Railway line Dollnstein – Rennertshofen
| Dollnstein – Rennertshofen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route number : | 5322 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book range : | last 413n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 21.33 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Dollnstein – Rennertshofen railway was a branch line from Dollnstein to Rennertshofen in Upper Bavaria .
Preparations
The Wellheimer dry valley remained without a railway connection for a long time. 1899 saw the founding of a local railway-Committees Dollnstein-Rennertshofen with the aim of one of the Ingolstadt-Treuchtlingen railway , known as the Altmühl train, outbound local railway to build. On January 24, 1900, a petition was sent to the Royal House State Ministry responsible for railway construction . On August 30, 1900, the Ministry commissioned the Directorate General of the Bavarian State Railways to work out a cost and profitability calculation. This was presented on December 9, 1901 and showed an expected deficit of 2,000 marks annually.
Nevertheless, the local railway committee drafted its next petition on March 8, 1902, in which this calculation was rejected. There were protracted negotiations until, after extensive deliberations in the state parliament, the special law of August 16, 1908 led the construction of the Dollnstein – Rennertshofen local railway to the 22nd place. The proposal of the city of Neuburg an der Donau to establish a connection from Neuburg to Rennertshofen was rejected on March 19, 1914 by the Ministry of Transport.
construction
Construction work began on May 27, 1913. At the train station Dollnstein extensive blasting was necessary to widen around the station area. The rock extracted was used in the construction of a five-meter high railway embankment at the exit. The construction of the line progressed rapidly in the unproblematic terrain until it came to a standstill in August 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War.
After that, progress was much slower. With the help of prisoners of war, the work was completed on May 17, 1916. The total cost was 951,243.45 marks. Despite the war, the line was officially opened on May 18, 1916. An ML 2/2 marked with the sign “Welcome” on the smoke chamber pulled the first train, decorated with garlands. Schoolchildren were allowed to drive for free, and the train driver received a gold watch from the local railway committee. An operating building with an attached loading hall was initially only built in the Rennertshofen terminus. In the 1920s, service buildings in Konstein and Wellheim were added, while in Hütting and Ellenbrunn, handling was carried out in private houses.
business
The two pairs of passenger trains a day were initially pulled by two PtL 2/2 . An additional pair of trains ran on Sundays and public holidays. The journey time was just under an hour. From 1921 to 1923 three pairs of trains ran daily, again from the summer of 1926, but now one is limited to the Dollnstein – Wellheim section.
In 1925 vehicles of the 70 ° series replaced the PtL 2/2. A single machine of this series, which was used until 1960, handled the entire train service. The responsible depot in Treuchtlingen used locomotives 004, 006, 007, 012, 020, 025, 027, 028, 030, 036, 044, 045, 057, 091, 092, 093 and 094, among others. In addition to seeds, sugar beets and coal for the glassworks in Konstein , the passenger trains with freight transport carried a lot of live cattle, which were loaded onto ramps at the stations on the way. The carriage set consisted of one or two passenger cars, a baggage / mail car and one or more cattle cars. Rennertshofen was the only branch of the Treuchtlingen depot. Due to the increasing displacement of the Pt 2/3 by the VT95 rail buses, this status ended when the branch office was closed in 1957.
Since the summer of 1935, two pairs of trains ran from Dollnstein to Wellheim. During the Second World War there were many irregularities and changes, as the branch line was used as a siding for rolling food and supply stores. An attack by American low-flying aircraft on a freight train near a wall on April 1, 1945 left severe damage. Only at the end of 1945 was operations on the line resumed. The first post-war timetable in 1947 contained three pairs of trains on the entire route and two more for the section from Dollnstein to Wellheim.
From winter 1949 rail buses of the VT 70 series appeared , but they disappeared again at the end of the winter timetable 1951/52. Passenger traffic fell, which could not be covered by the relatively high volume of goods traffic. From 1956 a VT 95 was used, which ran without a sidecar and was around 15 minutes faster than a steam train. The freight trains with passenger traffic were omitted, the steam locomotive only had to operate the daily freight train for the entire route and another to supply the Konsteiner Glashütte.
