Gessertshausen – Türkheim railway line

Gessertshausen – Türkheim (Bay) train station
Route number (DB) :	5340
Course book section (DB) :	984
Route length:	42,400 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	C2
Maximum slope :	10.6  ‰
Minimum radius :	300 m
Top speed:	60 km / h
Legend from Augsburg 0.000 Gessertshausen 476.3  m to Ulm 2.976 Margertshausen 484.9  m Connection of timber loading 7,952 Fischach (Schwab) 490.6  m Schmutter Line loading point Hauser Weinimport Neufnach 10.374 Wollmetshofen 499.2  m 13.277 Langenneufnach 508.2  m Neufnach 16,430 Gumpenweiler 17.669 Walkertshofen 523.4  m 21,031 Reichertshofen (Schwab) 537.8  m 23,564 Mittelneufnach 549.9  m 25.774 Oberneufnach 26,961 Market forest 570.8  m 28,918 Schnerzhofen Connection of the military depot (never completed) Neufnach Connection to Gebr. Lang paper factory 34.141 Ettringen 579.9  m 39.667 Türkheim (Bay) Market 598.2  m from Buchloe 42,400 Türkheim (Bay) train station 605.6  m to Mindelheim to Bad Wörishofen

The Gessertshausen – Türkheim railway is a branch line in Bavaria . It runs from Gessertshausen via Markt Wald and Ettringen to Türkheim (Bay) . The once 42.400 km long route leads through the Stauden excursion region in the Augsburg-Westliche Wälder nature park and is therefore also known as the Staudenbahn . About two thirds of the route is in the Augsburg district , the other third in the Unterallgäu district .

history

Planning and first route section

First efforts for a rail connection were made from Ettringen, Türkheim and Fischach. On July 4, 1891, the Kirchheim brewery owner Fahrschon in the Wertach- and Mindelbote approved that he thought a connection would make sense. It was not until 1908 that the Türkheim – Ettringen line was opened. Although the route from Gessertshausen to Fischach was sought in 1897, after the construction of the first section, the matter for the railway administration was done and a permanent machine house was built in Ettringen. Further negotiations about a further route connection turned out to be complicated. In October 1897 the Fischach community was informed that the Gessertshausen connection station could be reached on a well-developed stretch of road. The Lang brothers' paper mill , which still exists today, therefore planned a private narrow-gauge railway in the direction of Westerringen to connect to the Augsburg – Buchloe railway line . The idea was dropped a little later. After the Fischach Railway Committee realized that a branch line to Gessertshausen could not be implemented, they changed their project. The new endeavor was a train connection from Gessertshausen via Markt Wald to Ettringen. A wood company in Schnerzhofen could have been supplied with materials. Some communities in the west of the planned rail link suggested a rail connection in Mödishofen instead of in Gessertshausen. The city of Augsburg offered support with the construction. On July 30, 1909, the local railway company (LAG) from Munich granted permission for the construction. The Kingdom of Bavaria made an extraordinary budget available. The Reichseisenbahnamt in Berlin had the plan to also let military trains run on the route. But since the necessary money was not available, a local railway was built .

Construction of the second section

Construction work began around one and a half years after the legal permit. On October 12, 1910, the Gessertshausen – Fischach section was completed. On December 20, 1911, the extension from Ettringen to Markt Wald was built. Meanwhile, the still missing section of Fischach – Markt Wald was built and was inaugurated on February 8, 1912. On December 11, 1912, the first trains ran from Gessertshausen to Türkheim. From then on there were the stations at Türkheim Markt and Türkheim Bahnhof. The connecting station at Türkheim Bahnhof is around 2.5 kilometers from the Türkheim Markt stop and offers connections to Buchloe, Mindelheim and Bad Wörishofen. The locomotive shed in Ettringen was demolished; for this purpose a machine house and a locomotive station were built in Markt Wald .

Until World War II

The first descent in the direction of Türkheim took place almost three quarters of an hour earlier than the one to Gessertshausen. For passengers who wanted to come from Ettringen to Augsburg, the trains ran via Türkheim and Buchloe or via Gessertshausen about the same length. Both took around 120 minutes. In 1919 traffic had to stand still for some time because the Ruhr area was occupied by France and therefore there was also a coal shortage in southern Germany.

