Baden main line
The Badische Hauptbahn is a railway line built between 1840 and 1863, which was built by the Grand Duchy of Baden as one of the first German state railways . It leads from Mannheim via Heidelberg , Karlsruhe , Offenburg , Freiburg im Breisgau , Basel , Waldshut , Schaffhausen and Singen am Hohentwiel to Konstanz . With a length of 412.7 kilometers, the Badische Hauptbahn is the longest railway line in the network of Deutsche Bahn AG and at the same time the oldest in southwest Germany. In the section between Mannheim and Basel, it is the most important northern approach to the Swiss Alpine passes, while the section between Basel and Constance is only of regional importance. The section between Karlsruhe and Basel is also known as the Upper Rhine Railway , the Basel – Konstanz section as the Upper Rhine line .
history
prehistory
An important trade route from Central Europe to Switzerland and Italy has run in the Upper Rhine Plain since Roman times . With the development of the railway system, considerations arose as early as the early 1830s on building a railway from Mannheim to Basel in order to be able to handle passenger and freight traffic faster and more cheaply than with wagons , especially since the Upper Rhine south of Mannheim was only navigable to a limited extent. The first to address George Stephenson's locomotive and the opening of the line between Liverpool and Manchester in the autumn of 1831 in Parliament was the priest and liberal politician Gottlieb Bernhard Fecht (1771-1851). He was accused of being ahead of his time and his proposal found no followers. The first real initiative in 1833 goes back to the Mannheim entrepreneur Ludwig Newhouse , which, like Friedrich List's proposal, did not meet with approval from the Baden government.
In 1837 a technical commission was formed from building officer Dr. Karl Bader , the civil engineer Franz Keller and Johann Sauerbeck (1798–1861), who studied railway construction principles there on a trip abroad to France, Belgium and England and then applied them technically to the choice of operating resources and route-determining when building the Baden main line . Franz Keller took over the construction management.
planning
It was only when a railway company was founded in neighboring Alsace in 1837 with the aim of building a line on the left bank of the Rhine between Basel and Strasbourg that planning to build a railway began in Baden in order to avoid a shift of traffic to the Alsatian bank on the left bank of the Rhine. In a specially convened state parliament in 1838, the Baden Assembly of Estates decided to build a railway line from Mannheim to the Swiss border near Basel at state expense, as had already been requested on July 31, 1835 by the Freiburg historian Karl von Rotteck . As the main route, the route should primarily serve national traffic and therefore have a straight route on the eastern edge of the Upper Rhine Plain. As a special feature, Baden was the only German state to initially choose a track width of 1600 mm wide gauge for its new railway system with a flat rail profile constructed according to Isambard Kingdom Brunel and laid on longitudinal sleepers .
Construction of the Mannheim-Basel line
| Route section | opening |
|---|---|
| Mannheim - Heidelberg | September 12, 1840 |
| Heidelberg - Bruchsal - Karlsruhe | April 10, 1843 |
| Karlsruhe - Ettlingen - Rastatt | May 1, 1844 |
| Rastatt - Baden-Baden-Oos | May 6, 1844 |
| Baden-Baden-Oos - Offenburg | June 1, 1844 |
| Offenburg - Freiburg | July 30, 1845 |
| Freiburg - Muellheim | June 1, 1847 |
| Müllheim - Schliengen | June 15, 1847 |
| Schliengen - Efringen churches | November 8, 1848 |
| Efringen churches - Haltingen | January 22, 1851 |
| Haltingen - Basel | February 20, 1855 |
As early as September 1838, construction of the first section between the two new terminal stations Mannheim and Heidelberg began as endpoints. After two years of construction, this section was officially opened on September 12, 1840. The continuation to the south took place in the following stages: Heidelberg - Bruchsal - Karlsruhe on April 10, 1843, Karlsruhe - Ettlingen - Rastatt on May 1, 1844, Rastatt - Oos (today's Baden-Baden station) on May 6, 1844, Oos - Offenburg on June 1, 1844 and Offenburg– Freiburg on July 30, 1845. All of the high-rise buildings on the route from Mannheim to Freiburg, some of which are still preserved today, were planned by the Baden architect Friedrich Eisenlohr . This was followed by the sections Freiburg - Müllheim (Baden) on June 1, 1847, Müllheim - Schliengen on June 15, 1847 and Schliengen - Efringen-Kirchen on November 8, 1848. Further construction towards the Swiss border was hindered by the events of the March Revolution . in the course of which the railway line was damaged in several places by rioters . The completion of the section to Haltingen was delayed until January 22, 1851. After it had been found that all neighboring countries were using the standard gauge with Vignol rails for their railways , the Baden State Railroad built all of their railways between 1854 and 1855 within just one year Stretch as well as the rolling stock on standard gauge.
