Primstalbahn

Wemmetsweiler – Nonnweiler
Route number (DB) :	3274 (Wemmetsweiler – Nonnweiler) 3211 (Dillingen – Primsweiler)
Course book section (DB) :	681, 683 645 (until 1992) 267 (until 1970) 265k (1944) 236b (1936)
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	Lebach – Lebach-Jabach: 750 V  =
Power system :	Wemmetsweiler – Illingen: 15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Dual track :	Wemmetsweiler – Illingen
Legend Hochwaldbahn from Trier 45.6 Nonnweiler A 1 Hochwaldbahn to Türkismühle 51.3 Mariahütte factory 1951 - 49.9 Mariahütte (last post) 48.8 Kastel 45.6 Primstal Prims 42.2 Krettnich Solver 38.9 Waders Prims 34.8 Büschfeld former route to Merzig former border Saar area (1920–1935) today's siding 31.6 Limbach (district of Saarlouis) 23.6 Michelbach (Saar) 25.8 Enamel 23.3 Primsweiler Primsweiler Abzw (see below) 19.5 today's start of the route 18.6 Lebach-Jabach 17.4 Lebach 219  m Köllertalbahn from / to Völklingen 14.1 Bubach 12.6 Eppelborn 232  m A 1 8.8 Dirmingen 246  m 6.2 Wustweiler 3.1 Illingen (Saar) 2.3 Gennweiler (since 2004) 0.8 Wemmetsweiler curve confluence (Abzw) Fischbachtalbahn from / to Saarbrücken 0.0 Wemmetsweiler 312  m Fischbachtalbahn to Neunkirchen (and Homburg)
Saar line from Trier 0.0 Dillingen (Saar) to the Dillinger Hütte Route to Saarbrücken Prims Line from Saarbrücken 1.3 Dillingen (Saar) East (Abzw) von Dillingen (Saar) central coking plant 2.7 Dillingen (Saar) Junction Ford W 211 to Dillingen (Saar) blast furnace 3.4 Dillingen (Saar) Junction Ford W 221 various connecting lines 4.1 Dillingen RWE 4.5 Saarwellingen / Nalbach 9.0 Body Primsweiler Abzw (see above) 12.8 Primsweiler today's siding (see above) Swell:

The Primstalbahn is a former railway line that ran between Nonnweiler and Primsweiler in a north-south direction along the upper reaches of the Prims , from there turned to the east and led via Lebach to Neunkirchen (Saar) . The Lebach – Neunkirchen (Saar) section is still served today.

history

The construction took place in three phases. The very first, about eight kilometers long route went from Neunkirchen (Saar) to Wemmetsweiler (and from there further south towards Saarbrücken ). It opened on October 15, 1879.

On May 10, 1890, a Prussian law decided to build the Hermeskeil – Wemmetsweiler line . But only four years later, on April 15, 1894, did construction work in Hermeskeil begin. The simultaneous construction of the entire route soon exhausted the local labor market, so that foreign workers from Italy and the Balkans had to be used. On May 15, 1897, the section from Wemmetsweiler to Lebach was put into operation. In the same year, on December 10th, traffic was opened for the remaining 35.6 kilometers to Nonnweiler. From the beginning, the route served to bring workers from the sparsely populated northern areas of the Saarland to the Saar region. For the winter timetable 1922/23, the (old) 2nd class was no longer available on all trains. They only led the 3rd and 4th grade.

In Primsweiler a branch line branches off to Dillingen (Saar) to the west, in Lebach to Völklingen and in Wemmetsweiler to the south in the direction of Saarbrücken. Today the trains from Lebach-Jabach run over the 2006 newly built Wemmetsweiler curve and the Fischbachtalbahn to Saarbrücken main station . At the new Illingen railway junction there is a connection to the regional train RB 74 to Homburg (Saar) main station .

