Bahnbus (Germany)

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MAN StÜLB train bus on line 23 to Düren
Magirus-Deutz L 117 at a classic car meeting in Thannhausen
Mercedes-Benz O 307 on a country road in the Harz Mountains (June 1988)
Easymile / Ligier EZ10 from Regionalbus Ostbayern GmbH in Bad Birnbach , line 7015
Mercedes-Benz Citaro at Fürth town hall (December 2016)
Historic bus stop sign from the 1920s
Historic stop sign from the National Socialist era
The German state railways already operated omnibus lines, here a stop sign for the Royal Saxon State Railways

As Bahnbus was Omnibus - regular services of the German Federal Railways (DB) and the Deutsche Reichsbahn called (see also: bus ). Today all of the DB AG regional bus companies are called DB Regio Bus . These form a division within DB Regio AG .

history

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Until World War II

Originally, for historical reasons, regular overland traffic in Germany was mostly operated by the post office . This traffic, initially called Kraftpost and later the postal service, replaced the stagecoaches . Contracts with the regional railways and later with the Deutsche Reichsbahn ensured that no postbuses ran parallel to the railway lines .

The state railway began in 1933 under the name Kraftomnibusverkehr der Deutsche Reichsbahn to set up its own lines. Different types of lines emerged:

  • Development of localities in which, for economic reasons, railways were no longer built; After the First World War , only a few new railway lines were opened in Germany
  • Replacement for disused railway lines
  • Replacement for unprofitable trains with low passenger numbers outside of rush hour traffic
  • Traffic parallel to railway lines, but with improved development of localities with a large distance between the settlement and the railway station, possibly through branch journeys (also resulting in longer travel times)

The DRG also set up a high-speed bus service on the first sections of the Reichsautobahn , including the Frankfurt am Main – Darmstadt – Mannheim / Heidelberg line in 1935, which was transferred in 1937 after parts of today's A6 in the Kaiserslautern area had been opened Ludwigshafen , Bad Dürkheim , Kaiserslautern, Homburg (Saar) and St. Ingbert was extended to Saarbrücken . The Deutsche Reichsbahn advertised omnibus traffic.

After the Second World War

After the Second World War , new lines were set up in both the Federal Republic and the GDR , mostly parallel to railway lines. In the GDR they were up in 1954 by the motor transport collective combines the districts taken over.

Around 1950, the Deutsche Bundesbahn had around 1000 of its own buses and over 300 buses from third-party companies on its route network on around 750 of its own lines. Initially, the operation was still referred to as the German Federal Railroad's bus service , or Bundesbahn-Kraftomnibus for short . In 1957 the line network reached around 50,000 kilometers. The Deutsche Bundesbahn continued to expand its rail bus network, often as a replacement for disused routes or unprofitable trains. The lines of the Deutsche Bundesbahn were not allowed to be operated by the Kraftpost.

Each Federal Railway Directorate had a railway bus traffic point, which was responsible for the bus operations, the Kraftwagenbetriebswerke, or Kbw for short. Most of the bus drivers were civil servants (upper / railcar driver K). The bus drivers were also jokingly called rubber railroaders by the Deutsche Bundesbahn.

Many long routes have been discontinued over time or are only served on partial routes. For example:

  • Hanover - Hameln - Kassel
  • Hanover - Hameln - Lemgo - Detmold (with over 100 stops )
  • Hanover - Hildesheim - Goslar - Clausthal-Zellerfeld
  • Hanover - Celle - Sprakensehl
  • Hanover - Hamburg
  • Bremen - Hameln and many others

Many bus drivers stayed at the end of the line in office or private rooms in order to start their work again in the morning for the return journey. It was not uncommon for bus drivers to be familiar with the route on over 20 lines, some of which had over 1000 stops.

1959 timetable for the Ravensburg – Baienfurt railway bus line, still running today as line 1 of DB ZugBus Regionalverkehr Alb-Bodensee GmbH

Merger

On March 18, 1976, after lengthy political decision-making processes, the rail and post buses were merged to form the rail / post bus transport association , which initiated the transition from Kraftpost, the later postal service, to the rail bus service of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, which operated a network parallel to rail lines as a replacement rail service . Previously, the postal service in 1974 had 435 million passengers, the highest number in the 80 years of its existence. The aim of the association was to operate regional bus transport with buses more economically and to expand it as required .