Continuation to Constance
While the law of 1838 only mentioned the construction of a line “from Mannheim to the Swiss border near Basel”, the question of a suitable end point and connection to the Swiss transport network now arose. While the city of Basel called for a connection in Basel, there were not a few voices in Baden who were skeptical about a route end point abroad and preferred the small town of Lörrach or even Waldshut as the end point . The political discussion at the time was shaped by many national arguments and reservations. In 1846, for example, Baden granted the Swiss Northern Railway Company the concession to build a railway line from Basel / Lörrach to Waldshut, continuing in Switzerland towards Zurich, in order to connect to the Swiss railway network in Waldshut in Baden instead of in Basel in Switzerland. However, the Swiss Northern Railway Company could not raise the financial means to build the line, so the concession expired. Only in the Baden-Swiss State Treaty of July 27, 1852 was a permanent solution for the continuation of the Badische Hauptbahn reached: the contract provided for the continuation of Haltingen via the right bank of the Rhine and further via Bad Säckingen to Waldshut. This created the unusual situation, which still exists today, that a German state railway is building and operating a railway line abroad.
The line from Haltingen to Basel was opened on February 20, 1855, followed by the section to Bad Säckingen on February 4, 1856 and the continuation to Waldshut on October 30 of the same year, where the first one with the opening of the Rhine bridge on August 18, 1859 Railway connection between Baden and Switzerland was established.
While the construction of the Mannheim – Basel / Waldshut line focused on international north-south traffic and the connection of the largest Baden cities, the Baden-Swiss State Treaty had already regulated a continuation to Lake Constance, which would connect the Lake Constance area around Constance to the Railway made possible. But here, too, differences of opinion about the route in the Schaffhausen area led to delays: while the Swiss side preferred a route through northern Klettgau on Swiss territory, the people of Baden favored a route through the Wangental to Jestetten in Baden . However, they could not prevail, so that the continuation of the Baden main line from Waldshut to Constance, which opened on June 13, 1863, did not go via Jestetten, but via Erzingen and Beringen . With this last section of the line, whose construction work was led by Robert Gerwig , the construction of the Baden main line was completed.
Branch lines
The law of 1838 already provided for the construction of two branches of the Baden main line: the Appenweier - Kehl line to connect to Alsace was opened on June 1, 1844, the short branch line from Baden-Oos to Baden-Baden (city) on June 27 July 1845. On February 11, 1872, further connections with Alsace were established with the Rhine bridge between Weil am Rhein and Saint Louis and on February 6, 1878 with the Müllheim-Mühlhausen connection. The Rhine bridge at Waldshut was built to connect with Switzerland in 1859, the Konstanz – Kreuzlingen connection in 1871 and the Basel connection line in 1873 , which connects the Badischer Bahnhof with the Centralbahnhof .
To the north there has been a connection to the Main-Neckar-Bahn in Heidelberg in the direction of Darmstadt and Frankfurt am Main since 1846 and a connection in Mannheim to Ludwigshafen - Mainz - Cologne since 1867 .
Development of the route up to the First World War
When the first section between Mannheim and Heidelberg went into operation, four pairs of passenger trains were used every day, which required around 35-40 minutes travel time for the one-way route . For comparison: today trains take 12-17 minutes for the same route. In 1845 freight traffic was started and in 1847 the first express train was used between Schliengen and Mannheim. As the construction of the Badische Hauptbahn progressed, this express train service was extended to Basel, Waldshut and Konstanz. From 1863, two pairs of express trains ran daily between Mannheim and Konstanz, which took 12-14 hours for the 414-kilometer route. For comparison: today the trains from Mannheim to Constance via Basel take about 4 hours, and about 3½ hours via the Black Forest Railway.
