Badlwandgalerie

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The Badlwandgalerie in January 2012

The Badlwandgalerie is a historic railroad - rockfall gallery in the Middle Murtal in Badl between Peggau and Frohnleiten , about 30 kilometers north of Graz in the Austrian Styria .

Building history

In 1841 the construction of the Austrian Southern Railway Vienna - Trieste with the southern section Mürzzuschlag - Graz began. The construction work was carried out with an effort of up to 14,000 workers a day. The route around the Badlwand near Peggau turned out to be the most difficult section . The idea was born to perform an arched position 191  fathoms [362 meters] long with a vaulted ceiling, to lay the commercial road above and the railway below . The rocks that reached as far as the banks of the Mur were removed from above by Italian workers. After a construction period of a little more than a year, the line was opened on October 21, 1844 by Archduke Johann on behalf of the emperor. Since the gallery was not yet ready at that time, the Badlwand had to be bypassed on a provisional track until November 11, 1845. The experience gained from this construction was later used for the Semmering line. The work was under the direction of the technician (also known as the builder) Johann Fillunger . The structure was 230 m long and consisted of 35 arched arches.

View of the Badlwand from the Kugelstein with Badlwandgalerie

Originally, both direction tracks ran under the gallery. In 1940 a directional track was laid outside the gallery, which was now possible thanks to the regulation of the Mur, and the Badlwandgalerie was only used on a single track. The published motive for this change is that the clearance profile for military transports with unusual dimensions (e.g. guns) could be increased.

Since the headroom of 6.5 m did not allow electrification, a new section was built to bypass the Badlwandgalerie with two new Mur bridges and the Kugelstein tunnel on the opposite bank of the Mur and officially opened on May 22, 1966 as part of the newly electrified route after it had already started April 1966 trains with diesel locomotives used this section of the route.

Badlwandgalerie northern beginning around 1900

Street gallery

From 1966 the Badlwandgalerie was only used for road traffic. As a section of the B335 Brucker replacement road , it was part of the notorious guest worker route . Since the gallery was too narrow for both directions of travel, the route of the direction track built in 1940 was used to build a new lane to the south and opened in 1972. From this point onwards, traffic via the Badlwandgalerie was only conducted in a single lane north. Since the gallery was no longer able to cope with heavy traffic, the parallel street was expanded to two lanes by 1978 and the gallery was then closed for good. Since the expansion of the Bruck expressway , the former federal road has been downgraded to the L121  Brucker accompanying road.

Current condition

Most of the vaults of the Badlwandgalerie have collapsed today, and the street can no longer be accessed on foot. The local association for the rescue of the Badlwandgalerie endeavored from 1999 to 2009 to preserve the outer arcade arches and portals, which are largely intact, and offered the original bricks of this listed building for sale because the vaults could no longer be saved. In 2017, no club with this name could be found in the official Central Register of Associations ZVR.

The situation of the Badlwandgalerie was the subject of a request in the Austrian National Council on December 1, 1999 . The answer from the minister responsible, Elisabeth Gehrer, mentioned that in 1989 the Federal Monuments Office had a static renovation concept drawn up. This concept envisaged the removal of the brick vaults, which were in danger of collapsing, in order to prevent damage to the outer stone ashlar masonry and to enable the outer wall to be used as a cycle and hiking path. According to the cost estimate at the time, these measures would have been associated with an expense of S 4.4 million (approx. 320,000 euros, monetary value at the time). The complete renovation aimed at by the association would have resulted in costs of approx. 50 million S (approx. 3.6 million euros, monetary value at the time).

The property, which also includes the Badlwandgalerie, was sold in 2010 by the owner at the time, ASFINAG (Autobahn and Schnellstraßen-Finanz-Aktiengesellschaft) to a private company in the building materials industry, which also includes the Wietersdorfer & Peggauer cement works . The monument protection of the gallery is entered in the land register and was specified in 2006 and 2009.

On September 25, 2016, the Badlwandgalerie was one of the objects selected by the Federal Monuments Office for “Monument Day”.

Web links

Commons : Badlwandgalerie  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sepp Tezak : Die Badlwand , in: GKB-Drehscheibe No. 33 ( Memento of October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (June 2007), p. 16.
  2. ^ Bruck an der Mur - Graz electrical. In: Railway. ISSN 0013-2756 ZDB -ID 162227-4 . Born in 1966, issue 7, pp. 133-135.  
  3. ↑ a b Badlwandgalerie. In: Railway. Born in 1965, issue 2, p. 37.
  4. ↑ original bricks for sale ( Memento from April 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), (requested on November 23, 2009).
  5. ↑ Question 96 / J XXI.GP of the MPs Mag. Hartinger , Dr. Kruger , Dr. Kurzmann and colleagues. (accessed June 11, 2017).
  6. ↑ Answer 112 / AB XXI. GP. (accessed June 11, 2017).
  7. ↑ Railway monument is looking for a new owner. May 12, 2009, archived from the original on July 14, 2014 . ;. In: kleinezeitung.at.
  8. ↑ family holding company. Knoch, Kern & Co. . (accessed June 9, 2017).
  9. ↑ Land register of the cadastral community 63019 Peggau, Graz-West district court, deposit number 671 (accessed June 9, 2017).
  10. ↑ Badlwandgalerie on Monument Day 2016 (accessed June 11, 2016).

Coordinates: 47 ° 13  '22.3 " N , 15 ° 20' 26.3"  E