Donauwörth – Treuchtlingen railway line

		from Augsburg Hbf
		from Ingolstadt
	0.000	Donauwörth	403 m
		to Neuoffingen
		to Nördlingen
		Wörnitz (150 m)
		Augsburg – Nördlingen railway line (until 1877)
		Bundesstrasse 25
	11,344	Mouthling	471 m
	16.460	Fünfstetten	502 m
		to Monheim
	18.400	Vertex	511 m
	22.283	Otting - Weilheim	487 m
	26.000	Gundelsheim (Schwab)
	28.870	Carrots
	29.289	Upper Möhrenbach Bridge (169 m)
	31.400	Awanst Treuchtlinger marble works
		from Munich Hbf
	34,546	Treuchtlingen	420 m
		to Würzburg Hbf
		to Nürnberg Hbf

Swell:

The Donauwörth – Treuchtlingen railway line is a double-track, electrified main line in Bavaria . It branches off the Augsburg – Nördlingen railway line in Donauwörth and leads over the Franconian Alb to Treuchtlingen .

The route is part of the national long-distance connection between Munich , Augsburg and Nuremberg . Even after the opening of the high-speed line from Nuremberg via Ingolstadt to Munich, it is still important in long-distance passenger transport. It also serves as a diversion route in the event of disruptions on the new Nuremberg – Ingolstadt section.

history

The first Bavarian railway, the state-run Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn built from 1843 to 1853, bypassed the Franconian Alb, as it was uneconomical to overcome with the technical means available at the time. Instead, the route had been led in a long detour via Nördlingen through the Nördlinger Ries , where only slight inclines had to be overcome. An intended side effect of this route was also the possibility of a direct connection to the Württemberg railway network, which was realized in 1863 with today's Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt-Nördlingen railway .

On October 2, 1869, Treuchtlingen received its first rail connection through a line from Gunzenhausen . At the same time, the Altmühlbahn from Ingolstadt to Treuchtlingen and the continuation from Treuchtlingen to Pleinfeld , which went into operation immediately afterwards, were also built. Treuchtlingen had thus become a small railway junction .

Working on a cut in the Möhrenbachtal (around 1902)

As a result, plans began again for a direct route between Donauwörth and Treuchtlingen across the Alb. A committee made up of municipalities and companies initially unsuccessfully applied to the Bavarian state government to build the connection. It was only when the Munich – Treuchtlingen and Augsburg – Nördlingen – Nuremberg routes reached their capacity limits that the Bavarian state government revived the old plans to cross the Alb. In contrast to the projects from the 1830s, it was now possible to dispense with the expensive steep ramps with rope pull operation that were designed at the time.

On October 11, 1901, the Bavarian state parliament decided to build the Donauwörth – Treuchtlingen line, after the acquisition of land had begun ten years earlier. The construction of the route, which began on November 3, 1903, turned out to be difficult because of the many rock cuts. Water ingress and landslides delayed the work several times. On October 1, 1906, the main line, which had been double-tracked from the start, went into operation together with the branch line from Fünfstetten to Monheim .

The route met expectations in the years that followed. As part of the railway axis between Berlin and Rome, the Deutsche Reichsbahn began electrification in 1934, which was completed on April 5, 1935.

The summer timetable of 1939 only recorded four pairs of passenger trains between Donauwörth and Treuchtlingen, which took a little less than 40 minutes for this route. In contrast, a large number of express trains ran the route, some of which did not stop in Donauwörth or Treuchtlingen. Cross-country connections existed in particular between Rome and Berlin or Zurich and Berlin with through coaches to Dresden – Wroclaw and between Meran and Kiel.

At the end of the Second World War, the Donauwörth and Treuchtlingen train stations were particularly hard hit by heavy bomb attacks. On February 21, 1945 over 300 people died in a direct hit on the platform underpass in Treuchtlingen, which served as a shelter.

The first federal traffic route plan from 1973 envisaged an upgraded line between Würzburg and Augsburg via Nuremberg as one of eight expansion projects . As part of the upgraded Würzburg – Augsburg line, the line was also included in its update, the coordinated investment program for federal transport routes from 1977 and in the urgent requirement of the 1985 federal transport route plan.

Intercityexpress near carrots (2014)

As part of a pilot project in the 1970s, almost all intermediate stops were abandoned and instead a rail bus line was set up to serve the towns. Only the Otting-Weilheim station remained on the entire 35-kilometer route as an access point for passenger traffic.

Between 2004 and 2006, the overhead contact line, most of which was from 1935, was renewed while the line was still in operation.