The traffic on the Baden main line increased rapidly, so that the double-track expansion was soon necessary. In 1846 it could be concluded between Mannheim and Heidelberg, 1847 to Offenburg, 1848 to Freiburg and 1855 to Basel. The branch line Appenweier – Kehl was expanded to double tracks in 1846/1847. In contrast, the section on the Upper Rhine between Basel and Constance remained a single track.
On July 22, 1870, in the course of mobilization for the Franco-German War, the main line was made unusable in several places between Rastatt and Offenburg. At that time, the Badische Bahnen's fleet of cars consisted of mostly two-axle compartment cars , while Württemberg had relied on open - plan cars from the start . Baden later switched to this system as well.
The double-track lines in Baden were operated in left-hand traffic until 1888 , only afterwards the changeover to right -hand traffic took place in stages.
The first sections of the Badische Hauptbahn were laid out in broad gauge with a rail spacing of 1600 mm. It soon became clear, however, that the other Central European countries opted for the standard gauge , which was later named so, so that the Baden railway network threatened to become isolated due to the different gauge. In Heidelberg (from 1846) and Bruchsal (from 1853) there were already connections to neighboring railways running in standard gauge. Through freight goods each had to be reloaded. Therefore, the lines built up to then were converted to standard gauge in the course of 1854/1855. A total of 203 kilometers of double-track and 79 kilometers of single-track lines had to be re-gauged, as well as the existing 66 locomotives and 1,133 cars. Thanks to this measure, the use of cross-border freight car runs became possible.
Mannheim, the largest and most important trading town in Baden, was in a marginal position during the construction of the railroad: the important north-south traffic from Frankfurt am Main to Switzerland led over the Main-Neckar-Bahn to Heidelberg and on to Basel via the Baden main line. Mannheim therefore tried to establish a direct railway connection to the south and applied for the construction of a railway line to Karlsruhe via Schwetzingen . The Rheinbahn , which opened in 1870, attracted part of the rail traffic between the Rhine-Neckar area and Karlsruhe from the Badische Hauptbahn and created a relief line for the main line, which had already reached the limits of its capacity in this area. For strategic reasons, this relief line was extended further south to Rastatt (via Durmersheim ) in 1895 , so that from then on there were two railway lines between Karlsruhe and Rastatt.
Due to the steadily growing traffic and the construction of the Gotthard Railway in 1882, the importance of the Mannheim – Basel line continued to grow. On the other hand, the route on the Upper Rhine between Basel and Konstanz could not benefit from this development: after the construction of the Basel connecting line (1873) and the Bözberg line (1875), a direct route between Baden and Central Switzerland was available, so that the border crossing in Waldshut lost its importance and international traffic was handled via the border crossing in Basel. Since 1873, the connection to the Lake Constance area has been primarily via the shorter Black Forest Railway , so that the Upper Rhine route has become a regional east-west route with no supra-regional significance.
Due to the growing traffic between Mannheim and Basel and the expansion of the cities, it was necessary to convert and in some cases relocate the railway systems at the junction stations. Between 1895 and 1914, new freight and shunting yards were built in Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Basel, Freiburg and Heidelberg and new passenger stations in Karlsruhe and Basel.
Development of the route in the 20th century
From around 1895 to 1914, the Badische Hauptbahn was in fierce competition with the Alsatian Railway, because the travel times between Basel and Frankfurt or Mannheim were almost identical. During the First World War , the express trains ran exclusively on the Badische Hauptbahn because the Alsatian railway lines near Mulhouse were within reach of the French artillery. After the Alsace after the First World War in France had fallen, all the trains were to Basel only via the Baden main line.
After the establishment of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1920, the Badische Hauptbahn, together with the other lines of the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways, became the property of the Reichsbahn, so that in addition to the locomotives of Baden design , locomotives from other former regional railways as well as the newly developed steam locomotives of the standard types on the Baden mainline were used.
When Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to France as a result of the First World War, the state of Baden and with it the Badische Hauptbahn moved into a peripheral location which, from the point of view of the military strategists, did not allow reliable operation. The route at Isteiner Klotz is within sight of the German-French border. In the course of the occupation of the Ruhr , French troops also occupied Offenburg and Appenweier in February 1923, so that traffic on the main line was interrupted and the trains had to be rerouted widely. Neither the Elztalbahn nor the Murgtalbahn had a connecting line at one end at that time. Therefore, the bypass route led from Freiburg via the Höllentalbahn to Donaueschingen, via the Black Forest Railway to Hausach and from there via the Kinzigtalbahn to Freudenstadt. From here the trains went on via the Gäubahn to Hochdorf and from there via the Nagoldtalbahn to Pforzheim, from where there was a connection to Karlsruhe. Although this extensive diversion was ready for use in the first month of the occupation, it was not a permanent alternative to the Badische Hauptbahn with two headaches in Hochdorf and Pforzheim, the guided tour over single-track branch lines and the steep sections in the Höllental. Nevertheless, the events showed the vulnerability of the Badische Hauptbahn against French attacks. As a result, plans for the expansion of the European transport axis Germany-Switzerland-Italy concentrated on the Gäubahn Stuttgart-Singen- Zurich, further away from the border .
From 1928 to 1939 the luxury train Rheingold ran between Karlsruhe and Basel on the Badische Hauptbahn. After the Second World War , the Rheingold returned to the Badische Hauptbahn as an F-Zug or TEE from 1951 to 1987 . The Orient Express also ran on the Badische Hauptbahn: Coming from Strasbourg, it traveled the section between Appenweier and Karlsruhe.
During the Second World War, the Badische Hauptbahn - like all other main railway lines - was affected by heavy bombing of the railway nodes and the destruction of bridges and structures. After the war, the line was divided into two parts: the Mannheim – Karlsruhe section was in the American occupation zone , the section from Rastatt to Constance in the French zone, under the administration of the Association of Southwest German Railways . The route sections within Switzerland were under federal trusteeship . After the founding of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, the line was again subject to uniform operational management from 1949. As a reparation payment , the second track on the line between Offenburg and Denzlingen had to be dismantled in 1946 and given to the French occupying forces. Since this single-track section represented a bottleneck on the heavily used route, the second track was rebuilt by 1950 at the urging of Switzerland, which saw the access to the Gotthard Pass at risk.
As early as the early 1950s, the German Federal Railroad began electrifying the Mannheim – Basel line. Electrical operation was started in several stages:
| Route section | Start of electrical operation |
|---|---|
| Basel - Efringen churches | 5th October 1952 |
| Efringen churches - Freiburg (Breisgau) | 4th June 1955 |
| Freiburg (Breisgau) - Offenburg | June 2, 1956 |
| Offenburg - Karlsruhe | 4th July 1957 |
| Karlsruhe - Bruchsal | September 29, 1957 |
| Bruchsal - Heidelberg | May 5th 1955 |
| Heidelberg - Mannheim Friedrichsfeld | June 2, 1956 |
| Mannheim Friedrichsfeld - Mannheim | June 1, 1958 |
The electrification was also connected with the relocation of Heidelberg Central Station in 1955. Electric operation made it possible to shorten travel times and increase the efficiency of the route. Due to its largely straight route, the maximum speed on most sections could be increased to 160 km / h.
The high Rhine route Basel – Konstanz, however, remained without overhead lines. Only with the electrification of the Black Forest Railway was the Singen (Hohentwiel) –Konstanz section electrified on September 24, 1977, followed in 1990 by the Singen – Schaffhausen section as part of the international Stuttgart – Zurich connection. In the 1980s, the Basel – Waldshut line was expanded to double track in order to be able to offer improved local passenger transport with regular traffic.
Expansion to a high-speed line
From the 1970s onwards, the heavy load on the Badische Hauptbahn led to plans to expand the line to include multiple tracks. With the gradual opening of the new Mannheim - Stuttgart line in 1987 and 1991, the northern section of the Baden main line between Mannheim and Bruchsal could be relieved.
In the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 1985 , the four-track expansion of the Karlsruhe – Offenburg section and the three-track expansion between Offenburg and Basel, for the upgraded and new Karlsruhe – Basel line, were included in urgent needs .
