Heidelberg – Speyer railway line

Heidelberg – Speyer
Route number (DB) :	4103 (Heidelberg – Schwetzingen) 4024 (Schwetzingen – Speyer)
Course book section (DB) :	300a (1963) , 302b (1944)
Route length:	27.6 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	6  ‰
Minimum radius :	180 m
Legend Odenwaldbahn from Neckargemünd Rhine Valley Railway from Karlsruhe 0.000 Heidelberg Hbf (old terminus) Route relocation approx. 1910, war curve (1865–1914) 1.100 Heidelberg Hbf (new train station) Main-Neckar-Bahn to Darmstadt , Rheintalbahn to Mannheim 2, 000 Heidelberg depot formerly Heidelberg Rbf 3.0 00 3.700 Missing 730 m after laying Pfaffengrund (from 1950) A 5 5.020 Eppelheim 7.360 Plankstadt 8,650 Level crossing with tram Heidelberg Line from Neu-Edingen / MA-Friedrichsfeld , Rheinbahn from Mannheim 9.430 Schwetzingen 10.500 Oftersheim (then Hp, today Bft) Rheinbahn to Karlsruhe A 6 SFS Mannheim – Stuttgart B 36 Hockenheim Valley House 15.750 Valley house Lußhof until 1938 Route 1865–1938 and 1938–1945 State border Baden-Württemberg / Rhineland-Palatinate   Speyer ship bridge or Speyer Rhine bridge to the port / technology museum to the former airfield (dismantled) 23.500 Speyer Rheinbahnhof until 1938 Industrial track Speyer Rheinbahnhof from 1938 Route from Schifferstadt 26.900 Speyer Hbf Threading from 1938 (dismantled) Route to Wörth Swell:

The Heidelberg – Speyer line was a single-track branch line opened in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in 1873 .

history

The first section was opened on July 17, 1873, from Heidelberg past Eppelheim and Plankstadt to Schwetzingen . From Schwetzingen it was continued on December 10, 1873 over the ship bridge that had existed since 1865 to Speyer . The Heidelberg-Speyer-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was the building contractor and until the nationalization on July 1, 1894, the owner of the line, the operator was the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways . The basis for the construction was a Baden law of February 2, 1870, a Baden concession of April 3, 1872 and a Bavarian-Baden State Treaty of November 23, 1871.

The ship bridge was replaced on January 20, 1938 by a permanent bridge structure. At the same time the Lußhof train station was abandoned.

On March 23, 1945, the bridge was blown up by retreating German armed forces . The railway line was bombed on October 13, 1941, but not so badly damaged that rail traffic was impossible. After the end of the war, the Schwetzingen – Speyer section was closed due to the lack of a bridge over the Rhine. Only the short spur track to the industrial area Hockenheim - Talhaus remained for the transport of goods received.

The Pfaffengrund halt was opened on January 23, 1950.

The tram Heidelberg-Schwetzingen ran passenger friendly right through the villages and established a strong competition for the railway track. Due to the weak demand still remaining part was railway in passenger and freight traffic on 1 February 1967. decommissioned . From 1968 the line was dismantled.

The line was reactivated in sections as a provisional construction site access to the high-speed line Mannheim – Stuttgart , which was built in the 1980s .

Todays situation

As a replacement, the 7007 rail bus ran between Heidelberg and Speyer , which, unlike the railroad, also served Ketsch , Hockenheim , Reilingen and Altlußheim , but no longer Eppelheim and Plankstadt. The line, now number 717, is now operated by the Rhein-Neckar (BRN) bus service . In addition, lines 3 and 4 of the RheinNeckar S-Bahn run from Speyer via Ludwigshafen and Mannheim to Heidelberg, which means that there is still a rail connection between Heidelberg and Speyer, which, however, follows a different route than the original railway line.

A remnant section of the railway line will continue to be used in Speyer as a siding for the Rhine port .

literature

• Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 38-44 .

Web links

Commons : Heidelberg – Speyer railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

verkehrsrelktionen.de:

• Section Heidelberg – Schwetzingen
• Schwetzingen – Speyer section

further evidence:

• Excerpt from the course book from 1914
• Excerpt from the course book from 1944
• Historical photos on the website of the Schwetzinger Zeitung / Hockenheimer daily newspaper

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Inventory 421 K 1: Railway Directorate / Federal Railway Directorate Karlsruhe: Plan roles - structural view. State Archive Baden-Württemberg, Department General State Archive Karlsruhe, accessed on September 1, 2011 . 
2. ↑ For the designation of the station see: Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (Hg.): Official Journal of the Reichsbahndirektion Mainz of January 8, 1938, No. 2. Announcement No. 26, p. 14, and excerpt from the timetable from 1944 (web links).
3. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
4. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany 2009/2010 . 7th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89494-139-0 .
5. ↑ http://www.s197410804.online.de/Zeiten/1933.htm
6. ↑ Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion Mainz of January 8, 1938, No. 2. Announcement No. 26, p. 14.
7. ↑ When the railroad was still driving over the ship bridge. In: Schwetzinger Zeitung / morgenweb.de. January 3, 2013, accessed March 19, 2017 . 
8. ↑ The Imperial Cathedral of Speyer - History - Timeline ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) 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. 
9. ↑ http://www.s197410804.online.de/Zeiten/1945.htm
10. ↑ http://www.s197410804.online.de/Zeiten/1965.htm
11. ^ Karl Gerhard Baur: The new Mannheim - Stuttgart line in the Rhine Valley . In: Railway courier . No. 5, 1986, ISSN  0170-5288 , pp. 6-14
12. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 10th edition. Schweers + Wall, Cologne 2017, ISBN 3-921679-13-3 . ; 6221: 187 321 in use at WLC . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 3/2018, p. 120.