Homburg – Neunkirchen railway line

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Homburg – Neunkirchen
Route of the Homburg – Neunkirchen railway line
Route number (DB) : 3282 Homburg – Neunkirchen
3275 Bexbach – Bexbach power station
3286 Neunkirchen – Bexbach power station
Course book section (DB) : 683
Route length: 13.6 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system : 15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Maximum slope : 6.7 
Minimum radius : 350 m
Top speed: 120 km / h
State: Saarland
Route - straight ahead
from Mannheim
Station, station
0.0 Homburg (Saar) central station 243  m
BSicon eBS2 + l.svgBSicon BS2 + r.svg
Route 1849–1881
BSicon exSTR.svgBSicon hSTRae.svg
B 423
BSicon exSTR.svgBSicon ABZgl.svg
0.8 to Zweibrücken (today works connection)
BSicon exSTR.svgBSicon ABZgl.svg
1.0 to Saarbrücken
BSicon exSTR.svgBSicon eABZgl.svg
former connection to the customs station Homburg (Saar) West
BSicon exSTR.svgBSicon eABZg + l.svg
former connection to Zweibrücken (1881–1904)
BSicon eBS2l.svgBSicon BS2r.svg
   
Former connection from the customs station Homburg (Saar) West
   
4.1 Old Town (Saar) 249  m
Road bridge
A 6
   
Feilbach
Station, station
7.5 Bexbach 252  m
   
to the Bexbach power plant
   
former state border Bavaria-Prussia
Blockstelle, Awanst, Anst etc.
9.5 Neunkirchen (Saar) -Bauknecht ( Anst ) 247  m
Stop, stop
9.7 Neunkirchen (Saar) - Wellesweiler
   
Blew
   
Blew
Station without passenger traffic
Bexbach power plant
   
13.5 Nahe Valley Railway from Bingen
Station, station
13.6 Neunkirchen (Saar) Hbf ( Keilbahnhof ) 257  m
   
Fischbachtalbahn to Schiffweiler
   
Neunkirchen – Neunkirchen-Heinitz railway line
Route - straight ahead
Nahe Valley Railway to Saarbrücken

The Homburg – Neunkirchen railway line is now a double-track , electrified main railway line in Saarland . It represents a cross connection between the Mannheim – Saarbrücken railway and the Nahe Valley Railway .

The Homburg – Bexbach section was built as part of the Palatinate Ludwig Railway and opened in 1849; the extension to Neunkirchen followed a year later. From 1852 it was part of the main line running from Ludwigshafen to Saarbrücken. Since in the following decades until 1904 a shorter connection between Homburg and Saarbrücken went into operation, which became part of the Mannheim – Saarbrücken line that emerged from the Ludwigsbahn, it lost its importance. Nevertheless, the connection remained one of the most important freight transport routes in Germany, so that it has now been electrified.

history

Emergence

The Homburg – Bexbach section was created as part of the Palatinate Ludwig Railway, which began in Ludwigshafen and was primarily intended to serve as a means of transport for coal from the Bexbach district to the “Rheinschanze” port and trading center, which the Bavarian government established across from Mannheim. In the western section, several different variants were initially worked out. In the beginning, consideration was given to setting the Bavarian St. Ingbert as the western end point, but this was dropped under pressure from Prussia, as the latter wanted to see the long-term connection to Saarbrücken over its own territory as long as possible. Therefore, Bexbach was targeted, from where the extension via Neunkirchen and the Sulzbachtal was to take place later.

On January 10, 1838, a provisional company was formed to build this route from the Rheinschanze (renamed Ludwigshafen from 1865) to Bexbach. On March 30 of the same year, the final establishment as the "Bavarian Railway Company of the Pfalz-Rheinschanz-Bexbacher Bahn" took place . In May 1844 the company was finally renamed the Palatinate Ludwig Railway Company .

Opening train in Bexbach in 1849

The line was built from the end of March 1845 under the direction of Paul Camille von Denis , who was one of Germany's outstanding railway pioneers at the time. The route was named after the Bavarian King Ludwig I. The section from Homburg to Bexbach, located on Bavarian territory, was opened on June 6, 1849. At this point in time, traffic to the east as far as Frankenstein was possible a year earlier. This just opened section of the route between Bexbach and Homburg served the democratic militants to escape from the advancing Prussian troops. The completion of the Neustadt – Frankenstein section was delayed on the one hand due to the land acquisition required for the construction of the railway and on the other hand due to the difficult topography of the Palatinate Forest . The permanent opening finally took place on August 25, 1849.

