Ammertalbahn

This article deals with the Tübingen – Herrenberg railway line. For the Murnau – Oberammergau railway, which is also called the Ammertal Railway, see Ammergaubahn .

Tübingen – Herrenberg
Route number (DB) :	4633
Course book section (DB) :	764
Route length:	21.4 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	D4
Maximum slope :	1:59 = 17  ‰
Minimum radius :	215 m
Legend Route from Plochingen 0.0 Tübingen Hbf Route to Sigmaringen Route to Horb 0.2 Infrastructure border DB Netz AG / ZÖA 0.5 L 370 0.7 Neckar 0.9 Schlossberg tunnel (288 m) 1.2 B 28 1.6 Tübingen West Former siding, municipal building yard 2.7 Ammer Canal 4.3 Ammer Canal 4.3 Bunting 4.5 Bunting 4.8 Unterjesingen Sandäcker 5.9 Unterjesingen middle 6.0 L 372 6.6 Enzbach 7.3 L 359 7.5 Pfaffingen 7.5 former Manna siding 8.3 Käsbach 10.0 Wrestle 11.2 K 6916 11.4 Width wood 12.2 Hardtwald Bridge 14.6 Altingen (Württ) 14.8 K 6917 15.2 District border Tübingen - Böblingen 15.8 A 81 16.3 K 1036 16.9 former Rigips siding 17.3 Valid stone 17.5 K 1039 18.0 18.8 18.9 Herrenberg Zwerchweg 19.3 L 1184 19.7 20.1 Aischbach 20.4 Gäubahn from Hattingen 21.4 Herrenberg Gäubahn to Stuttgart

The Ammertalbahn in Baden-Württemberg connects the university town of Tübingen with Herrenberg in the Boeblingen district and runs largely through the valley of the Ammer river, which gives it its name . The previously single-track, non-electrified, non-federally owned railway is now owned by the Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal (ZÖA) ( railway infrastructure company ), but DB Regio AG ( railway company ) is still responsible for the management . In addition, individual services are operated by the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn (HzL) , which in this case acts as a subcontractor of DB Regio AG . Since 2019, the line has been double-tracked in several places and is to be electrified.

history

On August 12, 1909, the Herrenberg– Pfäffingen section was opened, making the Herrenberg station a branching station . The Pfäffingen – Tübingen section did not follow until May 1, 1910, partly because the construction of the Schlossberg tunnel was not yet completed. In addition, too little attention was paid to the swampy subsoil in the Ammertal. Oak trunks 13 meters long had to be driven into the ground to stabilize the track. Last but not least, a citizens' initiative had turned against the rail project advocated by Tübingen's Lord Mayor Hermann Haußer . Scholars and artists saw their popular promenades along alleys endangered by the railroad track. The dispute became known as the "Tübinger Alleenstreit". In the context of this dispute, the Swabian Heimatbund was founded in 1909 . At that time his aim was that industrialization should not destroy more of the old than is really necessary.

On March 11, 1972, a highly regarded special train rolled from Tübingen main station through the Schlossberg tunnel to Tübingen Westbahnhof . It was the express train 2444/24415 including saloon and dining car for Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt , which was supposed to give a speech at an election event in the Tübingen Hermann-Hepper-Halle.

On September 25, 1966, the Deutsche Bundesbahn stopped passenger services in the Entringen –Herrenberg section . The Entringen - Validstein section was still operated in freight traffic until January 31, 1998; the Validstein - Herrenberg section was then completely abandoned and finally dismantled in 1973. However, the section was never legally shut down, that is, it was not dismantled , but was only out of service from then on.

On July 26, 1995, the Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal ( ZÖA ) was founded, which bought the line in 1996 from Deutsche Bahn AG at the symbol price of DM 1 plus VAT. The 4.1 kilometer long section between Validstein and Herrenberg was rebuilt, so that the line could be reactivated in full length on August 1, 1999 for passenger traffic. The single-track, non-electrified line was completely modernized and prepared for operation at up to 100 km / h. The Tübingen West, Pfäffingen and Entringen stations are crossing stations with two tracks. Entringen station is a system crossing station. In Herrenberg station the trains only depart from track 102, in Tübingen from tracks 1, 2 or 13. The route was set up for signaled train control , the train conductor was in the Tübingen signal box. Freight traffic has not taken place since then.

When reactivating, 700 passengers per day were expected. In 2008, an average of 7,000 passengers used the route every working day. Around 9000 passengers are now counted every day (as of 2015). Passenger numbers have been rising continuously for years.

Due to the increase in passengers, the route was switched to train detection mode in 2015 with an electronic interlocking regional (ESTW-R) from BBR. For this purpose, the fallback switches were converted into electrically remote-controlled switches, which means that the trains can enter the stations at a higher speed. The stations were equipped with KS signals .

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  Altingen railway station

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  Herrenberg train station: The Ammertalbahn stub track on the left is partially covered by the station building

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  At Unterjesingen

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  At black hole

business

Up to May 21, 1999, the Uerdingen series 796 and 996 rail buses were in service on the Ammertalbahn Uerdingen . Since the reactivation, regional shuttles (series 650.0, 650.1 and 650.3) operated by DB ZugBus Regionalverkehr Alb-Bodensee , a subsidiary of DB Regio AG. Individual trips are carried out on school days by the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn . The basic cycle is Mon – Fri every half hour and on weekends the hourly cycle (with compression on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to a half hour cycle). On school days, this offer is reinforced by 6 additional trains in each direction between Entringen and Tübingen.

