Nördlingen – Pleinfeld railway line

Noerdlingen – Pleinfeld
Route number (DB) :	5330
Course book section (DB) :	912
Route length:	56.164 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	Gunzenhausen – Pleinfeld: CE
Minimum radius :	400 m
Legend from Augsburg Hbf 0.130 Nordlingen 430 m to Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt to Dombühl to Wemding 7.510 Dürrenzimmern (formerly Bf) 430 m Establishment of the Heuberg military airfield (1934–48 / 49) 13.010 Oettingen 418 m 20.670 Auhausen (formerly Bf) 421 m 24.800 Wassertrüdingen 428 m Initially Schwarzkopf 28.540 Unterschwaningen (formerly Bf) 31.550 Cronheim (formerly Bf) 456 m from Treuchtlingen 39.467 Gunzenhausen 421 m to Würzburg Hbf Connection to Loos International 47.268 Langlau (formerly Bf) 47.500 Awanst Depot of the German Armed Forces (until December 2007) 52.245 Ramsberg from Treuchtlingen 56.294 Pleinfeld 394 m to Nürnberg Hbf Swell:

The Nördlingen – Pleinfeld line is a 56.164 kilometer branch line in Bavaria . It runs in the south of Middle Franconia and in the north of Swabia from Nördlingen via Gunzenhausen to Pleinfeld . The railway line opens up the southern Franconian lake district with the Brombachsee and Altmühlsee , the Hesselberg region and parts of the Nördlinger Ries . The section from Pleinfeld to Gunzenhausen is referred to as the Seenland Railway after the Franconian Lake District , the section from Gunzenhausen to Nördlingen as the Seenland Express . The Nördlingen-Gunzenhausen section together with the Nördlingen-Dombühl railway line also forms the Hesselbergbahn .

The 16.8 kilometer long section of the Seenland Railway is operated for passenger traffic as a regional railway line of the Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg (VGN). On the 39.5 kilometer section from Nördlingen to Gunzenhausen, on the other hand, there is only museum railway operation with trains and goods traffic without passenger traffic. For the duration of the State Garden Show Wassertrüdingen 2019 there was regular travel to Wassertrüdingen . There are plans to permanently reactivate passenger traffic along the entire route.

history

Cronheim station (2006)

Langlau stop (2007)

The route was opened on December 1, 1849 as part of the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn , after the planned route via Gunzenhausen - Spalt - Georgensgmünd was not implemented due to objections from the hop farmers from Spalt, who were concerned about the quality of their products. With the construction of the Donauwörth – Treuchtlingen line (opened in 1906), the Pleinfeld – Gunzenhausen section and the entire Pleinfeld – Nördlingen – Donauwörth line lost importance. The traffic was reduced more and more.

On September 29, 1985, the German Federal Railroad stopped passenger traffic on the section from Nördlingen to Gunzenhausen. Until August 1, 1995 (Wassertrüdingen – Gunzenhausen) and June 1, 1997 (Nördlingen – Wassertrüdingen), the Deutsche Bahn (DB) still maintained freight traffic there. Only the passenger traffic on the Seenland Railway between Pleinfeld and Gunzenhausen was maintained.

In 1999 BayernBahn Betriebsgesellschaft , a subsidiary of the Bavarian Railway Museum (BEM), leased the line from DB on a long-term basis. On June 8, 2003, the BEM was able to start operating the museum along the entire route. Since the line can be operated economically, BayernBahn bought it from DB Netz at the end of 2017.

On the occasion of the Landesgartenschau Wassertrüdingen, a special timetable was drawn up for the weekends between May 25, 2019 and the beginning of September 2019 in cooperation with the city of Wassertrüdingen, DB Regio Bayern, BayernBahn and the Bavarian Railway Company (BEG). During this period, there were two train pairs in each direction on all weekends and public holidays in the Wassertrüdingen – Gunzenhausen section as a regional express from Nürnberg Hbf to Wassertrüdingen, arriving in the morning and returning in the afternoon. The Bayern Bahn offered on Sundays and public holidays between Nördlingen and Wassertruedingen several pairs of trains for visitors to the state garden show.

In May 2019, the Donau-Ries district parliamentary groups of the SPD, Greens and Frauenliste / ödp / Free Voters started a joint online petition on the OpenPetition online portal with the demand that the route be reactivated.

traffic

passenger traffic

Gunzenhausen-Pleinfeld section

Class 642 on the route to Pleinfeld

The Gunzenhausen – Pleinfeld section (Seenland Railway) has been integrated into the Greater Nuremberg Transport Association (VGN) as line R62 since September 27, 1992 . Train traffic today is mainly handled by class 642 multiple units , and sometimes the 648 series can also be found. It is operated every hour from Monday to Friday and every two hours on weekends. According to the concept of the Bavarian state government for more electromobility on the rails in Bavaria, Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann has proposed the route of the Seenland Railway from a Bavarian perspective as a pilot project for operation with overhead line / battery hybrid vehicles. The wish of the municipality of Gunzenhausen to build another stop in Frickenfelden as part of the upgrading of the entire route was rejected.