The perennial railway in World War II

Overgrown railway line to the planned military depot

In 1944 the situation came to a head. Important armaments companies such as MAN and Messerschmitt were active in Augsburg, so that the situation became more and more threatening for the surrounding area after the bombing of Augsburg at the end of February 1944. In the last months of the war, a gravel route was built to a planned military depot, but it was never used.

In March 1945, low-flying aircraft fired at a train set that was standing in the Markt Wald station. A passenger car was badly damaged. People were not harmed. On April 25, 1945, after US troops marched into the region, a train driver dared to drive from Gessertshausen to Markt Wald without wagons and arrived safely. Except for the incident mentioned above, the perennial railway was spared the war. On July 19, 1945, a modest train service was resumed.

Decline in train traffic

From the 1960s onwards, there was a sharp decline in passenger traffic. 1967 was the last year that steam locomotives were still running on the route. A local freight train from Gessertshausen to Türkheim took up to five hours. Passenger and freight traffic continued to decline, so that trains only ran Monday to Friday. The long travel times, among other things caused by slow speed areas as a result of insufficient route maintenance, meant that the passenger trains were hardly used anymore.

In the early 1980s, the Deutsche Bundesbahn temporarily used its then most modern diesel multiple units of the 627.1 series on the Staudenbahn , which were stationed at the Kempten depot. The reason for this was a shared schedule with other routes in the Augsburg region. The news magazine Der Spiegel reported at the time: "The Deutsche Bundesbahn prefers to use its latest traction vehicles in a forest, hidden far behind Augsburg, instead of using them on well-frequented routes."

Partial shutdown

Reichertshofen (Schwab) stop

In 1982, the poor state of the superstructure on the Markt Wald - Ettringen section forced the maximum speed to be limited to 30 km / h. On September 24 of the same year, this section was closed to passenger traffic, before it was closed to all traffic on May 28, 1983 due to impassability. Passenger traffic between Untertürkheim railway station and Ettringen ended on January 9, 1987. In May 1988 broke up the remaining residual portion Gessertshausen - market forest railcars of the series 796/996 battery railcars of series 515 from. Despite protests, passenger traffic was stopped on May 31, 1991.

Freight traffic was restricted with the dissolution of freight tariff points on May 28, 1995, which led to the abandonment of operations on the Fischach – Markt Wald section on May 1, 1996. The only remaining station with goods traffic on the northern section of the route was Fischach. Here a winery received block trains consisting of four-axle tank cars . On the southern section, Türkheim (Bay) Markt and Ettringen were still approached.

Recommissioning

The perennial railway near Langenneufnach

Traffic was resumed on parts of the route.

from	to	in operation from
Gessertshausen	Langenneufnach	July 28, 2001
Langenneufnach	Market forest	May 1, 2003

present

Class 2143 diesel locomotive taken over from the Austrian Federal Railways

Southern section Türkheim Bahnhof - Ettringen - Markt Wald

The 7.1 kilometer long section Markt Wald - Ettringen is currently inaccessible due to its dilapidation. The track is almost completely preserved. Only the level crossing at the former Schnerzhofen stop was overturned and the track was removed at around 100 meters. In addition, at the connection to the Gebr. Lang paper factory, the switch of the main line from the direction of Gessertshausen is missing . Since the line was closed in 1983, the section has also grown significantly. The Gessertshausen - Markt Wald section was bought by the Staudenbahn-Eisenbahn-Trägererverein e. V. of Deutsche Bahn. In the meantime, the entire route has been transferred to the railway infrastructure company Bahnbetriebsgesellschaft Stauden mbH (BBG) .

The section from Türkheim to Ettringen is operated by DB Cargo , which operates a paper mill belonging to UPM Ettringen , which is part of UPM-Kymmene . This has a siding north of Ettringen station, inaugurated on January 24, 2000, with which the previously practiced handling in the station was replaced. The section Türkheim - Ettringen has also been owned by BBG since March 2, 2004. At the beginning of December 2018, the district council of the Unterallgäu district decided to campaign for the reactivation of this section. This resolution enables the Bavarian Railway Company to prepare an expert report .

Northern section Gessertshausen – Markt Wald

Rail transport in the northern section of Gessertshausen – Markt Wald is carried out by the railway company Stauden-Verkehrs-GmbH (SVG), which is active throughout Germany in freight and regional excursion transport. There is a freight yard for timber loading between Margertshausen and Fischach , which was opened on August 24, 2003 after the loading platform at Fischach station had reached its capacity limit. The timber loading station is also used to deliver edelsplitt for the expansion of Autobahn 8 in Zusmarshausen. Between 2012 and 2014, a total of 60,000 tons were handled in July and August.

