Bad Nauheim – Wiesbaden bathing railway

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Kaiserkurve (red) and Rebstock curve (blue) as well as the course of the Bäderbahn from Homburg to Höchst

The Bad Nauheim – Wiesbaden railway is a former railway connection between the health resorts on the southern edge of the Taunus Mountains.

requirement

The health resorts of Wiesbaden , Homburg vor der Höhe and Nauheim , which were world-famous in the 19th century , were connected to the railway network from 1839 to 1860 by direct connections with the Frankfurt am Main junction. However, there was no direct connection between the baths and for Homburg vor der Höhe there was no railway line to the north in the direction of the provincial capital Kassel and the state and imperial capital Berlin .

This deficiency was the reason for the city and district administrations to seek remedial action towards the end of the 19th century. They found lasting support from Kaiser Wilhelm II , who lived in Bad Homburg Castle every year as a summer residence and felt "at home" in this city.

The importance Wilhelm II attached to the "Bäderbahn" can be seen in the fact that years later in his memoirs he noted with satisfaction that he had succeeded in realizing this rail link in the interests of the Taunusbäder:

“Then, at my special suggestion, a continuous line from Gießen to Wiesbaden was carried out with the reconstruction of the train stations in Homburg and Wiesbaden and a loop around Frankfurt and Höchst. Furthermore, trains with through wagons were run from Vlissingen directly to the Taunus. "

Infrastructure

The realization of the plans took some time because the 76 kilometer long connection first had to connect several existing and new railway lines. From Bad Nauheim, the trains of the Bäderbahn initially used the tracks of the Main-Weser Railway , which had opened there in 1850, to Friedberg . Then they branched off onto the Friedrichsdorf – Friedberg railway line, which opened on July 15, 1901 , from where the Usinger Railway (today: Taunus Railway ) opened in 1895 to Homburg vd Höhe could be used. The subsequent Homburg Railway to Frankfurt was opened in 1860. Both routes initially ended in their own terminus. From September 1, 1905, a 1.52 km long, double-track connecting railway, the Kaiser or Bäderkurve, made it possible to reach Höchst am Main station directly from Bad Homburg and finally Wiesbaden. It led from the Frankfurt-Rödelheim train station along the Rebstock site and ended at the Niedwald block point in the Taunus Railway (Wiesbaden-Frankfurt), which was put into operation in 1839/40 . Now the two head stations Homburg (old) and Homburg (new) had to be replaced by a through station. Only when it was opened in autumn 1907 after years of discussion about the best location was continuous traffic possible. Simultaneously with the construction of the new Bad Homburg station, the second track was laid on the Homburg Railway and this was expanded to become the main line. The line to Friedberg was expanded between 1909 and 1912.

The struggle for public transport

But the expectations of the population were disappointed. Because of the concerns of the city of Frankfurt am Main, which feared that traffic would bypass it, the new connection was only approved for freight traffic , but the use of scheduled passenger trains was not carried out . The railway administration justified this with the claim that the technical prerequisites for passenger transport were missing; especially the railway facilities in Höchst are not sufficient for this.

The Vordertaunus did not want to accept this decision, especially since they did not share the technical concerns there. The cities and communities Bad Nauheim, Friedberg, Usingen , Homburg, Oberursel , Kronberg , Königstein , Rödelheim , Höchst , Kastel , Mainz , Biebrich and Wiesbaden therefore petitioned the Prussian minister responsible for public works, pointing out the great importance of the Bahn for the further development of this region. Around half a million residents there will be disadvantaged if the current situation is maintained. In their justification, the applicants recalled the efforts of city councils, members of the Reich and Landtag, interested parties and numerous private associations, which had been going on for a full generation, to create a direct railway line for passenger traffic from Mainz and Wiesbaden to Homburg. The better accessibility of the higher administrative authorities and courts located in Wiesbaden, but also the health resorts on the edge of the Taunus, visited by numerous foreigners, was emphasized. Particular attention was drawn to the Saalburg Castle , which "will not only be rebuilt for the Frankfurt and Homburgers with the use of large state and private funds, but will also become the common property of the whole educated world in accordance with a wish of His Majesty the Emperor and King".

traffic

It took another three years before the state railway gave in and in the summer of 1908 used three daily pairs of express trains Bad Nauheim - Homburg - Wiesbaden and two more from Homburg, with which through coaches were also transported to Nancy as well as Ostend and Vlissingen , i.e. to the ports on the canal for the guests from England. In the Reich course book , the Bäderbahn received its own table under the course book route number 187a, later 125c.

