Jossa – Wildflecken railway line

Jossa – Wildflecken
Train crossing in Bad Brückenau (1988)
Route number :	5211
Course book range :	801 (1988)
Route length:	30.7 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Gemünden (Main) 0.0 Jossa after lilacs 2.4 Altengronau south sense sense State border Hesse / Bavaria Zeitlofs Sinntal Bridge 6.7 Zeitlofs 9.2 Trübenbrunn until 1922 9.9 Rupboden 12.3 Eckarts 13.3 Wernarz until 1922 14.4 Brückenau Bad 15.4 Brückenau Sinntalhof until 1922 17.1 Brückenau city 18.0 Brückenau Ost until 1942 20.3 Römershag Sinntalbrücke federal motorway 7 23.5 Oberriedenberg 26.8 Oberbach 30.7 0.0 Wild spots Tank loading ( TrÜbPl ) 2.2 Oberwildflecken transfer station 2.9 Kreuzberg 3.0 Conn. Kreuzberg 4.4 Entrance to Arnsberg 5.2 Arnsberg 5.4 End of track

The Jossa – Wildflecken railway , also known as the Sinntalbahn , was a branch line in Hesse and Bavaria . It branched off the Flieden – Gemünden railway line in Jossa and led in the Sinntal via Altengronau and Bad Brückenau to Wildflecken .

history

Construction and operation

On August 1, 1864, the city administration of Brückenau submitted a petition to the government of Lower Franconia about the construction of a rail link from Brückenau to Jossa in Hesse. But it wasn't until November 18, 1884 that the plans were given a boost with the establishment of a railway committee in Brückenau. The building permit for the line was granted on March 8, 1888, so that construction work could begin on July 1, 1890. The route was opened on October 9, 1891, and the stops on the way were operated from October 15, 1891.

From 1902, an extension of the route to Wildflecken was considered, for which the Bavarian state parliament granted approval on June 17, 1904. Construction work began on October 1, 1907 and was completed with the opening of the line on December 17, 1908. Scheduled traffic was recorded two days later on December 19, 1908. A continuation of the line with connection to the Bad Neustadt – Bischofsheim railway in Bischofsheim an der Rhön was prevented by the First World War and was not pursued afterwards.

On October 8, 1922, the Trübenbrunn, Eckarts, Wernarz, Sinnthalhof and Brückenau Ost stops were closed, of which Brückenau Ost were put back into operation on January 1, 1925 and Eckarts on February 27, 1927. From 1937 onwards, most of the building material was delivered along this route for the construction of the Reichsautobahn Fulda - Würzburg and the Wildflecken military training area . At the end of the Second World War , the line was damaged by air raids and on April 3, 1945, the Jossa railway bridge was blown up and separated from the rest of the railway network. The island traffic was given up on October 27, 1951 with the opening of the rebuilt Jossa Bridge.

Decline

Passenger transport, which has always been subordinate, has shown a sharp decline due to competition with individual transport. After the Deutsche Bundesbahn ceased weekend traffic on the route with the 1982 summer timetable and no longer served the Bad Brückenau-Wildflecken section except for a single pair of trains, it ceased passenger traffic on the route on May 27, 1988.

Freight traffic was much more important. In addition to the timber loading, the main customers were the German Armed Forces with the clothing store south and the core manufacturer Paul & Co. in Oberwildflecken, and military trains also regularly ran the route. With the withdrawal of the American armed forces from Wildflecken in 1994, freight traffic fell noticeably, so that the route was converted to simplified train control in 1996. In 1998, the rail connection to the Bundeswehr was completely renewed, the decision to discontinue it was only made as part of the MORA C program of Deutsche Bahn. On February 4, 2002, the last freight train ran the route. On June 26, 2002, the Bad Brückenau-Wildflecken section had to be closed due to a dam slide at the Römershag stop; the entire route was closed on October 17, 2002.

The DB Netz had already in 2001 the route was taken over by other railway infrastructure company contracts, in which only the German regional railway (DRE) showed interest. After years of negotiations, most of the municipalities along the route finally spoke out in favor of reallocating it to a cycle path , so that there was no longer any support for the resumption of rail traffic and the DRE withdrew.

Until the final shutdown of the entire route by the Federal Railway Authority on March 31, 2005, there were repeated special trips by railway associations. Finally, at the end of 2009, DB Netz submitted the application to dismantle the line. The actual track dismantling finally took place in October 2016.