The Prussian section of the route via Wellesweiler to Neunkirchen was put into operation on October 20, 1850, together with the mine connection railway to Heinitz .

Further development

On November 16, 1852, continuous traffic to Saarbrücken was possible. As early as July 1856, the entire length between Ludwigshafen and Neunkirchen was double-tracked. In the following period, another train station was put into operation between Homburg and Bexbach with the old town .

With the opening of the St. Ingbert – Saarbrücken railway in 1879, there was a further railway connection on the Homburg – Saarbrücken route in combination with the Homburg – Zweibrücken railway that opened in 1857 and the Würzbach Railway, which was opened in full in 1867 . This was shorter than the previous route via Bexbach and Neunkirchen and was henceforth preferred for trains from Saarbrücken. Coal trains from the direction of Bexbach, which drove east via the Zweibrücken − Landau main line, opened in 1875 , had to make heads at Homburg station. To solve this problem, the previous turn of the track west of Homburg in the direction of Bexbach was abandoned and laid out in such a way that a connecting curve to the route to Zweibrücken could be created. In 1878 the drafting of the project was completed, on February 1, 1879 the approval of the Bavarian government followed. On April 30 of the same year, the Palatinate Railways gave the go-ahead for this. The renovation work began in the spring of 1880. The opening took place on October 15, 1881.

Homburg station in 1902

From 1904 there was a direct connection from Homburg to Saarbrücken via Limbach and Kirkel , making the route from Homburg to Neunkirchen even less important. Since this new route crossed the connecting curve built in 1881 towards Zweibrücken, the latter had to be abandoned. On January 1, 1909, the Homburg – Bexbach section, together with the other railway lines within the Palatinate, became the property of the Bavarian State Railways .

Saar area and Saarland

After the German Empire lost the First World War , the line was assigned to the newly created Saar area with effect from March 10, 1920 , which, on the initiative of the victorious powers, was under the control of the League of Nations for a period of 15 years and during this time was a French customs area . Consequently, the Saareisenbahn was responsible for him , which had emerged from the former Prussian Railway Directorate Saarbrücken. In this context, the Homburg (Saar) West customs station, responsible for freight traffic, was built west of Homburg in the direction of Saarbrücken , to which a connecting curve to the line to Neunkirchen was created. The route was re-kilometered in the following period. The zero point was originally on the Prussian-Bavarian border between Bexbach and Neunkirchen. This has meanwhile been moved to Homburg; the kilometrage follows there in the opposite direction to Neunkirchen.

With the incorporation of the Saar area into the German Reich in 1935, the line went to the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) . During the Second World War, from 1944 onwards, the main railway stations in Homburg and Neunkirchen were often the targets of aerial bombings. For example, the Homburg reception building was destroyed during the fighting.

In 1947 the line came back to the territory now known as " Saarland " and accordingly received its own administration, which was initially called the Saarland Railways (SEB) and later the Saarland Railways - EdS for short . With the incorporation of the Saarland into the Federal Republic of Germany , the line became the property of the Deutsche Bundesbahn . From May 19, 1966, it was completely electrically accessible.

As part of the rail reform , the line became the property of Deutsche Bahn on January 1, 1994 . At the beginning of 2005, the Saarländischer Verkehrsverbund (SaarVV) was founded and the railway line has been part of it ever since.

Route

The route goes around the city of Homburg in a wide arc and leaves the Mannheim – Saarbrücken railway line on the left. The tracks to Neukirchen lead in a north-westerly direction. After the abandoned Altstadt (Saar) station , it crosses under the federal motorway 6 and then bridges the Feilbach . It then runs through Bexbach and Wellesweiler . To the west of Wellesweiler, it bridges the Blies twice and finally reaches Neunkirchen.

traffic

passenger traffic

Historical

As early as 1853, continuous passenger trains on the Mainz – Paris route ran along the route. In 1854 three pairs of trains were already running between the two cities; a trip between Mainz and Paris took around 17 hours. three of them daily. With the completion of the Rhine-Nahe Railway , which was opened in stages, by the railway company of the same name in 1860, this connection was discontinued; consequently, a change from and to Paris had to be made in Neunkirchen. From then on, the Ludwigsbahn trains ended in Neunkirchen. In 1865 three pairs of trains ran from Worms to Neunkirchen and one on the Homburg – Neunkirchen route. There was also a train from Kaiserslautern to Neunkirchen.

