended.

The railway line was located within what is now the district of Kaiserslautern , only in the area of ​​the Erlenbach stop it ran for a few hundred meters on the boundary of the independent city of Kaiserslautern , into which Erlenbach was incorporated in 1969. With Otterbach, Kaiserslautern and Otterberg, the route crossed the boundaries of a total of three local communities and cities.

In the period from 1991 to 2000, starting at the Lampertsmühle-Otterbach train station, a cycling and hiking trail was laid out. This is located for a total of 2.9 kilometers on the route of the railway line, but is not explicitly signposted. In Otterberg it ends at Kapellenweg, which also forms district road 39 .

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways on Glan and Lauter . Self-published, Waldmohr 1996, ISBN 3-9804919-0-0 .

Web links

Commons : Railway line Lampertsmühle-Otterbach-Otterberg  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 27 .
  2. ^ A b Fritz Engbarth: 125 years of railways in Lautertal - Festschrift for the anniversary weekend from September 20 to 21, 2008 . 2008, p. 4 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 28 .
  4. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 39 .
  5. ^ A b Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 42 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e Fritz Engbarth: 125 years of railways in Lautertal - Festschrift for the anniversary weekend from September 20 to 21, 2008 . 2008, p. 12 .
  7. ^ A b c Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 49 .
  8. ↑ Project management: Detlef Wienecke-Janz: National Socialism and World War II . 1933-1945. Wissen Media Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-577-09076-6 , p. 208 .
  9. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 50 .
  10. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 53 f .
  11. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 54 f .
  12. ^ A b Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 61 .
  13. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 64 .
  14. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 68 .
  15. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 54 .
  16. ↑ 272f Kaiserslautern - Lampertsmühle-Otterbach - Otterberg / Reichenbach (Palatinate) / Lauterecken-Grumbach. (jpg, 179 kB) In: Kursbuch . 1944, accessed on February 6, 2013 (reproduced on pkjs.de).
  17. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 122 .
  18. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 40 .
  19. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 128 .
  20. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 129 ff .
  21. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 141 f .
  22. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 99 .
  23. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 54 .
  24. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 104 .
  25. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 45 .
  26. ↑ Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 61 .
  27. ↑ Achim Bartoschek: Railroad cycling in Rhineland-Palatinate: RP 3.10 Lampertsmühle-Otterbach - Otterberg. In: bahntrassenradeln.de. September 19, 2018, accessed February 1, 2020 .
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 23, 2013 in this version .