While the trains on the western branch always end in Herrenberg, they continue every hour from Tübingen to Wendlingen and from there every two hours to Plochingen . Furthermore, there are eight direct connections on weekdays from Herrenberg via the Ermstalbahn to Bad Urach .

The route is owned by the local public transport association in Ammertal , in which the Böblingen district holds 20 percent and the Tübingen district 80 percent.

Two-track expansion and electrification

End of October 2019: Construction work on the second track at Breitenholz station

The Ammertalbahn plays an important role in the planned Neckar-Alb regional light rail system based on the Karlsruhe model . The implementation is to take place in several stages, with the electrification of the line being one of the first steps.

In March 2016, the planning approval procedure for the electrification of the route between Tübingen and Herrenberg was initiated with two expansion sections. In Unterjesingen, a double-track expansion will take place south of the existing line. This 1.4 kilometer expansion section begins behind the Ammerbrücken and ends shortly before the Unterjesingen Mitte stop. At the Unterjesingen Sandäcker stop, a second, 110-meter-long outside platform is being built on the new track. A further double-track expansion will take place over 2.6 kilometers between the western end of the platform in Entringen to the Hardtwald level crossing, the second track will also be arranged on the south side of the existing line. The plan approval decision was issued on May 16, 2017. The estimated costs for the double-track expansion of two sections (a total of 4 km), the electrification of the entire route (including the Schlossberg tunnel ) and a new central platform amount to 27.8 million euros according to data from 2012 (at the 2006 price level).

These expansion measures as well as the planned expansion measures for the Tübingen - Metzingen lines (Upper Neckar Valley Railway, four new stops when the Tübingen-Lustnau stop is closed) and Metzingen - Bad Urach (Ermstal Railway, electrification and the new Dettingen Gsaidt crossing station) should be completed by summer 2022, see above that from the timetable change in December 2022, electrical operation is to be started every 30 minutes from Herrenberg via Tübingen and Metzingen to Bad Urach. Trains between Tübingen and Entringen should run every 15 minutes during rush hour Monday through Friday . The state of Baden-Württemberg will tender these services in the course of 2019.

In the 2nd expert draft of the Deutschland-Takt presented in 2019, a half-hourly regional traffic line Herrenberg – Tübingen – Bad Urach is planned. The travel time between Tübingen and Herrenberg is unchanged from today at 24 minutes (as of 2020).

literature

• Wolfgang Sannwald (Ed.): AngeLOKt. 100 years of the Ammertalbahn in the Tübingen district. Verlag Schwäbisches Tagblatt, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-92801-164-8 .
• Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 197-200 .

Web links

Commons : Ammertalbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Location, course, signals and permissible speeds on the OpenRailwayMap
• Official website of the local public transport association in Ammertal
• Images of the tunnel portals
• Ammertalbahn on TUEpedia
• Eisenbahn-Romantik, Episode 118: Rail buses on the Ammertalbahn in the 1990s (available until July 3, 2021)
• Uschi Hahn: Ammertalbahn: built on swamp. Schwäbisches Tagblatt, September 7, 2019.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Michael Petersen: 100 years Ammertalbahn - next station Saloniki Hauptbahnhof. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . June 15, 2009, archived from the original on June 19, 2009 ; accessed on August 23, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Is the regional light rail coming too late? In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . March 28, 2013, p. 25 .
3. ^ Homepages of the operator DB ZugBus Regionalverkehr Alb-Bodensee (RAB). In: zugbus-rab.de. DB ZugBus Alb-Bodensee, accessed on February 23, 2013 . 
4. ↑ Never before have so many passengers traveled between Tübingen and Herrenberg. Schwäbisches Tagblatt, November 19, 2016, accessed on December 6, 2016 . 
5. ↑ Lutz Gutfreund, Frank von Meissner: Requirements and solutions for regional local rail transport using the Ammertalbahn as an example . In: SIGNAL + WIRE . tape 108 , no. 7 + 8/2016 . Eurailpress, 2016, ISSN  0037-4997 , p. 2–9 ( von-meissner.de [PDF]).
6. ↑ Public transport association in Ammertal, district of Böblingen. Archived from the original on September 17, 2011 ; accessed on August 23, 2017 . 
7. ^ Tübingen regional council initiates the planning approval procedure for the electrification of the Ammertalbahn. Retrieved May 1, 2016 . 
8. ^ Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal: Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal | https://ammertalbahn.de. Retrieved September 9, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Deutsche Bahn, TTK, PTV (ed.): Standardized assessment of regional Stadtbahn Neckar-Alb; Key results, status 03/2012 . 2012, p. 13, 21 ( Kreis-reutlingen.de ).
10. ↑ Destination timetable Germany-Takt. (PDF) Second expert draft Baden-Württemberg. SMA und Partner AG, May 8, 2019, accessed on April 19, 2020 .