The SVG vehicles are now housed on the site of the former Augsburg depot. They used to be at the Augsburg track construction yard.

The new bridge over the Neufnach in Langenneufnach was inaugurated on May 1st, 2005 . For a number of years, from May to October, the SVG ran an excursion service with two pairs of trains on every second Sunday between Augsburg main station and Markt Wald. Initially, the operation was carried out with a class 212 loaned from Deutsche Bahn Gleisbau , today DB Bahnbau Gruppe Augsburg . The ÖBB 5081 diesel multiple units with a former two-axle ÖBB bicycle freight wagon were originally used here . Later, three diesel locomotives of the ÖBB series 2143 with a two-car set of the Vienna S-Bahn and a baggage car for taking bicycles were used. A dining car was also carried until 2007 . However, the excursion traffic was interrupted for two years because the Schmutterbrücke in Fischach was being renovated. At the beginning of May 2011 he was able to be resumed.

Today the excursion trains consist of three four-axle passenger cars taken over from the ÖBB and a four-axle flat car for the bicycles. This set was pulled - depending on availability - by the V 126 of the Bayerische Oberlandbahn or the V 65-12 made available to the SVG (the version of the northern German small railways ) with SVG logo. Occasionally, a steam locomotive of the class Prussian P 8 is also used. The SVG now has its own diesel locomotive of the class V 100 ²⁰ or 212 from 1963.

In 2014 the Staudenbahn took a step towards reactivating regular passenger transport. Thanks to several volunteers, a 3-hour cycle or (previously a 2-hour cycle Augsburg-Langenneufnach now Augsburg-Markt Wald) has been offered on the route (on Saturdays). In addition, excursion trains run on selected Sundays and public holidays from May to October. In December 2016 and 2017, an additional 3-hour cycle was offered to the Christmas market in Augsburg. Due to the good demand for the 2-hour service at the time (from Augsburg-Langenneufnach), this regular service was continued in August, September and October 2014. Since August 2014 there have also been late trains for visitors to the Augsburger Plärrer and the Oktoberfest in Munich. A set of the Staudenbahn is used, consisting of the NE 81 multiple unit VT 02 / VT 08 including the associated VS 30 control car . This unit has now been incorporated into the fleet. The railcar is used for passenger transport as well as for freight transport and for shunting trips. The control car is only used when necessary, usually when there is a greater number of bicycles.

Freight transport

The Staudenbahn has freight customers both during the times of the Federal Railroad and currently.

Current freight customers:

• Goods wagons arriving from the Augsburg – Ulm railway line are placed on the sidings of the former company "Molfenter JA GmbH & Co. Ind. Hobelwerk" in Gessertshausen . Furthermore, vehicles from SVG customers such as Bombardier Transportation are housed in the former halls of the planing plant - Bombardier uses the perennial railway for test drives of its diesel locomotives . So drove u. a. Prototypes before series production, such as the series 245 (TRAXX P160 DE ME) from Deutsche Bahn , or series vehicles before delivery, such as B. the class 76 ( Bombardier TRAXX F140 DE) of the French state railways SNCF , for trial runs on the route.

• The Hauser wine loading point is located between Neufnach and Wollmetshofen . This gets wine from Italy in tank wagons .

• A timber company was also won as a customer, and a timber loading station was built between Margertshausen and Fischach .

Former freight customers:

• In Gumpenweiler there is an abandoned stopping point and a decommissioned sawmill , whose siding was used by the Bundeswehr to park the prototype train for their ambulance train . However, the wagons were never used, but received regular internal revisions in northern Germany . Today the siding is dismantled. Only the tracks in the area are still there.

• Many years after the setting of the freight presented the DB hundreds of discarded covered freight cars on the track at Reichertshofen off because it from competitive reasons resale to private railway companies banned and the cars then instead scrap left.

outlook

In 2004 there were publications that proposed the establishment of an S-Bahn line from Augsburg main station to the new Langenneufnach Süd stop to be built within the framework of a S-Bahn Augsburg to be created. This would revive the barely used railway line. Furthermore, the line should be reactivated to Türkheim, so that the Schnerzhofen and Ettringen stops could be served again.