The Wadern –Nonnweiler section was closed for passenger traffic on October 3, 1959, and for freight traffic on April 30, 1968. However, hardly a train had run here since 1945. Passenger traffic between Wadern and Lebach and between Dillingen and Wadern ceased on May 30, 1980. After that there was regular freight traffic to Wadern until May 30, 1992. After this point in time, the basalt works in Michelbach and the Meiser company in Limbach were approached via the Dillingen connection. On January 1, 2005, the siding was sold to the Meiser company. The Dillinger Hütte railway company has taken over the operation.

Freight traffic between Primsweiler and Lebach-Jabach ended on December 31, 1987. Mariahütte was served by freight traffic from Nonnweiler until 1999.

The route between Mariahütte and Wadern was dismantled in November 1968. The connecting curve from Mariahütte to Türkismühle was also dismantled . The Federal Motorway 1 now runs along part of the former route between Primstal and Mariahütte . The station buildings of Kastel, Primstal and Krettnich were demolished. The tracks between Wadern and Büschfeld were dismantled after November 30, 1993. At the beginning of 2013, DB Netz applied for the exemption of railway operations for the section from kilometer 31.950 (around Bahnhofstrasse 18, Limbach) to kilometer 49.986 (a little south of the national road 329 near Kastel).

The line between Primsweiler and Schmelz-Limbach was bought in 2005 by the Meiser company in Schmelz and has been operated as a connecting railway ever since. There is freight traffic here on weekdays.

Since October 5, 2014, the Saarbahn has been traveling via the previous terminus Heusweiler Markt via the Köllertalbahn to Lebach. In rush hour, journeys continue via the Primstalbahn to Lebach-Jabach. For this purpose, the Lebach train station and the section to Jabach were electrified with 750 volts DC.

Route description

In actual parlance, the Primstalbahn only ever describes the route between Nonnweiler and Dillingen, which ultimately always runs along the Prims, but in terms of route technology, the railway line leads from Nonnweiler to Neunkirchen (Saar) as described above. There have been various "direct connections" over the decades, for example from Saarbrücken via the left side of the Saar (Fürstenhausen) - Völklingen to Primsweiler and back.

The travel time for the entire connection with a length of 61 kilometers was just over 120 minutes before the Second World War . This can be explained by the long length of stay in the stations and, of course, with the fact that trains on this single-track route had to wait for counter-trains at corresponding stations. The connection Dillingen - Primsweiler had the number 265g in the course book 1944. In its entire history, only second and third class passenger trains and freight trains ran on all parts described here.

In Nonnweiler there was a connection to the Hochwaldbahn to Trier and Türkismühle as well as to the Hunsrückquerbahn to Langenlonsheim (Nahe) .

Today Lebach-Jabach is the end point of the railway line. The connection to Nonnweiler is interrupted by the Federal Motorway 1 and the old embankment only begins again after the town of Kastel. Only from Mariahütte are the tracks.

The section between Wemmetsweiler and Illingen was partially expanded to two tracks in 2004, with one track being electrified .

On November 30, 2009, the Wemmetsweiler ESTW was put into operation on the Wemmetsweiler - Lebach section .

business

Since the 1990s, the party sat DB Regio on the line Saarbrücken - Lebach diesel railcars of the 628 series one. Before the construction of the Wemmetsweiler curve in 2004, these trains had to change direction in the Wemmetsweiler station in order to get to Lebach. With the construction of the Wemmetsweiler curve, the Wemmetsweiler train station was abandoned and a nearby stop at Wemmetsweiler Rathaus was opened. The travel time between Saarbrücken and Lebach has been reduced by five minutes thanks to the new connecting curve. In addition, the Illingen station was redesigned so that the line from Homburg can turn around there and has a convenient connection to the trains to Lebach. Electric multiple units of the 426 and 425 series have been used on this line since 2000 .

RB 72 Lebach - Saarbrücken in Illingen with connection to the RB 74 to Homburg

Since the timetable change in December 2019, the local transport services on the Primstalbahn have been operated by the provider vlexx . The company had previously been awarded a contract for a lot from the E-Netz Saar RB tendering network. On the RB 72 between Lebach and Saarbrücken, Desiro Classic from the manufacturer Siemens are used, which were previously used for the sister company Trilex in Saxony. The originally planned operation with electric multiple units was not possible because the necessary infrastructure expansion was not available on time. The provider vlexx has also taken over the operation of the lines RB 74 Illingen - Homburg and RB 76 Homburg - Wemmetsweiler - Saarbrücken. New Talent 3 electric multiple units were to be used on these lines right from the start . Due to delivery delays by the manufacturer Bombardier , multiple units of the 426 and 425 series are still in use.

