Erlau – Wegscheid railway line

Erlau (b Passau) –Wegscheid (Niederbay)
Route number (DB) :	5844
Course book section (DB) :	1944: 464v; 1956: 417n
Route length:	20.2 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	Adhesion 25  ‰ rack 71  ‰
Minimum radius :	200 m
Rack system :	Strub
Top speed:	30 km / h
Legend from Passau-Voglau 0.0 Erlau (b Passau) 297 m Erlau to Hauzenberg 4.9 Obernzell 299.6 m Viaduct Obernzell 9.6 Untergriesbach 542.7 m 12.7 Oberötzdorf 14.4 Wildranna 548.1 m 16.4 Eidenberg (from around 1950) 17.1 Mitterwasser 20.2 Wegscheid (Niederbay) 674.5 m

The Erlau – Wegscheid railway line was a branch line in Bavaria . It branched off from the Passau – Hauzenberg railway line in Erlau and led via Obernzell to Wegscheid . The route had two steep sections with a maximum gradient of 71 per thousand, which were equipped with a rack system Strub .

history

Initial plans for a connection between Hauzenberg and Wegscheid in 1895 envisaged using the Passau – Freyung railway to Fischhaus and from there via Büchlberg and Hauzenberg to Wegscheid. Due to the long detour and 130 meters of altitude lost , the decision was made against this route . Added to this were the high costs and the low expected volume of traffic between Wegscheid and Hauzenberg. This led to new planning along the Danube and through the Erlautal towards Hauzenberg and from Erlau via Obernzell to Wegscheid.

On May 15, 1909, the line from Erlau to Obernzell was opened, and the continuation to the then district headquarters Wegscheid followed on December 1, 1912.

The operation of the route was complex. Before the rack sections, the locomotive had to move to the end of the train in order to push the train on its way up. The shunting stays in Obernzell, Untergriesbach and Wildenranna and the low permitted travel speed in the rack sections led to excessively long travel times. In 1924, for example, passenger trains took between 107 and 125 minutes on the 20-kilometer route from Obernzell to Wegscheid. Downhill, on the other hand, the journey time was only 86 to 110 minutes.

The Obernzell Viaduct and the Danube bridge on the Passau – Hauzenberg line were blown up in the last days of the war in 1945. After the bridges had been rebuilt, operations resumed on May 13, 1949.

With the construction of the federal highway 388 and the introduction of buses and trucks , the volume of traffic on the route fell. In 1952, test drives were carried out with the rail-road omnibus (Schi-Stra-Bus). Due to the often high snow conditions in winter, year-round operation with the Schi-Stra buses seemed impossible.

From 1953, the DB began using modern rail buses that were suitable and approved for use on the steep sections with increased engine power and reinforced braking equipment. In 1956, five pairs of passenger trains ran between Passau and Wegscheid.

From 1960, the Deutsche Bundesbahn used rail buses in parallel. From now on there was only one pair of passenger trains running on the route. Decommissioning plans forced by the Deutsche Bundesbahn were initially rejected by politicians due to the situation in the border area.

After a rock fall between Erlau and Obernzell, traffic on the route had to be stopped on January 28, 1965. Tourist traffic was finally transferred to the railway bus line, goods traffic to Obernzell was resumed on March 31, 1970 after the section was repaired. The further route to Wegscheid remained without traffic.

The official cessation of passenger traffic Erlau-Wegscheid and freight traffic Obernzell-Wegscheid took place officially on August 1, 1973. The line was dismantled in 1975, the viaduct that defines the townscape in Obernzell was removed in 1982. Today there is a footpath and bike path on the route between Obernzell and Wegscheid .

On March 1, 2007, the closure of the line (Passau–) Erlau – Obernzell was approved by the Federal Railway Authority and implemented on March 18, 2007. The Bavarian Regional Railway (BRE), a subsidiary of the German Regional Railway (DRE), then leased the Passau – Hauzenberg line and the Erlau – Obernzell section on November 24, 2007 to protect them from dismantling, as there were plans to remove the line to convert it into a cycling and hiking trail. On December 29, 2014, the Erlau – Obernzell line was sold to BRE.

Route description

The route branches off from the route to Hauzenberg in Erlau and initially leads on the orographic left bank of the Danube to Obernzell. The route that still exists today ends there. In the Obernzell location, the first 3.81-kilometer cogwheel section began at kilometer 5.67. As far as Untergriesbach, the railway managed a difference in altitude of over 240 meters over a distance of just 4.7 kilometers. As far as Wildenranna, the route then led through the Bavarian Forest with moderate inclines of up to 25 per thousand. At the Mitterwasser stop, the second 2.38-kilometer rack section began at kilometer 17.29 and had the maximum gradient of 71 per thousand.

Vehicle use

In 1912 the Royal Bavarian State Railways acquired three PtzL 3/4 cogwheel steam locomotives from Krauss in Munich , which were followed by another in 1923. The Deutsche Reichsbahn later assigned them to the 97.1 series. The locomotives handled all traffic until the 1950s, when they were decommissioned by 1963.

From 1953, the Deutsche Bundesbahn used the rail bus prototypes VT 98 901 to 903 with twin-engine drives on the line. Equipped with a magnetic rail brake, they could also drive safely on the steep sections in adhesion mode. Together with a single-axle luggage trailer, the vehicles handled all travel traffic until 1965.

After the last cogwheel steam locomotive was taken out of service, the DB housed the rail bus VT 97 901 equipped with a cogwheel drive on the line. As a towing car for freight traffic, the vehicle was approved from January 8, 1964 to carry 40 tons of trailer load on the steep sections of the route. In 1965, the DB acquired two more rack-and-pinion railcars VT 97 907 and 908 for the route to Wegscheid. However, they were no longer used because of the rock fall. From then on, they continued on the Reutlingen – Schelklingen railway in Baden-Württemberg.

literature

• Siegfried Bufe: Roads to Passau . In: Eisenbahn Geschichte 93 (2019), pp. 12–27.
• Englberger, Bernhard; Gehring, Ulrike; Heineck, Heidi: Granite railway Hauzenberg - Passau. 60 ideas for reactivating a regional train . Ed .: Klühspies, Johannes. 1st edition. Deggendorf Technical University, Deggendorf 2014, p. 87 ( Lokalbahn-hauzenberg.de [PDF; accessed on January 3, 2015]).
• Association for Tourism eV Hauzenberg (editor): The Hauzenberger Bockerl. The local train from Passau to Hauzenberg . Regional traffic history, EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2002, ISBN 3-88255-452-5
• Walther Zeitler: Railways in Lower Bavaria and Upper Palatinate . Buch & Kunstverlag Oberpfalz, Weiden 1985. ISBN 3-924350-01-9

Web links

Commons : Erlau – Wegscheid railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Route description Erlau – Wegscheid on spurensuche-eisenbahn.de
• Erlau – Wegscheid on zahnradbahn.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Udo Kandler: Steepest state railway in Bavaria . In: railway magazine . No. 7 , 2017, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 54 .
2. ↑ Branch line history. Passau Railway Friends, archived from the original on February 11, 2013 ; accessed on June 21, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Bufe, p. 27.
4. ^ Udo Kandler: Steepest state railway in Bavaria . In: railway magazine . No. 7 , 2017, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 55 .
5. ↑ List of the disused lines in Bavaria (since January 1, 1994). (Excel; 16 KiB) In: eba.bund.de. Federal Railway Authority, accessed on June 4, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Frank Limmer: A big step towards reactivation. In: Passauer Neue Presse . December 30, 2014, accessed January 1, 2015 .