Railway line Linz – Gaisbach-Wartberg

Linz Hbf – Gaisbach-Wartberg

Route number :

221 01

Course book route (ÖBB) :

141

Route length:

26.752 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Power system :

15 kV 16.7 Hz ~

Maximum slope :

16 ‰

Minimum radius :

251 m

Top speed:

90 km / h

Legend

	from Salzburg Hbf
	from Selzthal
	from Peuerbach
0.000	Linz Central Station
	to Linz Vbf Ost (formerly Stw 19) and Linz Vbf West
	A7 Mühlkreis Autobahn
3.323	Linz Franckstrasse	258 m above sea level A.
	Danube
~ 5,000	Windegg
6.274	Steyregg	252 m above sea level A.
8,766	Pulp yarn	251 m above sea level A.
14.052	St. Georgen an der Gusen
	Siding Gusen (1943-1955)
15.119	St. Georgen at the Gusen stop	254 m above sea level A.
18,896	Lungitz	285 m above sea level A.
22,063	Katsdorf	321 m above sea level A.
	of St. Valentin
26.752	Gaisbach - Wartberg	371 m above sea level A.
	to České Budějovice

The Linz – Gaisbach-Wartberg railway is a single-track main line in Austria . It connects the Upper Austrian capital Linz with Gaisbach - Wartberg . The route is part of the long-distance connection from Linz via České Budějovice ( Budweis ) to Prague .

The line was built by the Imperial and Royal Empress Elisabeth Railway (KEB) as a replacement for the Linz – Budweis horse-drawn railway and later operated by the Imperial and Royal State Railways. Today it belongs to the network of the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB).

history

In 1854, the First Railway Company dealt with the introduction of the locomotive operation and carried out the first test drives on the horse-drawn railway between Linz and Gmunden . Although the flat rails could not withstand the loads and numerous broken rails were the result, it was decided from 1855 to switch to locomotive operation between Linz and Gmunden because of the greater economic efficiency. For this purpose, the flat rails were exchanged for high rails. It also became apparent, however, that the route and the inclines between Linz and Budweis were unsuitable for a possible changeover. Taking this experience into account, it was decided to initially continue to operate the Linz – Budweis route as a horse-drawn tram.

Danube Bridge in Linz (2017)

After the Empress Elisabeth Railway (KEB) had built the Austrian Western Railway - opening Vienna (Westbahnhof) - Linz on December 15, 1858 - the company also tried to obtain a concession for a railway line from St. Valentin to Budweis. This was granted to the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn on the condition that Linz also had to be connected to this line with a wing section. St. Valentin was chosen as the starting point because a connection to the Kronprinz-Rudolfs-Bahn (KRB) , which opened on August 15, 1868, was planned.

In accordance with these requirements, the St. Valentin – Summerau – Budweis routes and 1872 Linz (junction Wächterhaus 850) - Gaisbach-Wartberg were built. On December 20, 1873, the branch off keeper's house 850 – Gaisbach-Wartberg was opened. On May 17, 1914, the Linz Hbf-Wächterhaus 850 junction went into operation.

In the timetable from 1901 the timetable no. 97 appeared with the route (Prague - Eger -) Budweis - Kl. Reifling (- Pontafel - Venice - Rome ); direct trains did not run via Linz, but via the Gaisbach-Wartberg-Mauthausen section of the route, which was discontinued in 1956, directly to St. Valentin, Steyr and Kleinreifling and to destination stations further south.

Future of the railway

Two-track expansion Linz-St. Georgen / Gusen Hst

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 there have been plans to generously expand the north-south connection, which has since become increasingly important. Since 2005, the European Commission has been funding a study on the construction of an efficient rail link between Linz and Prague, which includes the Summerau Railway. The medium-term realization seemed assured, as the section is part of priority project No. 22 of the trans-European transport networks . The expansion was originally supposed to start in 2011 and be completed by 2017. However, since the Mühlviertler Schnellstraße (S10) should already be completed in 2015 (it was opened in December 2015), it was feared that large volumes of goods would migrate to the road. In order to prevent this, the state of Upper Austria urged and wanted to achieve through pre-financing that the construction of the railway was also accelerated and completed by 2015. A double-track expansion (with the exception of the Danube bridge in front of Steyregg) should take place from Linz to the St. Georgen an der Gusen stop . In 2014 it became known that the EU stability criteria would not allow the financing to take place in this way, which is why expansion is now being considered for the years from 2020 onwards.