Sections
The railway lines of the Badische Hauptbahn can be divided as follows:
-
Baden main line
-
Rhine Valley Railway
- Mannheim - Heidelberg ( S-Bahn RheinNeckar )
- Heidelberg - Karlsruhe , also Baden-Kurpfalz-Bahn
- Karlsruhe - Basel ( Rhine Valley Railway & new and upgraded Karlsruhe – Basel line )
-
Hochrheinbahn
- Basel - Singen (Hohentwiel) ( Hochrheinbahn )
- Singen (Hohentwiel) - Constance ( Black Forest Railway )
-
Rhine Valley Railway
Mannheim – Heidelberg
The Mannheim – Heidelberg section is the oldest railway line in southwest Germany. It leads straight through the Upper Rhine Plain and initially only had a single intermediate station halfway in Friedrichsfeld. Originally, a slightly further north line was planned, which would have enabled a better connection to Seckenheim. However, these plans failed due to the resistance of the local population. In Friedrichsfeld, the Main-Neckar-Bahn is connected to the Mannheim – Heidelberg line with a triangular track.
The first train station in Mannheim was built to the north of the current facility at the current “Tattersall” tram stop, to enable a continuation to the north, which however did not materialize. In the course of the construction of the Mannheim Rhine Bridge, the station was rebuilt in its current location and completed by 1876. In 1854 a freight yard was built in Mannheim harbor, followed in 1906 by the marshalling yard southeast of the main station, which is now Germany's second largest marshalling yard.
The original Heidelberg main station was located at what is now “Adenauerplatz” and was designed as a terminal station so that it could be located as close to the city as possible. The terminus of the Main-Neckar-Bahn was directly adjacent. As early as 1862, the main station was partially expanded to a through station. In 1914 a new freight and marshalling yard was built on the western outskirts of Heidelberg. The work that had already begun to relocate Heidelberg Central Station to the western outskirts was interrupted by the First World War and only continued after the Second World War. The new building as a pure through station was not completed until 1955.
In the meantime, the Heidelberg freight yard and the depot have been shut down again; only one pair of tracks of the four-track railway system between Friedrichsfeld and Wieblingen is currently in use. The route is used by IC / ICE trains every hour, S-Bahn (since 2003), local trains and freight trains at frequent intervals.
Heidelberg – Karlsruhe
This section of the route has been called the Baden-Kurpfalz-Bahn for marketing purposes for a number of years , " Kurpfalz " refers to Heidelberg, the capital of the historical region of the same name.
course
The section between Heidelberg and Karlsruhe runs along the eastern edge of the Upper Rhine Plain in a north-south direction. From Heidelberg main station , the route goes south through the stations Heidelberg-Kirchheim , St. Ilgen and Wiesloch-Walldorf , enters the Hochholz forest and crosses under the A 6 . This is followed by Rot - Malsch , Kislau Castle on the right side with the Bad Schönborn - Kronau stop and the Ubstadt-Weiher train station . From the left, the Kraichtalbahn and the Katzbachbahn swivel towards it, then the high-speed line Mannheim – Stuttgart is crossed, at the junction of Bruchsal Rollenberg connecting curves to the Baden main line branch off. This is followed by the Bruchsal station , where the Württemberg West Railway and the Bruhrain Railway have their starting and ending points. The route then leads on the edge of the Kraichgau via Untergrombach and Weingarten to the Karlsruhe-Durlach train station , crosses under the A 5 and reaches the Karlsruhe main train station .
In 1911, the route in the area of Durlach was changed by relocating the Durlach train station to the west and thereby increasing the curve radii. In Karlsruhe, the main train station was on the southern edge of the city center until 1913. Due to the low capacity of this station, a newly built station was opened on the southern outskirts in 1913. A marshalling yard was built on the southern outskirts as early as 1895, and its tasks have now been moved to Mannheim.
An industrial track branched off at about Durlach, which ran parallel to the Baden Main Railway for about a kilometer to the north, then swung west and led to the Bosch works. In Weingarten and Untergrombach, dismantled tracks branched off to the local quarry ponds. In Bruchsal, freight tracks run to the southern part of the city there, and there are also tracks at Wiesloch-Walldorf train station.
