Memmingen – Legau railway line

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Memmingen – Legau (Allgäu)
Route number :	5411
Course book range :	405d (1963-1970) , 404m (1944)
Route length:	16.872 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	22.73  ‰
Minimum radius :	300 m
Legend from Neu-Ulm from Buchloe 0.000 Memmingen ⊙ 597.5  m to Kempten to Leutkirch 4.407 Dickenreishausen ⊙ 610.2  m 5.500 Buxach ⊙ 9.188 Kronburg ⊙ 648.6  m 12.060 Illerbeuren ⊙ 608.8  m 12.400 Iller ⊙ 12.500 Legauer Ache ⊙ 12.800 Legauer Ache ⊙ 13,430 Lautrach (b Memmingen) ⊙ 638.3  m 16.872 Legau (Allgäu) ⊙ 666.2  m

The Memmingen – Legau line , popularly known as Legauer Rutsch or Legauer Bähnle , was a branch line in the Bavarian district of Unterallgäu . The branch line connected Memmingen with Legau .

Prehistory and construction

Towards the end of the 19th century, some communities around Legau pursued the goal of getting a rail connection from Kempten to the south . In the Bavarian State Parliament, on the other hand, a connection to Memmingen was preferred, where Legau was more closely bound under administrative law. Given the choice, the Legau Council finally decided on the politically favored variant, so that on June 30, 1900, the railway construction could be approved in the Local Railway Act.

The construction of the line went largely smoothly, so that it was opened on June 23, 1904 after 16 months. Particularly noteworthy is the arched bridge over the Iller between Illerbeuren and Lautrach, which, due to its innovative construction made of rammed concrete, aroused widespread interest from both the population and the national specialist audience. The bridge was built by the construction company B. Liebold from Holzminden .

route

The railway line began on several butt tracks in Memmingen station and then initially followed parallel to the railway line to Leutkirch . Together with this, the Memmingen roundhouse and the water tower were passed on the right, both of which were at an angle to the Illertalbahn in the direction of Kempten. Finally, the lines separated immediately after the Allgäuer Straße level crossing . At this height there was also an industrial connection that was served via the tracks of the Legauer Bahn.

The route continued in a curve through the Stadtweiherwald before reaching the Dickenreishausen stop . A wooden agency building and loading platform , typical of Bavarian branch lines , had been erected there. Then it went through several forests to the Kronburg stop and then down the Illerbeurer or Greuther Steige to the Illerbeuren train station . There, too, there was initially only an agency building, but a brick annex was added over the years. There were also two loading tracks and a small warehouse.

Beyond Illerbeuren, the Illerbrücke, the largest engineering structure on the branch line, follows . The route then passed the Lautrach stop following the Bachtel Gorge - the typical agency building was also located here - and then ran along the connecting road across Wiesen to Legau. The local railway terminus was with several warehouses and a roundhouse equipped.

business

Iller bridge near Lautrach

Because of the relatively steep gradients on the line, steam locomotives of the type D XI were initially used, later GtL 4/4 operated . In the 1960s, class 64 locomotives and class V 100 diesel locomotives pulled the trains, including a daily mixed passenger and freight train (GmP) with extended travel times. The usual Uerdingen rail buses could also be found on the route.

Before the Second World War , three pairs of trains ran on the route on weekdays and four pairs of trains on Sundays . The Reichsbahn course book from 1941 already lists four pairs of trains on weekdays, with the journey taking around 50 minutes. In 1963 there were five train pairs Monday to Friday, six on Saturdays and four on Sundays. Later, with the increase in private transport, the offer decreased. Initially, the Sunday journeys were replaced by rail buses , later the traffic on the weekdays was thinned out. Freight traffic also fell sharply. In the last year of operation, only 860 freight wagons were transported on the route. In addition, pilgrims went to the pilgrimage church of Maria Steinbach in the 1960s .

Decommissioning and relics

Due to this decline, all operations on the line were stopped on May 28, 1972 with the departure of the last train pulled by a class 260 shunting locomotive . The tracks were removed around 1975.