Failed reactivation efforts

Rhönexpress railway cycle path on the former Sinntalbahn

On March 16, 2012, the establishment of the Sinntalbahn-Kreuzbergbahn interest group was announced in a joint press release by the regional Pro-Bahn , VCD and Federal Nature Conservation Groups . This had the goal of taking over and reactivating the route together with the Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn (RSE). The Passau – Freyung railway line in Lower Bavaria , which was also reactivated in 2011 by the RSE together with the local partner Ilztalbahn GmbH, served as a model . As on this route, rail and bicycle traffic should be combined. Due to these activities, the de-dedication procedure was stopped for the time being. The community of Sinntal , however, was still interested in the deedication in order to be able to convert the route into a cycle path with a connection to Zeitlofs and Jossa. The Sinntal-Kreuzbergbahn development association and DB Netz signed a lease agreement for the route at the end of April 2014. The association wanted to renovate the railway line. A financial requirement of around € 500,000 was expected for this.

On August 11, 2015, the Federal Railway Authority announced the applications for exemption for almost the entire route of the Sinntalbahn in the Federal Gazette. These applications were made by the market town of Zeitlofs, the city of Bad Brückenau, the administrative community Bad Brückenau and the market town of Wildflecken. The beginning of March 2016, however, exemption decisions of the Federal Railway Authority members were not effective because the interest in acquiring the track train operating company perennials deadline lodged objection on 31 March 2016th

According to the "Hessisch-Bayerische Sinntal-Kreuzbergbahn" association, the exemptions are legally binding in 2017 and the tracks have started to be dismantled. The association decided to liquidate it. The Rhönexpress railway cycle path, partly built on the route of the Sinntalbahn, was opened on June 28, 2019. The first section Zeitlof - Bad Brückenau-Römershag was approved as early as December 1, 2018.

literature

• Jürgen Lieb: Steam and diesel on the branch line Jossa - Bad Brückenau - Wildflecken . Self-published, edition 2004.

Web links

Commons : Sinntalbahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Hessian-Bavarian Sinntal-Kreuzbergbahn eV
• Railway friends Sinntalbahn (private)
• To the Sinntalbahn on the aforementioned website
• Sinntalbahn at Forgotten Railways
• Sinntalbahn at spurensuche-eisenbahn.de
• The history of the Sinntalbahn Jossa - Wildflecken (accessed on September 15, 2011)
• Traffic on the Sinntalbahn (course book route 192f) in 1958

Individual evidence

1. ^ Course book route 508: Jossa - Bad Brückenau - Wildflecken (- Oberwildflecken) - Eisenbahnfreunde Sinntalbahn
2. ↑ News from the Spessart railway triangle. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: Hessenschiene No. 45, p. 27. Pro Bahn & Bus, September 2001, p. 68 , archived from the original on July 3, 2008 ; Retrieved April 21, 2010 . 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.  
3. ↑ The train has finally left. In: Saale newspaper. Eisenbahnfreunde Sinntalbahn, November 17, 2005, accessed on April 21, 2010 . 
4. ↑ Jossa - Wildflecken railway line, No. 5211; Dismantling of the disused Jossa - Wildflecken line including all operating points, from km 0.713 to km 31.725. (No longer available online.) Federal Railway Office, April 19, 2010, formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 21, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
5. ↑ Sinntalbahn: The rails are gone . In: mainpost.de . October 19, 2016 ( mainpost.de [accessed December 19, 2016]).
6. ↑ Pro Bahn BG Unterfranken: “Reactivation of the Jossa - Wildflecken - Arnsberg railway line. Associations start a new approach with a promising concept” , press release from March 16, 2012
7. ↑ Zughalt.de: "VCD: Franconian railway must not fail Hessen" , 29 June 2012
8. ↑ Railway line Jossa - Wildflecken - will trains soon be rolling instead of bicycles? Mainpost, March 16, 2012, accessed March 17, 2012 .  
9. ↑ Reactivation of the Jossa - Wildflecken - Arnsberg railway line: Associations start a new approach with a promising concept. Pro Bahn Unterfranken, March 16, 2012, accessed on March 22, 2012 . 
10. ↑ Fuldaer Zeitung: "Will the Sinntal-Bahn become a cycle path?" ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , June 27, 2012 
11. ↑ Hessisch-Bayerische Sinntal-Kreuzbergbahn eV: "Now it's time! -Lease contract for the Sinntalbahn has been signed" , press release of May 8, 2014, accessed on May 11, 2014
12. ↑ BAnz AT 08/11/2015 B5
13. ↑ BAnz AT 08/11/2015 B6
14. ↑ BAnz AT 08/11/2015 B7
15. ↑ BAnz AT 08/11/2015 B8
16. ↑ Mainpost: "Sinntalbahn: Staudenbahn objects" , April 19, 2016