Section Nördlingen-Gunzenhausen

On the Nördlingen – Gunzenhausen section, the Bavarian Railway Museum only runs passenger trains with steam locomotives or diesel trains on a few days a year . However, the aim is to reactivate regular passenger traffic: The Pro Bahn passenger association argued that there was a considerable passenger potential in the route, and suggested a two-hour regional express connection from Nördlingen via Gunzenhausen and Pleinfeld to Nuremberg. Before the shutdown of passenger traffic, there was already a daily connection between Nördlingen and Nuremberg.

In May 2009 the districts bordering the Hesselbergbahn commissioned a feasibility study for resuming passenger traffic. However, their result was negative in August 2012, as the expected number of passengers is insufficient for economic operation. For the section from Dinkelsbühl via Feuchtwangen to Dombühl on the Nördlingen-Dombühl route, which was also considered in the study, however, it was found that operation with more than 1000 expected passengers is worthwhile. Thus, for the time being, no closed Hesselbergbahn will be created , as originally intended. On the Oettingen – Nördlingen section, only a potential of 450 passengers per working day was forecast in 2013.

At the end of July 2013, Jürgen Ludwig (CSU), the district administrator of the district of Ansbach, wrote to the Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs, Martin Zeil , calling for a trial run based on the model of the Regentalbahn route from Gotteszell to Viechtach . It was also offered, analogous to the missing two percent of the passenger volume (980 instead of 1000), to assume two percent of the order costs through the region. The district administrator was supported by the mayor of Wassertrüdingen, Günther Babel (CSU). Prime Minister Horst Seehofer announced his support for this project at an election campaign event in Gunzenhausen. A private infrastructure operator is to be found to rehabilitate the infrastructure for a company. Here the current leaseholder, BayernBahn , expressed its interest.

In June 2014, the Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann announced that the railway line between Gunzenhausen and Wassertrüdingen would be reactivated. Around two million euros are to be made available for upgrading the route. The Bavarian Railway Company then changed the tender for the Nuremberg diesel network on June 25, 2014 ; on December 10, 2014, it temporarily deleted the route from this tender, only to resume it shortly afterwards on December 19, 2014 as a route that might be serviced. In January 2015, a passenger forecast by the Nuremberg metropolitan area confirmed that the Wassertrüdingen - Gunzenhausen section was worth reactivating. The section adjoining it to the south to Nördlingen had no chance of resuming passenger rail transport because it did not reach the threshold of 1,000 passengers in 2015. Nevertheless, the route was not included in the tender published by the Nuremberg diesel network on June 20, 2015.

In mid-December 2015, the Bavarian Railway Company announced that it wanted to re-assign the transports in the Nuremberg diesel network to DB Regio. The formal award should take place on January 4th, 2016. With the commissioning planned for June 2019, the Pleinfeld – Gunzenhausen line will be integrated. According to the Bavarian Railway Company, the trains commuting between Pleinfeld and Gunzenhausen will be linked to Wassertrüdingen as soon as the districts of Ansbach and Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen can present a viable infrastructure concept. The contract runs until June 2031.

After winning the tender, the vehicles previously used will be redesigned. The political aim is to reactivate the Gunzenhausen – Wassertrüdingen line and to rebuild the crossing station in Langlau. Since Gerhard Wägemann , the district administrator of the district Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen , grants for the reactivation of the section after Wassertrüdingen rejected by the county, was indeed a train service between Gunzenhausen and Wassertruedingen not excluded for the period of the State Garden Show 2019 by Bavaria Rail, a complete renovation of the From today's perspective, however, the BayernBahn is unable to take the route with the expansion of a crossing station in Cronheim due to cost reasons.

The Donau-Ries district association of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen presented its own expert report on September 21, 2018: According to this, the route is upgraded to a maximum speed of 100 km / h and a "flying crossing", i.e. a second track between Auhausen and Wassertrüdingen, two additional stops at Hainsfarth and in the north of Nördlingen possible. The connections in Nördlingen and Pleinfeld, which are provided for in the timetable concept of the Greater Nuremberg Transport Association (VGN), are still achieved. This means that the VGN will include these additional stops in the next passenger forecast.

For the State Garden Show in Wassertrüdingen 2019 from May 25 to September 8, DB trains traveled the route on weekends and public holidays. The timetable of the museum railway was adapted accordingly.