Until 2018, efforts to revive the overgrown and dilapidated section from Markt Wald to Schnerzhofen were unsuccessful. A planned reopening in August 2010 to Schnerzhofer pond in combination with a Handcars -Transport from then until after Ettringen did not take place. Four investors, to whom the Ettringen - Schnerzhofen section was leased at the time, had been found to maintain and operate the draisine route. The approval process for the draisine route was still pending in 2010.

In 2011, passenger traffic was not expected to start in the regular timetable from Augsburg to Langenneufnach Süd until 2019. In a feasibility study, the required investment costs were estimated at 14 to 18 million euros. In a forecast by the Bavarian Railway Company (BEG), the Gessertshausen – Langenneufnach line was forecast to be reactivated in September 2013 with 1,170 passengers per day. This exceeded the limit of 1,000 passengers a day, so that the Bavarian state government checked whether it could be reactivated. In connection with this, questions regarding the financing of the infrastructure by the neighboring communities as owners of the railway line had to be clarified.

At the beginning of July 2015, the Augsburg - Gessertshausen - Langenneufnach S-Bahn line was included in the Augsburg Networks tender . In the BEG's press release from the end of December 2017, this route is included in Lot 2 of the Augsburger Netze . This regular operation should start in December 2021, but has to be postponed to December 2022 due to delivery bottlenecks for the vehicles.

media

• Video DVD: Die Staudenbahn - An exciting chapter in Bavarian railway history , Authors' Association Elmar Kretz, Klaus Böhme and Stefan Mühler and Photo Optik Mayer, 2013/2014.

literature

• Siegfried Baum: Swabian Railway . The traffic history of the local railways in Central Swabia. Verlag Wolfgang Zimmer, Eppstein im Taunus 1969.

Web links

Commons : Gessertshausen-Türkheim railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Staudenbahn group of companies
• Images of the perennial path

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BBG perennials: SNB-BT Annex 1. Route data. Retrieved June 15, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Forgotten railways : route to a planned military depot near Schnerzhofen , accessed on June 24, 2011
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Video DVD: The Staudenbahn - An exciting chapter in Bavarian railway history , Authors' Association Elmar Kretz, Klaus Böhme and Stefan Mühler and Photo Optik Mayer, 2013/2014
4. ^ Siegfried Baum: Gessertshausen - Forest Market - Türkheim . Collective work as loose-leaf edition. In: Branch and narrow-gauge railways in Germany . Weltbild Verlag, ISSN  0949-2143 (from 1994).
5. ↑ History of the reactivation of the perennial railway until 2003 . Regional development in Bavaria, issue 79, p. 90 ff
6. ↑ Turntable 140 (December 1999), pp. 60 and 142 (March / April 2000), p. 63
7. ↑ The Unterallgäu wants to reactivate the perennial railway. In: Augsburger Allgemeine . December 11, 2018, accessed December 27, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Heavy transport for the perennial railway on augsburger-allgemeine.de, August 27, 2012.
9. ↑ The perennial railway starts again. In: Augsburger Allgemeine. April 28, 2011. Retrieved July 17, 2011 . 
10. ↑ Saturdays June + July 2014
11. ↑ Press release: The Staudenbahn makes you mobile - now all the more! on staudenbahn.de.
12. ↑ Test run to the Plärrer. on augsburger-allgemeine.de, August 30, 2014.
13. ↑ Current situation . Archived from the original on October 22, 2004. Retrieved February 16, 2011.
14. ↑ Staudenbahn Group: Staudenbahn closed between Markt Wald and Ettringen.
15. ↑ Pitt Schurian: Kick on the rail. In: Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten, August 25, 2009, accessed on May 17, 2010 . 
16. ↑ There are still many question marks on the perennial railway. In: Augsburger Zeitung. September 27, 2011.
17. ^ Bay. State Ministry for Economy, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology: Zeil: “Staudenbahn has potential”. ( Memento from September 16, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Press release, September 13, 2013.
18. ↑ Bavarian Railway Company puts the regional traffic of the "Augsburger Netze" out to tender. In: Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft mbH., Website. December 27, 2017, accessed December 31, 2017 . 
19. ↑ TED supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union: Germany-Munich: public rail transport / public rail transport 2015 / S 127-232820 , July 4, 2015, accessed on July 5, 2015.
20. ↑ reactivation only in 2022 . In: railway magazine . No. 8 , 2018, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 27 .