As early as the 1970s, considerations arose to make the bus services of the two federal companies rail and post more profitable. In order to gain initial experience, the rail and post bus services were merged in five pilot projects and operated as private limited companies. On October 1, 1976, the Hanover and Cologne rail bus divisions formed the RVH ( Regionalverkehr Hannover GmbH , today RegioBus Hanover GmbH ) and the RVK ( Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH ) and the Regionalverkehr Oberbayern (RVO) or the rail bus services from Schleswig- Holstein was integrated into Autokraft GmbH and from Northwest Lower Saxony - later on January 1, 1982 - into KVG Stade .

By resolution of the Federal Cabinet of June 25, 1980, all bus services operated by the railways and post offices were combined in the Deutsche Bundesbahn on January 1, 1981. Regionalized bus companies separate from the rest of the railway organization were set up in 19 regions on the basis of public law. Some of these had the name of the Bahnbus XY division , some of them already called Regionalverkehr XY . In the Allgäu region, it was not until June 1, 1985 that Regionalverkehr Schwaben-Allgäu (RVA), a subsidiary of Regionalverkehr Oberbayern (RVO) in the Allgäu, took over the last part of the postal service in the federal territory, which is still under the sole control of the Bundespost.

Regional buses

The remaining regional rail bus business units of the Deutsche Bundesbahn were gradually converted into independent regional bus companies, but remained under the umbrella of the United Federal Transport Companies (VBG) group. The shareholders of the VBG were the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the Deutsche Bundespost. In 1994 the shares of the Deutsche Bundesbahn were transferred to the DB AG , in 1995 those of the Deutsche Bundespost to the PDB Postdienst Beteiligungs-GmbH .

In the 1990s, a total of four regional bus companies were sold: In 1992 the regional bus Augsburg RBA was sold to a consortium of local (private and public) bus companies and local authorities .

MB Citaro low-floor bus from the RBA

The same was done in 1995 with Regionalverkehr Köln (RVK), with the difference that no private, but exclusively public or publicly owned companies and a regional authority were involved, based on the Augsburg experience.

MAN Lion's City low-floor bus from RVK

In 1996 Kraftverkehr GmbH (KVG) Stade and Lüneburg was transferred to Verkehrsbetriebe Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen GmbH (OHE) based in Celle and the Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser GmbH (EVB) in Zeven .

Volvo low-floor bus from KVG

Finally, in 1998, Regionalverkehr Hannover GmbH (RVH) merged with Steinhuder Meer-Bahn and part of the Bachstein transport company to create a joint transport company for regional transport in the greater Hanover area. The resulting RegioBus Hannover belongs to the Hanover region (89.3%), the Nienburg / Weser district (8.42%) and the Schaumburg district (2.28%). The participation of a private entrepreneur ended on December 31, 2005 and was taken over by a local authority.

Setra low-floor bus from RBH

The bus routes in the Hildesheim and Alfeld (Leine) area are operated as Regionalverkehr Hildesheim (RVHi) by Stadtwerke Hildesheim, the bus routes in the Hameln area were taken over by the Hameln transport company.

Setra S 315 NF from Regionalbusverkehr Südwest GmbH

Originally, all regional federal bus companies were supposed to be privatized and thus sold. However, this plan was not pursued after the withdrawal of PDB Postdienst Beteiligungs-GmbH and the 100% takeover of the companies by Deutsche Bahn.

IVECO Crossway from Weser-Ems-Busverkehr GmbH

In the meantime, the buses of the regional bus companies of Deutsche Bahn are rarely referred to as rail buses in common parlance . In contrast to the former Bahnbus division , there was no longer a nationwide uniform color scheme as a corporate design . Nevertheless, in 2004 all bus companies were combined in the Urban Transport business unit and were managed under the roof of DB Stadtverkehr , whereby the companies' independence was retained.

Setra S 415 NF from Bahnbus Hochstift GmbH

DB Regio Bus

As part of a strategy to standardize the external appearance of the individual group subsidiaries of DB AG , since 2008 there has been a uniform appearance for all DB bus companies in the color traffic red . The positioning of the DB logos is very reminiscent of the rail bus from the 1980s. All regional bus companies are unified as a division DB Regio Bus of DB Regio out. Regionally, so-called regional managements are entrusted with the operational management of the regional bus companies - almost in analogy to the former rail bus business units, only with a different regional layout. In 2017 there are the following regional management organizations:

  • DB Regio Bus, Region North (Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Lower Saxony)
  • DB Regio Bus, Region NRW (North Rhine-Westphalia)
  • DB Regio Bus, Region Mitte (Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate)
  • DB Regio Bus, Southwest Region (Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate)
  • DB Regio Bus, Baden-Wuerttemberg region (Baden-Wuerttemberg, excluding DB ZugBus regional traffic Alb-Bodensee )
  • DB Regio Bus, Region Bavaria (Bavaria)
  • DB Regio Bus, Region East (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Thuringia)

Today, the regional bus companies of Deutsche Bahn are considered a profitable division.

