Elm train station

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Elm
Elm station (as it was in 1937)
Elm station (as it was in 1937)
Data
Operating point type Depot
Location in the network Separation station
Platform tracks 0
abbreviation FEL
opening 1868
location
City / municipality Schluechtern
Place / district Elm
country Hesse
Country Germany
Coordinates 50 ° 22 '20 "  N , 9 ° 34' 22"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 22 '20 "  N , 9 ° 34' 22"  E
Railway lines
Railway stations in Hessen
i16 i16

The Elm Station is a depot of Deutsche Bahn on the route Gemünden-Fulda . Until 1914 it was an important train station - also for long-distance traffic - between the Rhine-Main area and Berlin and Saxony .

Geographical location

The station is located in the district of Schlüchtern-Elm the city Schlüchtern the east of the Main-Kinzig district in Hesse .

Starting position

After the Kurhessische estates assembly had passed a corresponding law, the Frankfurt-Bebraer railway could be built since 1863 , which should run almost exclusively in the Kurhessische area. In Bebra there was already a railway connection to Kassel and in the direction of Saxony and Berlin with the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn . From Bebra, the route was driven south with the aim of Hanau, also in the state of Hesse. After the annexation of the electoral state by the Kingdom of Prussia after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the project was taken over by Prussia and construction began in the southern section. Prussia was able to complete the route within two years.

During the construction of the route, the challenge arose of overcoming the Hessian ridge between Vogelsberg and Rhön . That was difficult because the ridge is perpendicular to the route and at that time only a gradient of 1: 100 was possible on a main route . At the time, it was not possible to build a 3.5 kilometer long tunnel to drive under the ridge - dynamite was not yet available, a tunnel would have had to be dug by hand. So the route was led here in a hairpin over the ridge. The hairpin was given a train station, the Elm train station.

Switchback station

Together with the line, the Elm station went into operation in 1868. There was a railway maintenance office and its own locomotive station here. Up to 1914, up to 350 railway workers were employed at Elm station. A separate railway settlement was built above the station .

Right from the start, Elm train station also had a station building that was placed in an island location between the tracks. The importance of the station in the railway operations at the time can be measured by the fact that it was just as large and stylistically similar as the ones in Fulda and Bebra. The station building also housed a station restaurant where passengers could take care of themselves during the break required to change locomotives. Of course, there were two large waiting rooms for passengers in first and second class , as well as for those in third class.

The trains running between Fulda and Hanau move their locomotives or change them here. That did not bother in the beginning, as the average travel speeds were still relatively low and the steam locomotives had to be changed frequently to purify and replenish their supplies of coal and water. Express trains stopped in Elm for four to six minutes, slower trains up to half an hour.

extension

In 1873 the Gemünden – Elm railway line - then single-track - was connected at the head end of Elm station . Elm became a through station and the Fulda – Flieden – Gemünden railway was created. However, the trains of the Frankfurt-Bebraer Bahn still had to "turn heads" here. This only changed with the commissioning of the Schlüchtern tunnel in 1914, which passes under the Hessian ridge.

Schlueter tunnel

Due to the strong increase in traffic, the hairpin at Elm station on the Bebra Railway became an operational obstacle. Military interests also called for a more efficient, less complex solution. In addition, dynamite was now available for blasting a tunnel. In 1909, the construction of the Schlüchtern tunnel began, and it went into operation on May 1, 1914. This reduced the travel time by around 20 minutes. For Elm station this meant a drastic loss of importance in the long run: trains between Fulda and Hanau no longer ran to it and the route to Gemünden was only of minor importance before the Second World War . The station did not have an independent catchment area for a significant number of passengers. During the mobilization for the First World War , the station experienced hectic operation again: For safety reasons, the Schlüchtern tunnel had been closed and traffic was back on the hairpin.

End as a transport station

View of the eastern head of the Elm station

As early as 1918, however, the two large waiting rooms were closed and later used as gyms , during World War II by the ticket printing company of the Reichsbahndirektion Frankfurt . The station building was also destroyed in an air raid on the station on November 25, 1944. Reconstruction began after the war, but remained largely in the shell construction stage. In 1955 the Elm railway maintenance facility was dissolved. With the 1966 summer timetable, the scheduled trains over the connecting curve from Schlüchtern station to Elm were no longer available. It has only been used by passenger trains again since the timetable change in December 2007, but they do not stop in Elm. The station building was demolished in 1978/79 and passenger traffic at Elm station was suspended on May 20, 1979. Since then it has only been used for operational purposes, such as overhauls . Between Gemünden and Fulda, a large part of the rail freight traffic on the north-south axis bypasses the Rhine-Main conurbation .

literature

Individual evidence