Odenwaldbahn (Baden)
| Odenwaldbahn (as of around 1870) |
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|---|---|
 historical course of the Badische Odenwaldbahn
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| Route length: | 159.2 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
The Odenwaldbahn (also Badische Odenwaldbahn to distinguish it from the Hessian Odenwaldbahn ) is a formerly continuous Baden railway line.
It led from Heidelberg via Neckargemünd and Meckesheim through the small Odenwald via Waibstadt , as well as Mosbach , Osterburken and Lauda to Würzburg in Bavaria . The connection includes the Heidelberg – Neckarelz (see sections Heidelberg – Neckargemünd , Neckargemünd – Meckesheim and Meckesheim – Neckarelz ) and Neckarelz – Würzburg-Heidingsfeld (see sections Neckarelz – Osterburken and Osterburken – Würzburg ).
history
Emergence
The plans to build a railway network in the Grand Duchy of Baden in the middle of the 19th century initially focused on building the Baden main line as a north-south route through the Upper Rhine Plain from Mannheim to Basel and connecting the Lake Constance area around Constance . In contrast, the north-east of Baden was not taken into account. On May 6, 1846 there was a first petition to the Baden state parliament to build the Odenwaldbahn. Therefore, from the 1850s onwards, increasingly louder demands were made to connect these poor areas in the southern Odenwald , in the building land and in the Taubertal (also commonly mocked as Badisch Siberia ) to the railway network. Although a railway line to this area only expected a small return, if at all, railway construction was seen as an investment to promote this structurally weak area in addition to the transport benefit. On November 15, 1856, the construction of the Odenwald Railway was legally established. The route was determined at the end of February 1859.
In addition to Baden, the Kingdom of Bavaria was also interested in building a railway between the Electoral Palatinate and Lower Franconia , as such a railway line created a connection between the Bavarian heartland, bypassing Württemberg and the then Bavarian Palatinate . In Bavaria, however, they wanted a route along the Main via Wertheim , Miltenberg , Amorbach and Eberbach , while Baden preferred a more southerly route via Mosbach. After lengthy negotiations, both countries agreed in 1862 on a route via Mosbach. The contract also included the construction of a railway bridge over the Rhine near Mannheim, so that a direct railway line from Würzburg to the Palatinate was created. For the construction of the route, shell limestone was quarried from the Kallenberg .
The route of the Odenwaldbahn was a specialty on the section between Neckargemünd and Mosbach. Instead of a route in the Neckar Valley via Eberbach, the decision was made in favor of a more inclined and therefore operationally problematic route through the Elsenz - and Schwarzbachtal via Meckesheim and Aglasterhausen , because between Neckargemünd and Eberbach the Grand Duchy of Hesse reached as far as the Neckar, so that a railway line in the Neckar Valley should have led through Hessian territory. However, a route over foreign territory was not desired.
The construction of the line from Heidelberg to Neckargemünd was interrupted from April 18, 1859 until autumn because of fear of war.
The Badische Odenwaldbahn was opened in two stages: from Heidelberg via Neckargemünd, Meckesheim, Aglasterhausen and Neckarelz to Mosbach on October 23, 1862 and from Mosbach to Würzburg via Osterburken and Lauda on August 25, 1866. The construction of the second section had to be due to the Battles at Tauberbischofsheim delayed during the German War .
In the first year, four pairs of trains ran between Heidelberg and Mosbach a day, one of which was an accelerated passenger train
that did not stop in Mauer, Neidenstein, Helmstadt and Asbach, and thus at every second station between Bammenthal and Neckarelz. For this purpose, two train sets were required, which contained wagons of the first (until October 1903), second and third class. In Waibstadt there was a connection to stagecoaches twice a day via Neckarbischofsheim to Rappenau, in Neckargemünd and Meckesheim three times a day to Eberbach and Sinsheim; To the train crossings there - at noon in Neckargemünd, in the afternoon in Meckesheim - they continued to Wertheim or Eppingen. With the fare from 21 Kreutzers in the third class to 48 Kreutzers in the first, unskilled workers could not afford a daily trip from Meckesheim to Heidelberg.
From 1865 onwards, all four pairs of trains stopped everywhere, but the extension to Würzburg added more accelerated passenger trains, which only stopped at Heidelberg Carlsthor, Neckargemünd, Meckesheim, Waibstadt and Aglasterhausen between Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof and Mosbach. With a train from Würzburg to Heidelberg, which from Mosbach only stopped in Meckesheim and Heidelberg Carlsthor, the shortest journey time in this direction was reduced to a good three and a half hours.
Shortly after its completion, the Odenwaldbahn was connected to the Württemberg railway network by two strands, namely from Meckesheim via Sinsheim to Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld (" western fork lift ", opened in 1868/1869) and from Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld to Osterburken (" eastern fork lift ", Opened in 1869). To develop the Taubertal, the Taubertalbahn to Wertheim and Bad Mergentheim was built in connection with the Odenwaldbahn between 1867 and 1869 .
Because of the Franco-German war , only one pair of passenger trains ran from July 28, 1870 to October 15, 1871 for non-military purposes. During this time there were up to 12 military trains per day.