With around 725 million passengers and a transport performance of 8.4 billion passenger kilometers, DB Regio Bus is the largest provider in German bus transport. Around 13,400 buses are used nationwide. The market share on the bus market in Germany is around 9% (as of 2014).

Vehicle fleet

Historic Büssing- Emmelmann train bus

The vast majority of the vehicles in rail bus traffic were intercity buses . In addition, there were station wagons and some touring buses , some of which were also marketed via their own tourism division, for example along the Romantic Road , but were also used in regular services (mainly Berlin traffic). Only in a few cities were rail buses also used for urban transport .

When the company was re-established after the war, a mixed fleet of remaining war and pre-war models of all possible makes was initially taken over, but it has been gradually replaced by mostly larger series of new vehicles since the early 1950s. The later fleet consisted practically of vehicles from all well-known German bus manufacturers, the strongest represented were Daimler-Benz , MAN , Büssing , Magirus-Deutz , Kässbohrer Setra and, in the early days, Krauss-Maffei . The vehicles were used in the various regional business areas with very different weightings of the manufacturers, so that individual manufacturers were very strongly represented in some regions. During the service life, some vehicles were also relocated nationwide. In addition, coaches from Büssing with bodies from Emmelmann Karosseriefabrik from Hanover were in use. These were also used in regular services to West Berlin .

In the 1950s, many buses were still running on scheduled services with bus trailers . Gaubschat - trailer trains whose passenger trailers had a transition to the towing vehicle were exotic . These were the predecessors of the articulated buses , but the trailers could be uncoupled. Buses from Henschel , Krupp and Faun were also in use for a while. At times, single-axle luggage trailers were also in use, for example between Hannover Hbf and Hannover Airport .

Two-way buses ( Schi-Stra-Bus ) from the north German manufacturer NWF were procured in smaller series in 1953/1954 , which could also be driven on tracks with railway wheelsets pushed underneath . These vehicles were used in Bavaria in the Passau and Augsburg areas and in the Rhineland in the Koblenz area . However, the complicated and time-consuming change system from rail to road and vice versa did not prove itself.

With the connection of the Saarland to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957, a number of French rail buses of the Berliet / Saviem brand joined the ranks of the Federal Railroad buses, which were replaced by German brands after they were withdrawn.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, a number of coaches and articulated buses from the Auwärter Neoplan company were purchased, as were several intercity vehicles from this manufacturer in the mid-1980s.

With the advent of the standard buses at the end of the 1960s, they gradually found their way into the DB fleet, although the older, non-standardized models were also procured until the mid-1970s. Until the mid-1980s, the stock consisted almost exclusively of the standard intercity buses (StÜLB) from the manufacturers MAN, Daimler-Benz and Magirus-Deutz , plus a smaller number of Auwärter Neoplan, which only came on the second generation of standard buses brought the market. With the exception of a few prototypes, Kässbohrer Setra was unable to participate in the standard bus concept due to its dependency on Daimler-Benz and MAN as engine suppliers, but nevertheless delivered several hundred intercity and combined buses . In addition, the Deutsche Bundesbahn also had a number of coaches of various makes.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Setra S 215 UL advanced to become the “typical” rail bus in overland transport.

Railway buses still preserved

A few historical omnibuses of the Deutsche Bundesbahn have been preserved in museums or with collectors to this day. For vehicles that are currently operational, the previous DB vehicle number is shown in bold . Historical vehicles of other origins that are optically based on a train bus, buses from private railways or the private rail bus successor companies are not listed:

