Almtalbahn

Almtalbahn Wels - Sattledt - Grünau, former Sattledt - Rohr branch
Class 5022 railcars at Grünau im Almtal station
Route number :	252 01
Course book route (ÖBB) :	153
Route length:	Wels - Grünau im Almtal: 43 km Sattledt - Rohr: 12.4 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	B1 (Wels Hbf - Wels Local Railway = D4)
Maximum slope :	23  ‰
Minimum radius :	139 m
Top speed:	80 km / h
Legend Western Railway of Vienna 0.0 Wels central station 316  m above sea level A. Western Railway to Salzburg Connecting railway ( Awanst ) Fritsch Mühle (until 2001) 1,582 Wels local train control center 2.057 Catfish fair 2.144 Wels Volksgarten 01.05.1906 closed 2.265 Traun 3.075 Aschet 04.09.1989 abandoned 3.185 Connecting railway (Awanst) Spielvogel 4,410 Schauersberg opened in 1989 as a replacement for Aschet 6.396 Stone house at Wels train station with fallback switches 385  m above sea level A. 9,050 Oberhart 9.184 Connecting railway (Awanst) Pohl (until 2019) 10.731 Under hard 401  m above sea level A. 11.204 Connection track (Awanst) quartzolite A1 West Autobahn 12.856 0.0 Sattledt station with fallback switches 400  m above sea level A. former branch to Rohr 14.396 Sipbach 17.395 Kollendorf 19.185 Kremsmünster monastery building and magazine preserved 419  m above sea level A. 21,451 Wolfgangstein Krems 23.969 Achleiten Pyhrnbahn from Selzthal 25,314 Rohr Bf is now called "Rohr-Bad Hall" 328  m above sea level A. Pyhrnbahn to Linz 3.087 Maidorf abandoned 4,622 Großendorf 424  m above sea level A. 7.034 Wiesmühle 8.278 Voitsdorf train station with fallback switches 426  m above sea level A. 10.223 Moss abandoned 12,240 Wilfling opened in 1989 12,907 Water lift 10/16/1989 abandoned 13,750 Diensthubersiedlung opened in 1989 14.826 Pettenbach train station with fallback switches 486  m above sea level A. 16.755 Heiligenleithen abandoned 18,966 Steinbach Bridge 460  m above sea level A. 19.298 Alm 21.637 Viechtwang 23.639 Scharnstein-Mühldorf train station with fallback switches 25.762 Kothmühle 26,905 Traxenbichl 30.090 Grünau im Almtal 517  m above sea level A.

Under Almtalbahn is today understood the 43-km-long, standard gauge route Wels - Sattledt - Grünau . Historically, the Almtalbahn only consists of the Sattledt - Grünau section. The Wels - Sattledt line was built as part of the Wels-Rohrer Railway .

The Almtalbahn runs from the Upper Austrian district town of Wels from the Trauntal in a southerly direction via Sattledt and Pettenbach into the Almtal , which it reaches at Steinbachbrücke. It follows the river upwards via Scharnstein to the end point Grünau on the northern edge of the Dead Mountains . It passes through the districts of Wels-Land , Kirchdorf an der Krems and Gmunden . The aim of the railway construction was on the one hand to promote the local timber and iron industry and on the other hand to open up the landscape in the foothills of the Alps for tourism .

history

Feldbahn during the construction of the Almtalbahn around 1899.

Wels - Sattledt - Rohr

With the construction of the Westbahn with the branch line to Passau , the city of Wels became a railway junction. The city fathers wanted to expand this position through further railway projects. Among other things, they planned a connection from Wels to the Kremstal as part of a north-south connection from Bohemia to Styria . However, the Linz project of a Kremstalbahn was realized earlier, so that Wels only had to build a connecting line Wels - Sattledt - Rohr (opened in 1893). Despite this connection, the Kremstal, which had previously been oriented towards Wels, now turned towards Linz, which soon made the route unprofitable. The Sattledt-Rohr branch has meanwhile been removed, the reception building of the three-track Kremsmünster Stift station, the only intermediate station, has been preserved and is now used as a residential building.

Sattledt - Grünau

In order not to lose the Almtal, for which there were already projects to develop from Lambach , the people of Wels planned a route that would branch off the Wels - Rohr route in Sattledt and lead via Voitsdorf and Pettenbach to Grünau im Almtal. This time the Wels project was successful and the branch line was opened in 1901.

Both lines were owned by the Welser Lokalbahn AG from the opening until the nationalization on March 12, 1942 , but were operated from the beginning by the respective state railway ( kkStB , BBÖ , Deutsche Reichsbahn ). On the Sattledt - Rohr section (with partly continuous trains from Wels to Bad Hall), operations were officially switched to rail replacement services on December 1, 1966, and the line was subsequently dismantled. The route from Wels Hbf to Grünau is still operated today by the Austrian Federal Railways . From Sattledt there is still a kilometer break today.