Further development
As had already been expected when the line was built, traffic on the Odenwaldbahn was weak. It was unable to meet the expectations placed on it, both in terms of traffic and structural policy. However, the combination of the route with the railway lines connected to it resulted in new traffic relationships which, in the course of development, exceeded the importance of the connection between the Electoral Palatinate and Lower Franconia. As a result, the individual sections of the Odenwaldbahn developed very differently:
Heidelberg – Neckargemünd
This section was later assigned to the Neckar Valley Railway Heidelberg – Bad Friedrichshall, which opened in 1879, and is used for passenger and freight traffic between the Electoral Palatinate and the greater Stuttgart area . The line has been expanded to two tracks and has been electrified since 1972. The section has been part of the RheinNeckar S-Bahn since 2003 . With S-Bahn trains on the Homburg - Kaiserslautern - Mosbach (- Osterburken) and Heidelberg - Eppingen routes, as well as trains on the Heidelberg - Mosbach-Neckarelz - Heilbronn and Heidelberg - Meckesheim - Heilbronn routes, this section is very popular.
Neckargemünd – Meckesheim
Operationally, this section forms a unit with the western fork lift to Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld. In addition to the Neckar Valley Railway, this creates a second connection between Heidelberg and Heilbronn. There are also trains to Eppingen. The line has been expanded to two tracks and has been electrified since 2009. S-Bahn trains run to Eppingen (S 5) and Aglasterhausen (S 51).
Meckesheim – Neckarelz
After the opening of the Neckar Valley Railway, this section of the route quickly lost its importance, as the continuous trains were now routed via the more economical Neckar Valley Railway. Of all the sections of the Odenwaldbahn, it had the lowest traffic volume and was in fact relegated to a branch line.
With the destruction of the Neckar Bridge near Obrigheim in 1945, the Meckesheim – Obrigheim section became a branch line; a rebuilding of the bridge over the Neckar failed because of its minor transport importance. Since the demand between Aglasterhausen and Obrigheim was very low and the maintenance of the two tunnels on this section was costly, this section was shut down in 1971 and subsequently dismantled. For the section of the route Meckesheim - Aglasterhausen, which follows the Schwarzbach , the term Schwarzbachtalbahn became popular .
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Around 1980 the Deutsche Bundesbahn announced that it would completely stop the route. This would have meant that the Krebsbachtalbahn , which has existed since 1900 , which branches off in Neckarbischofsheim Nord and leads to Hüffenhardt, would not have been connected to the rest of the railway network. That is why the Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (SWEG), which has been operating the Krebsbachtalbahn since 1963, also took over operations between Meckesheim and Aglasterhausen in 1982 . In the course of the second expansion stage of the RheinNeckar S-Bahn, the line was taken over again by Deutsche Bahn in August 2009, electrified and expanded for S-Bahn operations. Passenger traffic on the Krebsbachtalbahn was discontinued because, according to SWEG, it would no longer have been profitable. The S 51 line serves the Heidelberg − Meckesheim − Aglasterhausen connection.
Neckarelz – Osterburken
Today this section is only of regional importance as part of the Rhein-Neckar S-Bahn. The line has been expanded to two tracks and has been electrified since 1975.
Osterburken – Würzburg
Together with the Stuttgart – Heilbronn – Osterburken route, there is a traffic connection from Stuttgart to Würzburg and thus a connection between the Stuttgart and Heilbronn regions and the important north-south connection between Würzburg and the North Sea ports. The line has been expanded to two tracks and has been electrified since 1975.
Of all the sections mentioned, this was the most important. Long-distance trains ran over this section for a long time. However, since it is very winding and therefore does not allow too high speeds, it lost its importance after the Second World War - especially in the course of the construction of high-speed rail lines - so that in 2001 the InterRegio Rennsteig was the last remaining long-distance train. However, the Osterburken – Würzburg route continues to be used for numerous freight trains on the north-south route. Local transport was of rather subordinate importance. In the 1970s, for example, all train stations between Osterburken and Königshofen were temporarily abandoned due to the sparse population. From the turn of the millennium, some of them were reactivated, but are only served by a few regional trains on weekdays, such as the Rosenberg (Baden), Eubigheim and Boxberg / Wölchingen stations, which are important for school traffic.
literature
- Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: Railways between Neckar, Tauber and Main . tape 1 : Historical development and railway construction . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-88255-766-4 .
- Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: Railways between Neckar, Tauber and Main . tape 2 : Design, operation and machine service . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-88255-768-0 .
- Albert Kuntzemüller : The Baden Railways . G. Braun publishing house, Karlsruhe 1953
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
- ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
- ↑ a b c d e Jürgen Heß, Herbert Hoffmann, Siegbert Luksch: Looking back on 150 years of the Meckesheim railway location (= series of publications on the local history of Meckesheim . No. 5 ). November 29, 2013, 11 Chronology ( verwaltungsportal.de [PDF; 568 kB ; accessed on May 14, 2018]).
- ↑ Joachim Friedel: The Kallenberg - a nature reserve! in 1200 years Eschelbronn 789–1989 , page 311 ff.
- ↑ http://www.s197410804.online.de/Zeiten/1850.htm
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Jürgen Heß: Review of 150 years of the Meckesheim railway location (= series of publications on the local history of Meckesheim . No. 5 ). November 29, 2013, 9 timetables .