Vehicle number Type Construction year Home Special features, whereabouts
DB 7-963 Mercedes-Benz O 307 1980 GBB East Bavaria, Regensburg was taken over by the Deutsche Bundespost (BP 10-3578), formerly with the Association of Independent Postbus Drivers, since 2018 a museum vehicle (as Postbus) of the company Opitz in Neunkirchen am Brand
DB 8-306 MAN SÜ 240 1983 GBB Rhineland, Cologne was still ordered by the Deutsche Bundespost , but already delivered to the Deutsche Bundesbahn, since 2006 with the IG Bahnbus
DB 17-507 Mercedes-Benz O 305 G 1985 GBB Stuttgart, Stuttgart Articulated bus, since 2008 a museum vehicle (raspberry red) of the Standardbus GbR in Krefeld
DB 19-533 Mercedes-Benz O 307 1985 GBB Saar-West Palatinate, turquoise mill at the Marchlewitz company, supported by local transport friends Saar
DB 19-665 Mercedes-Benz O 307 1986 GBB Rhein-Neckar, Neustadt / Weinstrasse with IG Bahnbus since 2009
DB 19-758 Mercedes-Benz O 307 1987 GBB Rhein-Neckar, Ludwigshafen Museum vehicle (raspberry red) from Regionalbusverkehr Südwest GmbH in Karlsruhe since 2013
DB 19-823 Mercedes-Benz O 407 1988 GBB Nuremberg, Würzburg has already been delivered to the successor company Omnibusverkehr Franken (OVF) , with the traditional bus north Bavaria since 2014
DB 19-825 Mercedes-Benz O 407 1988 GBB Nuremberg, Würzburg has already been delivered to the successor company Omnibusverkehr Franken (OVF) , with IG Bahnbus since 2010
DB 20-380 Mercedes-Benz O 307 1983 GBB Northern Black Forest-Southern Palatinate, Karlsruhe was later a driving school bus as DB 53-156, with private since 2014
DB 20-966 Mercedes-Benz O 307 1979 GBB Südbaden, Freiburg converted into an information bus for a mission association from Werdohl
DB 21-106 Mercedes-Benz O 317 k 1971 not known Oldtimer vehicle painted in company colors from the Kähler company in Lütjenburg
DB 21-511 Mercedes-Benz O 307 1985 GBB Northern Black Forest-Southern Palatinate, Karlsruhe used in the personnel traffic of a winery near Bad Krotzingen
DB 21-964 Mercedes-Benz O 302-13 RÜnh 1974 Federal Railway Directorate Frankfurt Formerly stored at the DB Museum , since 2017 at IG Bahnbus
DB 22-233 Magirus-Deutz 260 L 117 1982 GBB Saar-West Palatinate, Kaiserslautern private at Landshut , museum vehicle (purple)
DB 23-403 Kässbohrer Setra S 140 ES 1984 GBB Braunschweig, Göttingen has been privately with Regensburg since 2004, since 2020 a museum vehicle (purple) with the Hallertau local railway association
DB 23-474 Kässbohrer Setra S 215 UL 1984 GBB East Bavaria, Passau with coach seating, since 2017 museum vehicle (raspberry red) at the Hallertau local railway association
DB 24-655 MAN SÜ 240 1986 GBB Nuremberg, Nuremberg used in the personnel traffic of an agriculture in forest damp
DB 24-777 MAN SÜ 240 1987 GBB Ostwestfalen, Bielefeld was at IG Traditionsbus Südniedersachsen (raspberry red), whereabouts are currently unknown
DB 24-830 MAN SÜ 240 1988 GBB Northern Black Forest-Southern Palatinate, Karlsruhe was at IG Traditionsbus Südniedersachsen (raspberry red), whereabouts are currently unknown
DB 26-311 MAN SÜ 240 1983 GBB Braunschweig, Braunschweig used in the personnel traffic of an agriculture near Bad Krotzingen
DB 26-510 MAN SÜ 240 1985 not known since 2002 with the local transport association in Dortmund
DB 26-973 MAN SÜ 240 1989 GBB Augsburg, Dillingen / Danube privately near Augsburg
not known MAN-Büssing BS 120 1972 not known since 2013 in restoration at the Extertal transport company in Bösingfeld

Paintwork

In contrast to the yellow post buses, the rail buses were painted purple from the 1950s to 1981 ( RAL 3004 ). However, this color was called wine red by the DB .

In the following years there were different color variants, including 1982 and 1983 raspberry red and white / raspberry red, until raspberry red was able to prevail for several years from 1984 until the end of the rail bus service for the newly acquired vehicles. In addition, there were always different special paint finishes, especially in the touring coach sector. Older vehicles were only partially repainted according to the new color scheme, so that there were several color variants at the same time in the 1980s; In addition to the old, dark red, various test colors and the new raspberry-red vehicles, the majority of the post buses that were taken over remained yellow until they were retired and only received the DB logo and DB vehicle registration numbers .