Furnishing
As part of the introduction of the S-Bahn, the stops and stations were modernized and made barrier-free , and the signaling and interlocking technology renewed. In Weingarten, Untergrombach and Bruchsal Commercial Education Center, the platform height is 55 cm, at the stations between Bruchsal and Heidelberg continuously 76 cm, at the stations Karlsruhe-Durlach and Bruchsal both platform heights can be found. Several train stations (e.g. Bad Schönborn Süd and Wiesloch-Walldorf) also have a third track.
The route is equipped with modern signal technology (light signals) and for speeds of up to 160 km / h. In further need of the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan an exercise track for a top speed of 200 km / h is provided.
business
IC and ICE trains run on the route and provide the connection between Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. Since 2007, the southern section between Karlsruhe and Bruchsal has also been used by TGV trains on the Paris – Strasbourg – Stuttgart route. Is added to the offer of commuter trains in the relation Heidelberg Karlsruhe and trams the Albtal traffic Society between Karlsruhe and Bruchsal, so that in the transport, at least two trains per hour per direction.
The section between Karlsruhe and Bruchsal has been integrated into the Karlsruhe light rail network since 1994 . While the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn trains had traveled this section of the route for two and a half years as a preliminary operation, some of the trains were bound in 1996 via the Kraichtalbahn to Menzingen and the other part from 1998 via the Katzbachbahn to Odenheim. As early as the beginning of 1996, the new Bruchsal Commercial Education Center stop was built between the Untergrombach and Bruchsal train stations , which mainly serves the Bruchsal facility of the same name.
Since December 2003, the entire route has also been part of the Rhein-Neckar S-Bahn . As part of the introduction of the S-Bahn, the stops and stations were modernized and made barrier-free , and the signaling and interlocking technology renewed. The route between Bruchsal and Heidelberg of the “S4” was compressed from one hour to half an hour, and every hour they were tied through as “S3” to Karlsruhe.
Karlsruhe - Basel Bad Bf (- Basel SBB)
The line between Karlsruhe and Basel is one of the most heavily used railway lines in Germany. It runs on the eastern edge of the Upper Rhine Plain and only deviates from this line in Karlsruhe and Rastatt in order to connect the two cities. While the route is mostly straight, the southern section between Schliengen and Efringen-Kirchen has a winding route to follow the slopes of the Black Forest between the Rhine and Isteiner Klotz above the villages . A lower-lying route similar to the A 5 motorway was not possible because the Rhine had not yet been straightened in this area at the time the railway was built, so that the areas below the villages belonged to the flood zone of the Rhine.
Between Karlsruhe and Rastatt, in addition to the Baden main line, another main railway line was opened in 1895, which ran a further west via Durmersheim . The reason for this route construction was the demand of the military for a second, northern access to Strasbourg, which was created with the help of the route Graben-Neudorf - Karlsruhe - Rastatt - Roeschwoog (Alsace). At the same time, this route was able to relieve the Badische Hauptbahn. After the Second World War, the Rastatt - Roeschwoog connection was no longer in operation, but the section north of Rastatt continues to operate. In the course of the construction of this strategic railway line , the Rastatt train station was relocated and expanded.
Due to the strong increase in traffic, the larger junction stations had to be expanded at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1905, for example, a new freight station in Freiburg was built on the newly built freight bypass railway, so that the main line through the city could be relieved of freight trains. In 1911 the Offenburg train station was renewed and a marshalling yard was added. The railway systems in Basel were also adapted to the growing requirements: a new freight yard was built in 1905 and a new passenger and shunting yard in 1913. Half of the latter is on German and Swiss territory.
When the railway lines of three different state railways came together in Basel, an extensive railway infrastructure was created: in addition to the Badischer Bahnhof for trains arriving from Germany, the Centralbahnhof and the French state railway station . In addition to the Baden marshalling yard, there is another, larger marshalling yard in Muttenz for freight traffic . The passenger trains of the Badische Hauptbahn usually end at the Badischer Bahnhof, only the international trains go to the Centralbahnhof.
The great importance of the line led very early to double-track expansion (1847–1855) and electrification (1952–1957). Since the mid-1980s the line has been upgraded to four tracks and upgraded to a maximum speed of 250 km / h for the new and upgraded Karlsruhe – Basel line .