The commissioning of the high-speed line Nuremberg – Ingolstadt in 2006 led to a significant shift in long-distance traffic to the new line on the Munich – Nuremberg route. The line capacities that were freed up could, however, be used to compress the train sequence in regional traffic. Treuchtlingen is now (as of 2020) with slightly different symmetry minute every hour on the half hour clock node in regional transport. Long-distance trains with stops in Donauwörth and Treuchtlingen only operate the route irregularly.

The route is to be equipped with digital interlockings and ETCS by 2030 as part of the “starter package” of Digital Rail Germany , as part of the TEN core network corridor Scandinavia-Mediterranean .

Route description

course

The route leaves Donauwörth in a northerly direction, crosses the Wörnitz and then ascends into the Franconian Alb, where the apex and the watershed to the Altmühltal are reached at Otting . As far as Treuchtlingen, the route in the Möhrenbachtal slopes down again. The only larger engineering structure on the route is the Obere Möhrenbach Bridge at Möhren, which is 183 meters long.

There used to be several train stations on the Alb, but these have now largely been abandoned. Only Otting-Weilheim is still served by passenger traffic, Mündling still serves as an overtaking station. In Fünfstetten the branch line to Monheim branched off until 1999 , which was last operated as a museum railway.

traffic

Regional Express Nuremberg – Augsburg near Möhren (2007)

In long-distance passenger traveled intercity express - and Intercity trains the route.

In rail transport since the timetable change in December 2009, runs between Treuchtlingen and Munich Fugger-Express daily every two hours as a Regional Express (RE). Further regional express trains on the Nuremberg – Augsburg route condense the train sequence to an approximate hourly rate .

Since the timetable change on December 10, 2006, there has also been a direct connection under the name Allgäu-Franken-Express, Nuremberg – Lindau and Nuremberg – Oberstdorf on which diesel multiple units of the 612 series are used, since the section between Augsburg and Lindau or Oberstdorf is not is electrified. The three pairs of trains stop occasionally in Treuchtlingen and Donauwörth and thus, after the withdrawal of many Intercity Express and Intercity trains from this route, provide a fast connection from Augsburg to the long-distance traffic hub Nuremberg.

Vehicle use

DB class 440 (Treuchtlingen, 2012)

Electric locomotives of the series 110 , 111 and 143 with double-decker cars were used in regional traffic until 2009 . Modus cars have also been running on the trains since December 2006 .

Class 440 multiple units (Alstom Coradia Continental) have been operating since the end of 2009 . Class 612 diesel multiple units are used for the Allgäu-Franken-Express .

literature

Siegfried Bufe: Railway in Middle Franconia . Bufe-Fachbuchverlag, Munich 1980. ISBN 3-922138-09-8 .
Leonhard Bergsteiner: Railway in the Altmühltal . Kenning Verlag, Nordhorn 1989. ISBN 3-9800952-7-4 .
Bernd Eisenschink and Jürgen Hörstel: Railways in Southern Germany . Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1990. ISBN 3-280-01897-8 .
Andreas Dollinger: A gap in the system - 100 years of the Treuchtlingen - Donauwörth railway line . In: LOK magazine . Issue 1, 2007. Geramond-Verlag Munich.
Jörg and Rolf Frank: Treuchtlingen Railway Cross . Bufe-Fachbuchverlag, Egglham 1989. ISBN 3-922138-35-7 .

Web links

Commons : Nuremberg – Augsburg railway line - collection of images, videos and audio files

Route, operating points and permissible speeds on the OpenRailwayMap
Description of the Treuchtlingen – Donauwörth railway line, copy from 1906

Individual evidence

↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register

↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .

↑ Map of the Federal Railway Directorate Munich 1985

↑ Summer timetable 1939

^ Rüdiger Block: On New Paths. The new lines of the Deutsche Bundesbahn . In: Eisenbahn-Kurier Special: High-speed traffic . No. 21, 1991, excluding ISSN, pp. 30-35.
^ Wilhelm Linkerhägner: New and expanded lines of the Deutsche Bundesbahn . In: Jahrbuch des Eisenbahnwesens , 1977, pp. 78–85.
^ Rüdiger Block: ICE racetrack: the new lines . In: Eisenbahn-Kurier Special: High-speed traffic . No. 21, 1991, excluding ISSN, pp. 36-45.
↑ Digital Rail Germany #####. (PDF) The future of the railroad. In: deutschebahn.com. Deutsche Bahn, September 2019, p. 10 f. , accessed on May 2, 2020 .
↑ Timetable 2020

[1] DB Netze - Infrastructure Register

[2] Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .

[3] Map of the Federal Railway Directorate Munich 1985

[4] Summer timetable 1939