After the conversion to regional companies, a large part of the vehicles that were taken over also remained in the previous colors, so that until the end of the 1990s, the buses that were still being procured under the direction of the Federal Railroad could partly be seen in the old, and most recently mostly red, railway bus paintwork. As part of the implementation of the group- wide corporate identity , since the beginning of 2008, the various regional paintwork variants have been replaced by a uniform, traffic-red paint scheme that is adapted to the paintwork of local trains. So received z. B. Autokraft buses traditionally painted in shades of green are now DB red.

Railway bus timetable / pocket timetables

Railway bus timetable

Until about 1994, most recently two-part Bahnbus- was Kursbuch issued. The timetable tables in the bus timetable made it possible to look up connections across Germany, even in the smallest of towns, especially since lines from other companies were also occasionally included.

Pocket timetables

The smaller regional pocket timetable booklets were easier to handle than the complete edition. These contained timetables for the regional bus routes as well as the timetables for the corresponding railway lines and were published in parallel.

Course book lines

The lines or routes had four-digit (course book) numbers from 1500 (on Sylt ) to the 9000er ( Bavaria ). Even today, the four-digit course book lines from DB Regio Bus Region Bayern are often used as line numbers for areas outside of transport associations and communities , e.g. B. 9551 Tegernsee - Munich .

Bus companies

Former companies

Current companies

The DB Regio Bus division includes the following 23 bus companies, which in turn have holdings in other bus companies (shown indented):

Special lines

Germany's first postal service line: Bad Tölz - Lenggries

The Bad Tölz - Lenggries bus route has been operated continuously by the post office since 1905 and then, as a successor, by the RVO to this day.

Germany's highest bus route: Kehlsteinlinie

Since 1952, the RVO (or its predecessor company) has been serving line 9549 from Obersalzberg to the Kehlsteinhaus without an accident . With the help of special buses (larger engine power, modified transmissions and retarders ), over 250,000 passengers are transported here during the summer months from May to October. At 1696  m above sea level NHN , the mountain car park at the Kehlsteinhaus is the highest bus stop in Germany .

Germany's first electric bus route: Oberstdorf local traffic

In 1992, as part of the “Car-Free Oberstdorf ” project, Germany's first permanently operated battery bus line went into operation at the Regionalverkehr Allgäu subsidiary . As part of a research project, Metroliner MICs by bus manufacturer Neoplan were used between the reception parking lots and the town center for five years . Nickel-cadmium batteries were used in the vehicles. After the test phase was completed, the battery buses were replaced by hybrid buses in 1997 .

literature

  • Volkhard Stern, Werner Hartung: The road vehicles of the German Federal Railroad - Part 1: Rail buses . Brekina, Teningen 2003 (Brekina article number 11012) - 111 pages, numerous partly colored illustrations: detailed history and vehicle fleet of the railway bus from around 1945 to the end

Web links

Commons : Bahnbus (Deutsche Bundesbahn)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Autonomous bus
  2. ^ Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion Mainz of May 18, 1935, No. 21, Announcement No. 237, p. 89.
  3. ↑ Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion Mainz of October 16, 1937, No. 54. Announcement No. 6682, p. 331.
  4. ↑ Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion Mainz of January 8, 1938, No. 2. Announcement No. 31, p. 15
  5. ^ Federal Association of Independent Postbus Drivers 1980 eV In: Regensburger Busse. Retrieved May 19, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d vehicles. IG Bahnbus eV, accessed on May 19, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Standardbus GbR. Retrieved May 19, 2020 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h Ex train / post buses still preserved. IG Bahnbus eV, accessed on May 19, 2020 .
  9. ^ Daimler-Benz O 407 (Nuremberg, 1988). In: Traditional bus North Bavaria. Retrieved May 19, 2020 .
  10. ↑ DB 20-380: An O 307 train bus for Baden. In: Facebook. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  11. ↑ a b c d Application overview for standard 1 buses. In: stadtbus.de. Retrieved May 19, 2020 .
  12. ↑ a b Historic train buses. Hallertauer Lokalbahnverein eV, accessed on May 19, 2020 .
  13. ↑ vehicles. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Nahverkehr Dortmund eV, accessed on May 19, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Jens Rademacher: The 42-year-old Büssing bus is built from scratch. Retrieved May 22, 2020 .
  15. ↑ https://www.rvo-bus.de/oberbayernbus/view/freizeittipps/ausflugsbusse/kehlsteinhaus.shtml