Neckarsteinach – Schönau railway line
| Neckarsteinach – Schönau | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number : | 4112 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | until 1969: 321c | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 5.0 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 12.5 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 240 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 50 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Neckarsteinach – Schönau line (sometimes referred to as the Steinachtalbahn ) was a 5.0 km long single-track branch line opened in 1928 on the edge of the Odenwald , which established a connection from Neckarsteinach on the Neckartalbahn to Schönau as a branch line across the Steinach Valley . Passenger traffic was discontinued in 1969 and it was completely closed in 1981.
course
The line started at Neckarsteinach station on the Neckar Valley Railway and followed it for 1.2 km in a westerly direction. Then it branched off in a northerly direction into the valley of the Steinach. Before Schönau, it passed the state border between Hesse and Baden-Württemberg . The route followed the numerous bends in the river up into the Odenwald at a low construction cost. The Schönau terminus was on the southwestern outskirts.
history
Despite early efforts by the economically flourishing town of Schönau to connect to the railway network , it took several decades, due to the peripheral location in Baden near the Hessian border, until the inauguration of the line in 1928 crowned the efforts.
Prehistory, planning and construction
As part of the planning of the Neckar Valley Railway, which opened in 1879, the city of Schönau requested a railway connection leading from Neckarsteinach via Schönau and through a tunnel towards Neckargemünd as early as 1869 , which was not implemented. A second chance for Schönau in Baden arose in 1874 when a planning variant was available for the construction of the Hessian Odenwaldbahn via the Uttenbachtal and via a tunnel further via the Steinach and Neckar valleys to Neckargemünd.
After this variant was not implemented in favor of the route across the Ittertal , the only option left for the places in the Steinach Valley was to request the construction of a branch line that connected to the Neckar Valley Railway in the Hessian Neckarsteinach. Even after the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, railway construction remained a state affair. However, the Grand Duchy of Hesse showed no interest, as the expenses would only have benefited Baden. In addition, the line would have brought traffic to the Baden State Railways , which also operated the Neckar Valley Railway in Hesse.
Another submission was submitted in 1895 by Hessian and Baden municipalities for a railway line Neckarsteinach – Schönau– Wald-Michelbach , which could achieve economic support for the remaining communities in the Odenwald. Schönau itself experienced an economic boom during this time thanks to cheap labor, the largest employer was the Freudenberg tannery in Weinheim , for which the lack of a rail connection represented a strong competitive disadvantage.
Since the beginning and end of the planned route were in Hesse, the Baden state parliament referred the matter to Darmstadt. Since there was fear of an outflow of traffic from the Wald-Michelbacher area in the direction of Heidelberg and Mannheim instead of in the direction of Worms , this petition came to nothing. Schönau responded to this in 1897 with a new application for the construction of a Neckarsteinach-Schönau railway as a provisional step. However, the Baden state rejected such a route on the grounds that it was not profitable . A petition for a line to Heiligkreuzsteinach in 1900 was also unsuccessful , followed by three further petitions in 1906, 1908 and 1911. When the Neckarsteinach railway system was converted for the double-track expansion of the Neckar Valley Railway in 1912, construction clearance for the required line was already taken into account.
It was thanks to the perseverance of the community of Schönau that the Baden state parliament approved the sixth petition in 1913, despite the expected deficits of 41,000 marks annually, and entered into negotiations with Hesse. Since the cost of maintaining the busy road between Neckarsteinach and Schönau had meanwhile become a burden for the Hessian household, Hesse reacted benevolently. On June 16, 1914, the State Treaty between Baden and Hesse was signed for the construction of the 5 km long route. The regulations stipulated that Baden was solely responsible for the construction costs and that further construction should be planned to Heiligkreuzsteinach.