In Unterwurmbach , due to the imminent reactivation, the construction of an additional stop is planned.

The new passenger forecast was published in June 2020. Here, on the Nördlingen - Wassertrüdingen section, more than 1,000 passenger kilometers are reached. This gives the route a chance to be reactivated in its entire length in the future.

Freight transport

Wassertrüdingen train station

Since October 2004, the factory of the Schwarzkopf cosmetics company in Wassertrüdingen has been served by rail again in the direction of Nördlingen. The Bavaria Rail is doing twice a week tank cars with industrial alcohol. Since January 7, 2010, BayernBahn has been running a daily train with finished products to Langenfeld (Rhineland) . This BayernBahn block train travels the section between Wassertrüdingen and Gunzenhausen. In press articles it is reported that this means that 3,000 truck journeys with around 1.25 million road kilometers are shifted to the railways every year. On the non-electrified Nördlingen-Gunzenhausen section, BayernBahn uses diesel locomotives as well as steam locomotives for freight transport.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ↑ Investigation of a possible reactivation of the Hesselbergbahn infrastructure feasibility study . Retrieved May 21, 2020
4. ↑ ^{a b} Website of the Bavarian Railway Museum
5. ^ Routes of the BYB . In: Bahn-Report . tape 36 , no. 212 , March 1, 2018, ISSN  0178-4528 , p. 66 .
6. ↑ Long live the Hesselbergbahn from Nördlingen to Nuremberg . In: OpenPetition . Retrieved May 28, 2019.
7. ↑ More electromobility on the rails. Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, for Sport and Integration, January 23, 2018, accessed on June 2, 2019 . 
8. ^ ^{A b} Gunzenhausen: A train station for Unterwurmbach! . In: Altmühl-Bote . Published online on nordbayern.de on May 15, 2018. Retrieved on May 21, 2020.
9. ↑ Obsolete page of the regional association of Pro Bahn (approx. 1999) ( Memento of March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
10. ^ Ansbach district: Dinkelsbühl fears about the railway line. Archived from the original on February 10, 2013 ; accessed on May 16, 2015 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b} Augsburger Allgemeine: "Signals for the Hesselbergbahn" , October 21, 2013, accessed on October 24, 2013
12. ^ Nordbayern.de: Approval for the Hesselbergbahn from the highest authority , September 8, 2013, accessed on September 12, 2013
13. ↑ Hesselbergbahn. Railway line is reactivated ( memento of December 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: Bayerischer Rundfunk , June 17, 2014. Accessed June 25, 2014.
14. ^ Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union: Germany-Munich: Public Rail Transport / Public Rail Transport 2014 / S 119-211946 , June 25, 2014
15. ^ Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union: Germany-Munich: Public Rail Transport / Public Rail Transport 2014 / S 238-419065 , December 10, 2014
16. ↑ Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union: Germany-Munich: Public Rail Transport / Public Rail Transport 2014 / S 245-432016 , December 19, 2014, accessed on December 25, 2014Q
17. ↑ Does the new forecast mean the end for the Hesselbergbahn? Augsburger Allgemeine , January 30, 2015, accessed February 9, 2015 . 
18. ↑ Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union: Germany-Munich: Public Rail Transport / Public Rail Transport 2015 / S 118-214729 , June 20, 2015, last accessed on June 20, 2015
19. ↑ National Express Rail is to be awarded the contract for S-Bahn traffic in Nuremberg, DB Regio is to remain the operator of the Nuremberg diesel network. Press release. Bavarian Railway Company , December 15, 2015, accessed on December 24, 2015 . 
20. ^ Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft (Ed.): Tenders 2015 Diesel Network Nuremberg . 2015, p. 2, 5 ( PDF file ). PDF file ( Memento from September 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
21. ↑ VERBUNDBERICHT 2015. (PDF) Verkehrsverbund Greater Nuremberg, December 31, 2015, accessed on November 5, 2018 . 
22. ↑ BayernBahn defends itself against allegations of the district. Reactivation of the Hesselbergbahn continues to stutter to itself. In: nordbayern.de. November 18, 2016, accessed December 22, 2016 . 
23. ↑ Bernd Schied: But enough passengers? In: Augsburger Allgemeine . ( augsburger-allgemeine.de [accessed on September 26, 2018]).
24. ↑ Trains go to the garden show in Wassertrüdingen. In: nordbayern.de. February 27, 2019, accessed March 1, 2019 . 
25. ↑ Rhineland-Palatinate online ( Memento from January 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
26. ^ "Freight traffic is rolling again" (Altmühlbote from February 10, 2010)
27. ↑ Augsburger Allgemeine of February 17, 2010