There was no question of sustainable, supraregional traffic in the east-west direction over the Homburg – Neunkirchen route in the following decades, as the express trains on the Ludwigshafen – Neunkirchen route stopped at almost all subway stations. Local trains ran between Homburg and Ludwigshafen in 1884 on the Neunkirchen – Worms route.

A few years after the opening of the Glantalbahn , which began in Homburg , occasional direct trains were introduced on the Kusel – Neunkirchen route, primarily serving the workers of the local coal mines. As early as 1920, some of these operated as far as the Heinitz mine . Due to the separation of the Saar area, the remaining passenger trains ran exclusively between Neunkirchen and Homburg; through trains over the old Ludwigsbahn in the direction of Kaiserslautern no longer existed. From the 1930s, a long-distance train on the Berlin – Neunkirchen route ran over the route. The trains of the relation Kusel – Heunkirchen – Heinitz lasted until the 1950s.

Current

The route can be found in the timetable of the Deutsche Bahn AG under the different KBS 683. The regional trains from Homburg (Saar) Hbf to Illingen (Saar) on the Primstalbahn run every hour. In addition, there are regional trains on the route Homburg (Saar) Hbf - Neunkirchen (Saar) Hbf, so that there is a half-hourly service on the railway line.

Freight transport

Between Homburg and Neunkirchen and the rest of the Ludwigsbahn, after its completion, mainly coal from the Saar region was transported to the Rhine in freight traffic. Both Bexbach and Neunkirchen had numerous freight tracks due to the local mining industry . A direct connection to the Bexbacher coal mines was initially not available in view of the planned connection to Neunkirchen and Saarbrücken. However, the royal coal mine in Bexbach was later given a siding, which now serves the Bexbach power station . At the beginning of the 20th century, freight trains ran the Kaiserslautern – Neunkirchen – Homburg – Zweibrücken and Homburg – Neunkirchen routes.

To this day, freight trains run from and to Neunkirchen via Homburg to Mannheim .

Vehicle use

The Kaiserslautern workshop was primarily responsible for vehicle use . In 1900 a branch was added in Homburg , which was converted into an independent plant nine years later. Later these were officially called the depot. There was also one in Neunkirchen .

In the first few years after the line was opened, locomotives from the machine works Emil Keßler or Maffei, which were given the numbers 1 to 8 and 21 and 9 to 20 , ran alternatively . These had names like Haardt , Vogesus , Denis and Alwens . In the 1850s, Crampton locomotives with numbers 26 to 63 were added. Series 425 and 426 electric multiple units are currently used in passenger transport. At the beginning of the 20th century, locomotives of the P 1 , P 2.I , P 2.II , G 2.I and G 2.II series were used.

The series 139, 140 , 152 , 155 , 185, 186 and 189 have been used in freight transport since electrification . Class 425 and 426 railcars are used for passenger transport .

Operating points

Homburg (Saar) central station

Homburg (Saar) central station

Until 1923 the station was called Homburg (Pfalz) . It was created in 1848 as the provisional endpoint of the western section of the Ludwig Railway, which in an easterly direction ended initially in Kaiserslautern and a little later in Frankenstein. When the Homburg – Zweibrücken railway was opened in 1857, it became the fourth railway junction within the Palatinate, after Schifferstadt (1847), Ludwigshafen (1853) and Neustadt an der Haardt (1855) .

On January 1, 1904, the Homburg – Rohrbach line followed, which, like the Glantalbahn , which was completed four months later , had been built for strategic reasons . The route to Zweibrücken and the Glantalbahn have now been shut down, so that today, in addition to the route from Mannheim to Saarbrücken, only the one to Neunkirchen still exists.