Although the Baden state parliament provided 250,000 marks for the construction of the line for the financial year 1914/1915, the First World War , which had broken out in the meantime, prevented the start of the work and even after the end of the war the work did not get over the profiling of the site and the Construction of the foundations for the new buildings addition. In order to get the urgently needed rail connection as soon as possible, Freudenberg applied in 1919 to be commissioned to carry out the civil engineering work for the route, partly at his own expense. It was only when the Deutsche Reichsbahn was founded on April 1, 1920 that Baden handed over all open construction projects, including the Neckarsteinach – Schönau line. In 1921 500,000 marks were made available for the construction of the route, but inflation now prevented it from being realized. Open rail projects were not to be completed until 1926 as part of a nationwide labor market policy employment program. Construction began in 1927. The route was officially opened on October 21, 1928, 14 years after the Baden-Hesse State Treaty was signed.
World War II and the 1950s
Since the route was of no strategic importance, it was not a target of Allied air raids during the Second World War . However, from December 20, 1944, it was used to park excess freight wagons , whereupon the local industry protested that the production of war-essential goods was endangered. After the end of the war, Freudenberg applied for the resumption of traffic in September 1945, and the US military authorities immediately granted this application .
On the initiative of the two neighboring towns, the “Neckarsteinach Nord” and “Schönau Süd” stops went into operation in the course of 1954 - this was made possible after passenger transport was switched from steam trains to diesel multiple units. In the economic boom of the 1950s, not only were more and more pairs of passenger trains offered on the route, but also freight traffic to Schönau's industrial operations increased, so that from the mid-1960s a dedicated local freight train was set up daily between the Heidelberg marshalling yard and Schönau. However, since the end of the 1950s there had been continuous rail bus traffic between Schönau and Heidelberg, and from 1959 onwards, poorly utilized trains were gradually replaced by buses.
Decline
Due to the ever-decreasing passenger traffic, the Deutsche Bundesbahn applied for the suspension of passenger transport in September 1967, which the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior soon accepted. However, the necessary renovation of the road between Neckarsteinach and Schönau should still be awaited, so that it should take until September 28, 1969 for the line to be operated for the last time by passenger traffic. Thanks to the Schönau industry, freight traffic could continue to be maintained. After the loss of the largest rail customer, who ceased production in Schönau in 1974, a handover came to Schönau no more than once a week until operations were informally ceased on January 15, 1981 and officially ceased on November 1, 1981.
One last chance for a revival of the route melted away in the years that followed: In 1984 a private initiative of the Stuttgart Tram Museum bought the route and the Schönau station building and planned to set up a tram museum including a museum route. Inadequate funding for the project in the following years, however, led to vehicles purchased on the Schönau railway site falling apart without supervision, so that the vehicle fleet that remained on site in 1996 was dismantled and scrapped .
In January 2000 the route was officially redesigned . Since July 2008 there is a 3.5 km long, continuous cycle path on the former route .
business
The operation on the railway line was always carried out in the simplified branch line service . When the line opened, around seven pairs of trains were offered for passenger transport every working day. After the Second World War, the number rose to 13 pairs by 1953 and also offered continuous train connections to Heidelberg.
The operation in Schönau initially received its own locomotive station , which was assigned to the Heidelberg Bahnbetriebswerk and was closed on June 1, 1942. Since then, the Heidelberg depot has directly hauled the trains on the route. Class 75 locomotives ran from the opening of the line into the 1950s, and the class 70 followed in the late 1930s . Class 74 locomotives were used in the 1950s . From April 14, 1954, a Uerdingen rail bus replaced the steam locomotive in passenger transport . From the 1950s onwards, freight traffic was served by diesel- powered shunting locomotives of the V 60 series .
Relics
Since 2008 there has been a continuous cycle path between the two places on the route of the former railway line. In Schönau the remaining station building , the station restaurant and the Bahnhofstrasse are reminiscent of the era of the railroad.
literature
- Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: Railways between Neckar, Tauber and Main . tape 1 : Historical development and railway construction . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-88255-766-4 .
- Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 23-25 .
- Heinz Schomann: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Railway in Hessen. Part 2. Railway buildings and routes 1839-1939 . Theiss, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 . (Route 115, p. 1034ff.)
- Alfred Volk: The Steinachtal Railway 1928-1980 . 2004 ( neckarsteinach.com ).