Concrete line extensions are currently not planned, even if the volume of goods traffic on the A7 (the "road counterpart" to the Summerauer Bahn) increased by around 23% in 2018. The train package up to 2030, presented by the Upper Austrian provincial government in 2019, does not include any expansion measures, with the exception of the work to make the train stations and stops more attractive.

Station conversions and migration to the BFZ Linz

Only the station conversions on the route are left of the expansion project. All train stations on the route are currently being converted to an electronic signal box (ESTW) so that the entire route can be remotely controlled by the Linz operations control center (BFZ Linz) by 2023. During the renovation work, all train stations will be made barrier-free. During the station renovations, especially at Kefermarkt station, criticism arose that the newly installed points are only designed for 40 km / h, which means that the travel time for passenger trains does not improve, but sometimes also worsens.

traffic

Local transport

Passenger train near Freistadt (2017)

On the Summerauer Bahn in the Linz - Pregarten section, the S3 of the Upper Austria S-Bahn runs every hour from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. In the rush hour (especially in the morning to Linz and in the afternoon / evening from Linz) the hourly service is reduced to half an hourly service. Between Linz and Summerau there is a full-day, two-hour service, which is compressed into half-hourly intervals in the morning towards Linz and one hourly intervals in the afternoon from Linz. Trains to Summerau continue to the Czech Republic every 2 hours. The trains used on the Summerauer Bahn in S-Bahn traffic are Talent and Cityjet multiple units . CityShuttle push-pull trains handle the cross-border regional transport to Budweis .

Long-distance transport

In addition to the regional express trains between Linz and Budweis, IC trains run between Linz and Prague every four hours. In the Linz-Budweis section, this results in an all-day two-hour service. Long-distance CD coaches (1st and 2nd class) are used for trains going to Prague.

The international night trains EN 50466 (Prague – Zurich) and EN 50467 (Zurich – Prague) have been on the railway line since December 2016. Due to a lack of capacity on the route in the early morning traffic, the morning 50467 between Linz Hbf and Summerau is run as an S-Bahn and stops in the current timetable at all stations of the Summerauer Bahn.

literature

Elmar Oberegger: Brief history of the Budweiser Railway. Č. Budějovice - Gaisbach-Wartberg - Linz / St. Valentine. Sattledt 2007 (publications of the information office for Austrian railway history 13).
Elmar Oberegger: The Austrian Horse Railways. Sattledt 2007 (publications of the information office for Austrian railway history 1).
Elmar Oberegger: The Iron Road to Bohemia. From the horse train to the Summerauer train. In: Coal & Steam. Catalog of the Upper Austrian State Exhibition 2006, Linz 2006, p. 247 ff.
Zdeněk Hudec u. a .: Atlas Drah České republiky 2006-2007. 2nd edition, Pavel Malkus Publishing House, Prague 2006, ISBN 80-87047-00-1 .

Web links

Commons : Summerauer Bahn - collection of images, videos and audio files

Current timetable of the ÖBB.
Summerauer Bahn as part of the Trans-European Transport Network (PDF; 632 kB).
Route 196 České Budějovice - Summerau - Česká republika on www.zelpage.cz.
PRAHA HL.N. - GRAZ HBF. Travel with the Summerauer Bahn (with an overview of all operating points on the route) (parts 21-27) on youtube.com.

Individual evidence

↑ Great success for Upper Austria: expansion of important transport projects secured. Press release, APA, March 26, 2007, OTS0201.
↑ The Summerauerbahn will not be expanded before 2020. Rail modernization should actually have ended in 2015 - at the same time as the S10 was released. Kurier newspaper on its website from 22 July 2014.

[1] Great success for Upper Austria: expansion of important transport projects secured. Press release, APA, March 26, 2007, OTS0201.

[2] The Summerauerbahn will not be expanded before 2020. Rail modernization should actually have ended in 2015 - at the same time as the S10 was released. Kurier newspaper on its website from 22 July 2014.