Old Town (Saar)

The station was located northeast of the old town and was only built a few decades after the line opened. From the 1920s it received the addition "Saar". As early as 1904, the Limbach-Altstadt station existed on the new route from Homburg to Rohrbach (today's name: Limbach (b Homburg, Saar) ), which was located much closer to the settlement area of ​​Altstadt, making the previous station on the route to Neunkirchen Lost meaning. It was therefore given up after the Second World War.

Bexbach

Bexbach station

The station building of the Bexbach station is the oldest still preserved within the Saarland.

Neunkirchen (Saar) -Wellesweiler

The stopping point is located in the northeast of the settlement area of ​​the Wellesweiler district of Neunkirchen, not far from the boundary with Bexbach.

Neunkirchen (Saar) central station

The train station is located on the northern outskirts of Neunkirchen (Saar) . With the opening of the Nahe Valley Railway on its full length in 1860, it became a wedge station. It is also the end point of the Fischbach Valley Railway . The Neunkirchen – Neunkirchen-Heinitz railway line , which mainly served the Dechen and Heinitz mines, has now been closed .

Remarks

  1. a b The Bexbach power station is also known as the Hilswiesen connection . The coal for the Bexbach power plant is unloaded here and transported to the power plant via a 2200-meter-long underground conveyor belt. The office is therefore not located on the power plant site.

literature

  • Albert Mühl: The Pfalzbahn. History, operation and vehicles of the Palatinate Railways . Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1982. ISBN 3-8062-0301-6
  • Hansjürgen Wenzel: The southwest German railways in the French zones (SWDE) . Eisenbahn-Kurier e. V., Wuppertal 1976.
  • Andreas M. Räntzsch: The railway in the Palatinate. Documentation of their creation and development . Verlag Wolfgang Bleiweis, Aalen 1997. ISBN 3-928786-61-X
  • Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways (= publications of the Palatinate Society for the Advancement of Science. Volume 53). New edition. pro MESSAGE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2005, ISBN 3-934845-26-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 165 .
  2. historical Representation of the Saarpfalz district
  3. Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 85 ff .
  4. Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 96 .
  5. http://www.eisenbahntunnel-portal.de/lb/inhalt/tunnelportale/3270.html
  6. Mühl, p. 16.
  7. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - Description - After completion and First World War . Retrieved November 26, 2013 .
  8. Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 231 .
  9. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - Description - The development of the Homburg (Saar) railway node . Retrieved November 24, 2014 .
  10. ^ Walter Weber: The Bliestalbahn. From start to finish . 2000, p. 38 .
  11. Railway Atlas Germany . Schweers + Wall, Eupen 2002, ISBN 3-89494-133-2 , pp. 83 .
  12. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - Description - The Second World War . Retrieved November 25, 2014 .
  13. Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 165 .
  14. Andreas Räntzsch: The railway in the Palatinate. Documentation of their creation and development . 1997, p. 6 .
  15. Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 141 .
  16. ^ Albert Mühl: The Pfalzbahn . 1982, p. 11 f .
  17. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - operation - operational sequence and traffic: regional traffic development . Retrieved April 24, 2014 .
  18. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - operation - operational sequence and traffic: long-distance traffic development . Retrieved April 18, 2014 .
  19. Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 190 .
  20. Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 39 .
  21. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - operation - operational sequence and traffic: regional traffic development . Retrieved November 26, 2014 .
  22. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - operation - operational sequence and traffic: long-distance traffic development . Retrieved April 18, 2014 .
  23. Hans-Joachim Emich, Rolf Becker: The railways to Glan and Lauter . 1996, p. 153 .
  24. kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - Description - After completion and First World War . Retrieved November 16, 2014 .
  25. saarpfalz-kreis.de: The "Ludwigsbahn" to Bexbach . (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 7, 2015 ; accessed on November 21, 2014 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.saarpfalz-kreis.de
  26. Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 266 .
  27. ^ Albert Mühl: The Pfalzbahn . 1982, p. 142 .
  28. a b kbs-670.de: The course book route 670 - operation - use of locomotives: freight traffic 2014 . Retrieved November 16, 2014 .
  29. ^ Albert Mühl: The Pfalzbahn . 1982, p. 154 .
  30. ^ Albert Mühl: The Pfalzbahn . 1982, p. 142 f .