The line gained national fame in 1971 as a result of the Rheinweiler railway accident , when an express train was traveling too fast in the winding section between Efringen-Kirchen and Schliengen, derailed and fell off the embankment. 23 people were killed and 121 injured. As a consequence of this accident, the technical safety of slowly traveled sections of the road was improved nationwide.
Traffic on the Rhine Valley Railway is characterized by international long-distance passenger and freight traffic. One or two IC / EC / ICE trains run every hour, and a TGV travels three times a day from Stuttgart via Karlsruhe towards Strasbourg. Regional trains and regional express trains / Interregio-Express trains run at least every hour in local transport. The Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft trams run between Karlsruhe and Achern . In the early 1980s a number of stops and train stations were abandoned, especially between Rastatt and Offenburg. After the four-track expansion of the line, the stops in Haueneberstein, Sinzheim, Steinbach (today: Baden-Baden Rebland) could be reopened and a new stop was set up in Sinzheim Nord. Local traffic between Basel and Freiburg is to be integrated into the Basel S-Bahn network in the future.
Freight traffic is very extensive. In addition to Deutsche Bahn AG , the Swiss Federal Railways already operate a third of all freight trains on this route, especially in combined transport . After the expansion of the Alpine railway crossings in Switzerland, a sharp increase in freight traffic on the Rhine Valley Railway is expected.
The Basel connecting line , which today serves as one of the extensions to the Upper Rhine Railway, was created in cooperation with the Gotthard Railway. In addition to freight traffic in the direction of the Basel-Muttenz and Kleinhüningen marshalling yards , long-distance and regional trains from DB and SBB also operate here . Since the renovation and inauguration of the Basel railway bridge in December 2012, this connecting line has been one of the most important routes for German and Swiss railways. At 3.461 kilometer, at the north end of the Rhine bridge, the DB network ends and the SBB begins. The Swiss price system applies on this route, but the German Baden-Württemberg ticket and free transport with a severely handicapped ID are also recognized.
Basel Bad Bf - Constance (- Kreuzlingen)
The High Rhine route leads from Basel first on the right bank of the Rhine to Waldshut, then leaves the High Rhine Valley, crosses the northern Klettgau to Schaffhausen and then the southern Hegau to the Untersee at Radolfzell , the bank of which the railway follows to Constance. In Constance, the Rhine is crossed on a bridge. The terminus of the Baden main line is already on the left bank of the Rhine between the old town of Constance and the port. The continuation of the route is formed by two connecting curves to Kreuzlingen and Kreuzlingen Hafen, the latter currently only used for freight traffic.
The line between Basel and Waldshut was expanded to two tracks in the course of the 1980s, with the exception of the Laufenburg - Laufenburg Ost section. The line between Beringen and Konstanz-Petershausen is also double-track, the other sections are single-track. As part of the electrification of the Black Forest Railway, which flows into Singen , the section of the Upper Rhine route between Singen and Konstanz was also provided with an electrical contact line in 1977, and in 1990 the electrical gap between Singen and Schaffhausen was closed.
The route crosses the Swiss cantons of Basel and Schaffhausen near Basel and between Erzingen and Thayngen. The construction and operation of these routes is regulated by a state treaty between Baden or Germany and Switzerland. He envisages the operation of the line as the "only uninterrupted main line". This made it possible for the Baden State Railroad to operate the sections leading through Switzerland in the same way as the parts and continuous trains located on Baden territory, which was not a matter of course at the time. Switzerland waived transit fees, goods can be transported in transit on the route without customs treatment. The State Treaty of 1852 also provides Switzerland with the right to take over the railway. However, the Swiss Confederation has not yet made use of this right. German company regulations predominate on the routes. H. the trains in right-hand traffic, and the lines - with the - with the exception of the station Schaffhausen signals provided by German design.