The DB undertook to move passenger transport to rail buses . In the last timetable in the summer of 1960, four pairs of trains ran every day on the entire route and two each between Dollnstein and Wellheim. The last regular passenger train from Rennertshofen, consisting of a VT 95 and the 70 091, left Rennertshofen on October 2, 1960 at 12.24 pm. This combination arrived in Rennertshofen at 1 pm, and rail buses took over the service in the afternoon.
Freight traffic was taken over by small locomotives of the Kö and Köf II series , which were followed in the summer of 1970 by diesel locomotives of the 211 and 260 series .
The museum train
The Association for the Preservation of Historic Railway Material, founded in 1985, allowed passenger trains to run again on the line threatened by dismantling from the summer of the same year. On July 27, 1985, with the permission of the Federal Railroad, museum operations were resumed with the small locomotive 323 328 and four cars, which were retired in November 1984. After appropriate processing, the vehicles were approved for use on the Rennertshofen route. This was the first time that the DB allowed the use of private museum trains on a railway system belonging to it. In 1987 the ANNA steam locomotive came from the Anna mine in Alsdorf , a shunting steam locomotive built by Krupp in 1952 . The mutual rights and obligations between DB and the operators of the museum railway were regulated in a model contract . In 1988, the Kelheim cellulose factory acquired factory locomotive 2, which was built by Krauss-Maffei in 1936 and was given the name EMMA. In 1992 and 1993 EMMA managed museum train operations alone.
The museum train left Dollnstein on a newly built platform between the train station and the road bridge on the branch line.
Rennertshofen station 1996
Dollnstein station, left route to Rennertshofen, in the background the platform for the museum railway, right route to Treuchtlingen
Museum train with Anna locomotive on August 14, 1988 in Wellheim station
Museum train with locomotive Emma and locomotive Anna on September 16, 2001 in Stadskanaal station
Shutdown
Despite the popular museum train journeys, the DB stuck to its closure plans. The volume of goods traffic, most recently handled by vehicles from the 290 series , was often very low. Rennertshofen was only approached when needed, the freight trains mostly ended in Konstein. In November 1991, the DB submitted an offer to sell the line for four million DM, which was reduced to three million a year later, taking into account the costs required for the dismantling of the line. The association and the local authorities were only willing to pay DM 500,000. In February 1993, the Munich Federal Railway Directorate announced that freight traffic would be discontinued on May 31, 1993. Now there was only the museum railway, with whose operators a new lease was concluded at the last minute. The DB reduced its sales offer to DM 900,000. On October 10, 1993, EMMA carried the last train of the year, which turned out to be the last train ever. While the negotiations were still ongoing, the museum railroaders sold the two steam locomotives to the Veendam – Stadskanaal – Musselkanaal museum railroad in order to be able to repay the debts with the DB. In June 1994 a low-loader picked up the locomotives. The frame wagons and the mail wagon were also given to this Dutch museum railway. At the beginning of 2012, the Bavarian Railway Museum (BEM) in Nördlingen finally took over the EMMA locomotive.
The small locomotive 323 328 was built in 1994 by DBK Historische Bahn e. V. in Crailsheim.
Hopes that the Bavarian Railway Museum in Nördlingen would acquire the now closed but still existing line were not fulfilled. Everything was canceled by the year 2000; the route is now partially built over. Instead of the railway line, there is now a cycle path that is around 7.8 km on the route of the former railway line to Wellheim.
Individual evidence
- ^ W. Alteneder, C. Schüssler: The branch lines of the BD Munich. Kersting, Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-925250-03-4 , p. 28.
literature
- Leonhard Bergsteiner: Dollnstein – Rennertshofen. In: Wolf-Dieter Machel: secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1994. (Collection Service)
- Volker Möller: On old tracks between the Danube and Altmühl. Letterpress Loibl, Neuburg ad Donau 1987, DNB 950323055 .
