Bebra – Baunatal-Guntershausen railway line
| Bebra-Baunatal-Guntershausen | |
|---|---|
| Route number (DB) : | 6340 |
| Course book section (DB) : | 610 |
| Route length: | 79 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Top speed: | 140 km / h |
| Dual track : | continuous |
The Bebra – Baunatal-Guntershausen railway is a double-track, electrified main line in Hesse , which was originally built and operated as part of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn . It leads from Bebra to Baunatal-Guntershausen . The line was one of the first railway lines in Kurhessen . Today it is also called the Fulda Valley Railway , together with the Bebra – Fulda railway line .
location
The Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn was built by the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft as part of the continuous east-west railway connection between Westphalia and Halle an der Saale . In Kassel it was connected to the Carlsbahn in a northerly direction, from which it continued in Hümme towards Warburg and Westphalia. In Gerstungen , the connection to the Thuringian Railway Company was established , in Warburg to the Hamm – Warburg railway line of the Royal Westphalian Railway Company .
Emergence
The states of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , Prussia and Kurhessen had been negotiating this east-west connection since 1840. Between Gerstungen in the east of the Kurstaate and Haueda on the border with Westphalia, the route was supposed to lead via Bebra and the then state capital Kassel through the Kurhessian area. Negotiations came to an end in autumn 1841. In 1844, the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft received the concession to build the line on the territory of the Electorate of Hesse.
designation
The Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn was renamed the Kurfürst- Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn in 1853 and after the annexation of Kurhessen by Prussia as a result of the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 it was renamed the Hessische Nordbahn .
"Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn" is not only used to describe the route described here, but the name is also used for the entire connection between Warburg and Gerstungen. This has to do with the fact that the spa state initially regarded the Carlsbahn as the most important connection, namely between the capital and the Weserhafen Karlshafen , and was primarily completed. The two branches of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn and the connection to Westphalia were "attached".
With regard to the traffic importance, it soon became clear that the traffic expected in Karlshafen did not materialize, but very soon shifted from the Weser to the rail network that was emerging in the middle of the 19th century . The railway to Karlshafen quickly became a route of only local importance. This led to the name that Carl train on the branch line limited Hümme-Karlshafen, the name "Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn" but was transferred to the entire distance between Warburg and Gerstungen.
From a Kurhessian perspective, the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn was initially an attempt to open up Northern and Upper Hesse with long-distance railways up to the Main line. Only the western branch was completed with the Main-Weser Railway in the time of the Electorate of Hesse. The eastern branch via Bebra, Fulda to Hanau ( Frankfurt-Bebraer Eisenbahn ) - all towns in the Electorate of Hesse and thus of the highest priority for the Electorate - did not progress as quickly due to the difficult topography there for railway construction and was only completed in Prussian times.
construction
On July 1, 1845, the groundbreaking ceremony for the start of construction on the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn was celebrated, and since December 29, 1849, the entire route has been open continuously. In Guntershausen it was connected to the Main-Weser Railway and in Kassel to the Carlsbahn, which opened a year earlier . Between Guntershausen and Bebra it follows the Fulda valley .
Track openings:
- Bebra - Malsfeld - Guxhagen on August 29, 1848
- Gerstungen - Bebra on September 25, 1849
- Guxhagen - Guntershausen on September 25, 1849
- Guntershausen - Kassel on December 29, 1849 (Main-Weser-Bahn)
The route is now part of the Central-Germany connection , but is currently (as of 2018) only used by two to three pairs of intercity trains a day in long-distance traffic.
Planned expansion
The project to upgrade the Dortmund – Kassel line, to which the line belongs, was not originally included in the 1985 Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan. In the course of German reunification , the route became more important as an east-west tangent. The route was intended to connect the Ruhr area with the high-speed lines Hanover – Würzburg and Hanover – Berlin .
An expert opinion at the end of the 1980s initially showed an annual deficit of the expansion variant of 2 million DM . As a result, the then Deutsche Bundesbahn reduced the planned investment volume for the expansion from 1.7 billion to 690 million DM. In February 1989, Federal Transport Minister Jürgen Warnke assured the expansion in full. In 1989, the Bundesbahn's economic plan contained an amount of DM 10 million for expansion measures between Dortmund and Paderborn .
The line between Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe and Bebra has been equipped with a GNT system based on ZUB 262.
The RegioTram Kassel drives the route to Melsungen . On May 20, 2011, the new Melsungen Bartenwetzerbrücke station close to the city center was opened. This has two 115 meter long outer platforms with a height of 38 centimeters. The construction cost 4.5 million euros. The construction of the Melsungen-Schwarzenberg station has been delayed for an indefinite period, as Deutsche Bahn has only wanted to build platforms at regular heights since the end of 2017.
literature
- Heinz Schomann : Railway in Hessen . Railway buildings and routes 1839–1939. In: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Cultural monuments in Hessen. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Three volumes in a slipcase. tape 2.1 . Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , p. 102 ff . (Route 006).
- Heinz Schomann : Railway in Hessen . Railway buildings and routes 1839–1939. In: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Cultural monuments in Hessen. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Three volumes in a slipcase. tape 2.1 . Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , p. 133 ff . (Route 009).
- Bernhard Hager: Traces of another time . The Eisenach – Bebra Magistrale as reflected in history. In: Railway history . No. December 25 , 2007, pp. 10-25 .
Web links
- Route, operating points and some permitted speeds on the OpenRailwayMap
- Driver's cab ride on the class 110 from Kassel Hbf to Bebra. In: youtube.com. 2006, accessed July 24, 2016 .
- Cab ride: Eisenach - Gerstungen - Bebra - Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe (August 2013)
- Annual report of the direction of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn for the period from October 1, 1846 to June 1, 1847
Individual evidence
- ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
- ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
- ^ Rüdiger Block: ICE racetrack: the new lines . In: Eisenbahn-Kurier Special: High-speed traffic . No. 21 , 1991, ISSN without (?!?!) , P. 36-45 .
- ↑ Expansion of the Dortmund - Kassel line secured . In: Railway courier . No. 199 , April 1989, ISSN 0170-5288 , p. 9 .
- ↑ Network Conditions of Use. (No longer available online.) DB Netz, 2011, p. 15/17 , formerly in the original ; accessed on May 6, 2016 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Sven Steinke: New Melsungen Bartenwetzerbrücke station opened. In: zughalt.de. May 23, 2011, accessed February 23, 2018 .
- ↑ Katrin Kimpel: Dispute over platform height delays new Regiotram station. (No longer available online.) In: hessenschau.de. February 23, 2018, archived from the original on February 23, 2018 ; accessed on February 23, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