In the period that followed, the first section between Allgäuer Straße and the Kronburg stop was converted into a railway cycle path or hiking trail. In this area, the route is easily recognizable due to the dams and cuts. The only new feature is the crossing under the Federal Motorway 7, which was only built after it was closed . On the other side of Kronburg, the railway embankments as far as Illerbeuren have since been removed, but were still visible until after 2000. The route can only be guessed at at Greuth. Immediately after the former Illerbeuren stop, a path follows the old route over the still existing railway bridge and through the Bachtel Gorge to the Lautrach stop, where a short remnant of track is still visible. After that, the meanwhile renewed state road to Legau runs along the route, so that from there no more relics can be seen.

The company buildings along the route have all been dismantled. Only in Legau has the now privately owned reception building , the residential extension of the locomotive shed and a warehouse been preserved. The foundation walls of the Kronburg station building can also be identified. A shelter in Dickenreishausen, however, is more recent. In the vicinity of the respective breakpoints - with the exception of Kronburg, where there were no other buildings due to the relatively large distance to the place - the former station restorations can still be made out.

In Memmingen station, too, nothing can be seen of the former route. The stub tracks were removed with the construction of the bus station, which opened in 1981, except for one. Track 11, which remained at that time, was used until the new station was built at the end of the 1990s, but has now also been removed.

future

As part of the prospect of electrification of the railway line to Leutkirch, parts of the Memmingen population demanded that the Tannheimer Bogen be cut off and a more direct new line built, which should have run in parts on the first part of the old Legauer Bahn line. Due to financial concerns and resistance on the part of the then cut off Württemberg municipalities, such plans are currently not being pursued by Deutsche Bahn . However, the IHK Schwaben continues to advocate the construction of this route.

literature

• Siegfried Baum: Swabian Railway. The traffic history of the local railways in Central Swabia . Verlag Wolfgang Zimmer, Eppstein im Taunus 1969.
• Siegfried Baum: Memmingen - Legau (Allgäu) . In: Branch and narrow-gauge railways in Germany . GeraNova, Munich 1997.
• Reinhold Breubeck: The railway in Central Swabia between Iller and Wertach. Memmingen railway junction . Druck und Verlag Hans Obermayer GmbH, Buchloe 1999, ISBN 3-927781-18-5 .
• Armin Franzke: The "Legauer Rutsch" Memmingen - Legau (Allgäu) . In: Route Archive German Railways . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1997, p. (12c) 95-112 .

Iller Bridge

• Bernhard Liebold : Railway bridge in stamped concrete over the Iller near Lautrach (Bavarian Swabia) . In: Deutsche Bauzeitung . tape 38 . Berlin September 1904, urn : nbn: de: kobv: co1-opus-21419 .
  • No. 71, pp. 441–443 and supplement (first part)
  • No. 73, pp. 453–454 (second and last part)
• Ferdinand Beutel: Larger concrete vault bridges with joints and their falsework . In: Süddeutsche Bauzeitung .
  • Volume 13, No. 12, December 1903, pp. 410-412 and supplements I-III (first part)
  • Volume 14, No. 1, January 1904, pp. 2–5 and supplements IV – IX (second and last part)
• Karen Veihelmann: Arched Bridges of the 19th Century. From masonry to stamped concrete . Ed .: University of the Federal Armed Forces, Munich. Munich 2016, 8.4 Railway bridge over the Iller in Lautrach , p. 246 ff . ( baufachinformation.de [accessed on January 24, 2019]).

Web links

• Reiner Schruft: Memmingen - Legau (Allgäu). In: Forgotten paths . Retrieved on September 1, 2011 (state of the route in July 2007). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tree: Swabian Railway. 1969, p. 62.
2. ^ Liebold: Railway bridge in stamped concrete over the Iller near Lautrach. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung. 1904, p. 441 ff.
3. ^ Bag: Larger Concrete Vault Bridges. In: Süddeutsche Bauzeitung. 1903, p. 410 ff.
4. ↑ Markus Hehl: The steam locomotive era in Swabia. Klartext Verlag, Essen, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0613-6 , page 48.
5. ↑ Rudolf Köberle: No plans for a new line in the Tannheim region. (No longer available online.) March 18, 2009, formerly in the original ; Retrieved on November 14, 2009 (press release from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior).  ( 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.    
6. ↑ Peter Stöferle: Update of the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan, statement by the Chamber of Commerce Swabia on the list of proposals made by the Free State of Bavaria for rail. (No longer available online.) January 17, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 14, 2013 .  ( 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.