Only the availability of the route in the event of war was not guaranteed by the tour abroad. The military therefore insisted on creating bypasses for the two sections leading through Switzerland in order to have a safe east-west supply route in southern Baden in the event of war. This is how the three strategic railways Weil (Rhine) - Lörrach, Schopfheim - Bad Säckingen ( Wehratalbahn ) and Lauchringen - Hintschingen ( Wutachtalbahn ) were built by 1890 . This train runs were of Ulm on the railway line Ulm-Sigmaringen , the railway Tuttlingen-Inzigkofen that Wutachtalbahn and the high-Rhine route to Alsace possible without touching Swiss territory. The strategic railways, however, remained meaningless in civil traffic. Therefore, passenger traffic on the Wehra and Wutach Valley Railway was stopped by 1971. Only the short connection from Weil to Lörrach is still in operation today and is part of the Basel S-Bahn.
Today, the route is served by local passenger trains. Hourly Interregio Express trains with tilting technology - railcars of the DB class 611 between Basel and Singen are supplemented by regional trains on sections. Between Constance and Engen via Singen, an S-Bahn-like offer with electric multiple units has been offered since 1994 under the name "Seehas". The operator was the Swiss Mittelthurgau Railway or, after its bankruptcy, Thurbo AG. Local traffic between Basel and Waldshut is to become part of the Basel S-Bahn system in the future. Intercity trains run every two hours between Singen and Schaffhausen on the Zurich – Stuttgart connection .
literature
- Karl Müller: The Baden railways in a historical-statistical representation . Heidelberger Verlaganstalt und Druckerei, Heidelberg 1904 (online version)
- Albert Kuntzemüller : The Baden Railways . G. Braun publishing house, Karlsruhe 1953
- Rainer Gerber: 125 years of Basel-Waldshut: anniversary of the railway on the Upper Rhine, 1981 . Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg 1981, ISBN 3-88255-789-3 .
- Fridolin Schell: 110 years of the Karlsruhe Railway Directorate . Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg 1982
- Wolfgang von Hippel, Joachim Stephan, Peter Gleiber, Hans-Jürgen Enzweiler: Railway fever: Baden's departure into the railway age . regional culture publisher, Ubstadt-Weiher 1990
- Hans Wolfgang Scharf: The railway on the Upper Rhine, Volume 1: From Basel to Lake Constance 1840-1939 . Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg 1993
- Hans Wolfgang Scharf: The Railway on the Upper Rhine, Volume 2: From Basel to Lake Constance 1939–1992 . Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg 1993
- Werner Schreiner (Ed.): … Working together: railway history in the Rhine-Neckar triangle . Pro Message, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2004, ISBN 3-934845-17-7 .
Web links
- Page about the Upper Rhine route
- Critical article about the planned partial expansion of the line (PDF; 0.59 MB)
- Excerpt from the course book from 1944
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl-Heinz Fix: FECHT, Gottlieb Bernhard. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 19, Bautz, Nordhausen 2001, ISBN 3-88309-089-1 , Sp. 341-375.
- ^ Albert Kuntzemüller: The Baden Railways . G. Braun Verlag, Karlsruhe 1953 p. 10
- ↑ Law on the Baden Main Railway: Law of March 29, 1838, Großherzoglich Badisches Staats- und Regierungs-Gazette of April 2, 1838, Section XIV, p. 121 ( digitized on MDZ)
- ^ Albert Kuntzemüller: The Baden Railways 1840-1940, self-published by the Geographical Institutes of the Universities of Freiburg i. Br. And Heidelberg, Freiburg im Breisgau 1940, p. 10
- ↑ Werner Greder: Bruchsal and the railway . Publication No. 2 of the Historical Commission of the City of Bruchsal 1983 p. 47ff
- ^ Albert Kuntzemüller : The Baden Railways in the Franco-German War 1870/71 in: Report of the Realgymnasium with Realschule Mannheim, Lessing School - school year 1913/14 , Masur, Mannheim 1914, p. 7
- ^ Albert Kuntzemüller : The Baden Railways in the Franco-German War 1870/71 in: Report of the Realgymnasium with Realschule Mannheim, Lessing School - school year 1913/14 , Masur, Mannheim 1914, p. 25
- ^ Albert Kuntzemüller: The Baden Railways 1840-1940, self-published by the Geographical Institutes of the Universities of Freiburg i. Br. And Heidelberg, Freiburg im Breisgau 1940, p. 131ff
