Königstein station festival
The Königstein station festival has been held annually at Whitsun in Königstein im Taunus since 1981 . The organizer is the Frankfurt Historical Railway Association .
As part of the festival, historical trains run every hour between Frankfurt-Höchst and Königstein on the Königsteiner Bahn route under the motto “Full steam in the Taunus” . However, no locomotives typical for the route are used, instead a rail bus and trains hauled by the steam locomotive 52 4867 run every hour . 01 118 was also used until 2019 . It was the only steam locomotive of its series that had been in operation without interruption since it was built in 1934 and still drove to museum trips on public routes .
At Königstein train station there is the possibility of taking a ride in the driver's cab of the Köf 4293 . The association exhibits other locomotives and wagons from its inventory, it is possible to visit the exhibited vehicles . The Frankfurter Feldbahnmuseum offers rides on a wagon hauled by a small diesel locomotive. Other railway associations with historical locomotives are regular guests.
Both Frankfurt railway associations are each represented with an information stand, as is the historical tram association of the city of Frankfurt am Main and the passenger association Pro Bahn . In addition to the usual folk festival offers, another program of the station festival is locomotive parades and trips with railroad trolleys .
Multiple generations of railcars: Uerdinger next to LINT
Uerdinger rail bus on the platform
Special steam train with the 01 118 on the platform
history
Regular steam operation on the Königsteiner Kleinbahn ended in 1969, the last three steam locomotives were scrapped or sold to a museum railway in Switzerland in the early 1970s. In the 1970s, the branch line owned by the State of Hesse was severely neglected. Since 1974, their trains have not been allowed to travel to Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof due to the lack of inductive train control , and the route was excluded from the FVV , which was founded in 1974 . In the early 1980s, the line was considered to be in danger of being closed.
At the same time, the historic Frankfurt railway was looking for a suitable route for the operation of its steam locomotives, since the Frankfurt port railway , which was previously used, runs right through the city and only allows very short and slow train journeys. Since the Deutsche Bundesbahn did not tolerate steam locomotives on its routes because of the steam locomotive ban at that time, only a non-federal railway line was considered. Whitsun 1981, the first regular steam operation took place on the Königsteiner Kleinbahn, which was repeated in the following years due to its great success. The events at Königstein train station soon took on the character of a folk festival . The success of the station festival contributed to the fact that the line was viewed by the public as worthy of preservation, so that the state of Hesse provided the necessary funds for the modernization of the line from 1984 to 1987.
Web links
- Website of the historical railway Frankfurt e. V. with reports, photos, history and press releases about the festival
- Report on the Königstein station festival in 2002 on the Weiltalbahn website
- A station festival with nostalgic character for 25 years ( memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) on www.hochtaunus.de
Coordinates: 50 ° 10 ′ 40 ″ N , 8 ° 28 ′ 8 ″ E