Now the only thing missing was the important connection to the North Sea ports and above all to the Reich capital Berlin. The city of Frankfurt am Main and the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry officially objected to the Berlin – Homburg – Bad Munster am Stein bath train planned in 1908 . The Berliner Tagblatt reported on February 10, 1911: “At the emperor's suggestion, a direct train connection from Wiesbaden, Homburg and Nauheim to Berlin was set up on a trial basis in the summer of last year (1910), which has proven itself so excellently that it will be used from now on is constantly included in the summer timetable. ”-“ The baths express train Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof –Wiesbaden (D 27, in the opposite direction D 28) Berlin – Bad Homburg – Wiesbaden was the top class within the framework of this excellent transport service […] ”A Proof of the importance of the spa railway also results from the fact that the number of Homburger spa guests from central and eastern Germany and Russia roughly tripled between 1900 and 1913.

Interwar period

With the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, the Berlin – Wiesbaden express train was no longer on the Bäderbahn. It was not until the summer timetable of 1922 that the D 27/28 was used again with the D 127/128 through coach train, initially only in summer, then mostly all year round until 1939 and with an extended run to Wiesbaden and from Mainz main station . The last time it appeared in the timetable of May 5, 1941, was, however, with the note “Only runs on special order”. However, this did not take place in view of the constantly deteriorating war situation. A Friedberg – Wiesbaden express train only ran in the summer of 1937. A Sunday excursion train from Bad Nauheim via Wiesbaden to Aßmannshausen in the Rheingau , which had been in use before the Second World War , reappeared in the timetable in the 1950s.

The End

The Kaiserbahnweg in the southeast of Frankfurt's Niedwald; View to the northeast
Sign on the Kaiserbahnweg

In the summer of 1949, the Deutsche Bundesbahn operated four pairs of trains a day between Bad Homburg and Frankfurt-Höchst, some of them as express trains and as feeders to the express trains from Frankfurt to Cologne, which serve to improve the connection between the previous bizone administration in Frankfurt and the new federal capital, Bonn should. From May 1954, the trains hauled by the V 36 diesel locomotive ran six times a day between Frankfurt-Rödelheim and Frankfurt-Höchst as the "preliminary stage" of a Frankfurt S-Bahn. But the use was so low that the line was only used once on working days during rush hour between Taunus and Frankfurt-Höchst until it was shut down and dismantled in 1963 - in connection with the expansion of federal motorway 5 . The Kaiserbahnweg south of the Frankfurter Westkreuz in the Niedwald near Frankfurt-Nied still reminds of its course . the former route is partly built over with a housing estate.

The location of the Kaiserkurve

The Kaiserkurve branched off from the route between the Frankfurt-Höchst train station and the Frankfurt main freight station ( ▼ ), crossed today's federal motorway 5 and the later Friedrich-Ebert-Straße (today: federal motorway 648 ) and reached the Homburg railway at today's route kilometer 5, 9 ( ▼ ).

literature

  • Angelika Baeumerth: Great station . In: From the city archives 1995/96, pp. 29–71.
  • Kurt Eckert: Small and branch lines in the Taunus . Augsburg 1978.
  • Bernhard Hager: Imperial Power Words . In: Eisenbahngeschichte 24 (October / November 2007), pp. 14–21 (with further literature).
  • Jürgen Röhrig: The bath trains . In: Oberhessische Vertriebsbetriebe AG (OVAG) (Ed.): Connection to the wide world: On the changeful development of the railway in Oberhessen, Friedberg 2014 (2015), ISBN 978-3-9815015-5-1 , pp. 340–343.
  • Walter Söhnlein, Gerta Walsh: Clear the way! - Railways in the Taunus 1860 - 1910 - 2010, Societäts Verlag , Frankfurt 2010, ISBN 978-3-7973-1223-5

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hager, p. 19.
  2. ^ Wilhelm II .: Events and characters from the years 1878-1918 . Leipzig / Berlin 1922, p. 150.
  3. ↑ Shown on a historical map in the back cover of Adalbert Vollert: When the steam horses came to Nied: Railway history of a Frankfurt district. Local history and history association Nied, 2007.
  4. ↑ a b Reichs-Kursbuch, Berlin 1914 (last peace edition before the First World War). Reprint 1974.
  5. ↑ Röhrig, p. 342.
  6. ↑ Eckert, p. 33
  7. ↑ Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of May 27, 1922, No. 36. Announcement No. 594, p. 365.
  8. ^ Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of August 26, 1922, No. 51. News: Timetable matters, p. 586.
  9. ↑ Kaiserbahnweg at 50 ° 6 '23.4 "  N , 8 ° 35' 46.2"  E
  10. ↑ Historical map  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Meyers Konversationslexikon, 5th edition.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.hicleones.com  
  11. ^ Map of Frankfurt from 1946 on ffmhist.de. Retrieved December 22, 2011