Opening and recruitment dates

October 14, 1893	*	Wels - Sattledt - Kremsmünster monastery
November 19, 1893	*	Kremsmünster pin tube
May 23, 1901	*	Sattledt - Grünau im Almtal
March 28, 1966	†	Sattledt-pipe

business

Wels - Sattledt - Grünau

Initially, local railway tank locomotives ( C n2t ) of the kkStB series 97 were used , and from 1901 four-axle ( D n2vt ) tank locomotives of the 178 series were also used for freight trains . Steam railcars and petroleum-fired, two-axle tank locomotives ( B n2vt , series 185 ) used on a trial basis did not prove themselves.

Interwar period

In the 1930s, more powerful locomotives of the 99 series ( 1'C n2vt ) and finally the 378 series ( 1'D1 'h2t ) built from 1927 were used. The inter-war period also saw the temporary use of various combustion railcars (e.g. VT 43).

post war period

The final conversion of the series 93 to diesel operation began in 1964 with the use of two SGP - rail buses of ÖBB series 5080 . In 1965 the first “Uerdinger” rail buses ( ÖBB 5081 ) came into operation, which shaped passenger traffic until 1989. Also in 1964, freight traffic was switched to diesel locomotives (series 2060 , 2062 and 2067 ), and in the 1990s ÖBB 2043 , 2068 and 2048 were also used. Finally, the 2070 series moved the vehicle .

In the time shortly before the final dieselization, the operation of the unprofitable route branch Sattledt - Rohr also came to an end (March 28, 1966). On this part of the route with z. Partly continuous passenger trains Wels - Rohr - Bad Hall did not have their own freight trains.

Modernization from 1989 and end of freight traffic

In the 1980s it was decided to modernize the Almtalbahn and make it more attractive. The superstructure was renewed and the line speed increased to up to 80 km / h. Low -cost train control was introduced on May 27, 1990, and travel times to Grünau were shortened. Junction stations received fallback switches, Wels Lokalbahn received two remote-controlled switches and light signals. From 1989 the then completely new, four-axle diesel railcars of the 5047 series were used, which by 1992 completely replaced the rail buses. They are currently used together with the two-part diesel multiple units of the 5022 series .

On June 1, 2002, freight traffic between Sattledt and Grünau was stopped. A year earlier, the electrical connection line of the Fritschmühle in Wels Lokalbahn had been abandoned. The remaining section to Sattledt was last served by Stern & Hafferl on behalf of ÖBB RCA, until a de facto suspension took place on June 15, 2009 with an acceptance block for the remaining route from Wels Lokalbahn.

In an interview with the Upper Austrian News at the beginning of August 2017, the Regional Transport Authority Günther Steinkellner ( FPÖ ) announced that the ÖBB intends to discontinue passenger traffic on the Sattledt – Grünau section in 2019. At the beginning of October it was announced that operations on the Almtalbahn to Grünau im Almtal would be secured until 2029. The Almtalbahn to Sattledt will be electrified by 2030, and the route is to be used to test trains with alternative drives in real operation.

• 

  A railcar of the ÖBB class 5047 at the Hst.Messe Wels

• 

  5022 016-9 in the Sattledt train station

• 

  A 5047 passes the listed former boiler house in Grünau.

Current timetable

There is a two-hour basic cycle with crossing every full hour in Steinhaus b. Wels offered, as well as individual densities at hourly intervals, where the crossing takes place at half an hour in Pettenbach. The symmetry time is about 2 minutes later than usual.

See also

• Wels-Rohrer Railway
• List of railway lines in Austria

literature

• Christian Hager : The Almtalbahn - rail route to the eastern part of the Salzkammergut. In: Christian Hager: Railways in the Salzkammergut. Wilhelm Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr 1992, pp. 121-131 (with map and pictures No. 182-193), ISBN 3850683508 .
• Elmar Oberegger : Brief history of the Almtalbahn. From the beginning to the present. Sattledt 2008 (= publications of the information office for Austrian railway history 3).

Web links

Commons : Almtalbahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Current timetable of the ÖBB
• Almtalbahn - driver's cab ride - Wels (Hbf) to Grünau i. Almtal , video, 57:47, on youtube.com

literature

1. ↑ Wolfgang Leberbauer: Memories of the Welserbahn. Marktgemeinde Kremsmünster, 2007, accessed on June 29, 2013 . 
2. ↑ Oberösterreichische Nachrichten: "The only way out is to develop public transport" . ( nachrichten.at [accessed on August 6, 2017]).
3. ↑ Almtalbahn, Mühlkreisbahn and Hausruckbahn continue to run. In: liferadio.at. October 8, 2018, accessed December 28, 2018 . 
4. ↑ 600 million for the rail: All branch lines are preserved. In: nachrichten.at. July 2, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 .