Train stations

Submission of the northern Saarland railway stations: S-Bahn stop Frechen-Königsdorf

The station buildings of Illingen, Dirmingen, Eppelborn, Lebach, Primsweiler, Schmelz, Büschfeld and Wadern - as well as the station buildings of the Hochwaldbahn in Bierfeld and Sötern - were all built in 1900 and were very similar to one another. It is certain that the buildings were planned and constructed together. All buildings are unplastered brick shells . The only exception is the building in Primsweiler, which was plastered. All buildings have two storeys, simply cut segmental arched windows and stepped, capital-like recesses at the corners . This type of building was probably modeled on the train stations in Großkönigsdorf in the Rhineland and the Schiefbahn train station, inaugurated in 1877 .

The reception building of the station Wadern was built from 1896 to 1897. The route in Primstal meant that it could not be built in Wadern, but only in the Dagstuhl district , about one kilometer south of Wadern.

The actual reception building of the ensemble, which is now a listed building , is a two-storey, four-axis brick building. In a picture that was probably taken at the beginning of the 20th century , the station can still be seen as a brick shell, today it is plastered like the other buildings.

future

The electrification of the Illingen - Lebach section is planned for 2021 in the "E-Netz Saar RB" tender. A system change point has already been installed in front of the Lebach train station, which enables operation with the usual AC voltage of 15 kilovolts during the planned electrification between Lebach and Illingen on the Primstalbahn. With its two-system vehicles, the Saarbahn can then continue to travel to Lebach-Jabach and the regional trains in the Saarbrücken - Lebach-Jabach section can be converted to normal electric multiple units. In press reports from January 2018 it can be read that one does not want to electrify the railway line from Illingen to Lebach, because the federal government and Deutsche Bahn do not want to co-finance the project and Saarland cannot raise the around 40 million euros on its own. In November 2018 it became known that Saarland is sticking to electrification in the long term.

Since the electrification of the Wemmetsweiler - Lebach-Jabach section is delayed even further, a negotiation procedure for the operation of the RB 72 line between Saarbrücken Hbf and Lebach-Jabach with battery catenary vehicles was opened at the beginning of 2019. The transport contract is to start with the timetable change in December 2021 and run until at least December 2026. The contract should contain a five-year and a further three-year extension option. A charging station is to be provided in Lebach-Jabach. If this is not available, diesel multiple units should be used instead.

As part of the reorganization of the traffic development plan for the Saarland, studies of the economic benefits for the reactivation of local rail transport in several sections of the Primstalbahn were carried out. A variant with a connection between Saarlouis and Schmelz achieved a cost-benefit factor of 3.6. When the line was extended to Wadern, a cost-benefit factor of 1.2 was achieved. A connection from Dillingen via Lebach and Neunkirchen to Homburg was also examined, which achieved a cost-benefit factor of 1.1. The reactivations are therefore eligible for funding if these results can be verified after the concrete planning has been completed.

literature

• Theo Schäfer: Railways in the Hochwald, Nonnweiler-Hermeskeil, -Türkismühle, -Wadern . Ed .: Verein für Heimatkunde Nonnweiler eV Nonnweiler 2002, ISBN 3-9806866-4-7 .

Web links

• Course book overview from 1944

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ^ Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz of December 2, 1922, No. 72. Announcement No. 1380, p. 825.
4. ↑ Eisenbahn-Bundesamt - branch office Frankfurt / Saarbrücken - (Ed.): Public announcement according to § 23 paragraph 2 of the General Railway Act . Exemption from railway operations relating to part of the 3274 Wemmetsweiler – Nonnweiler line. February 5, 2013 (Ref. 551pf / 128 - 2012 # 033/55170 - 12 - 0666 e; BAnz AT 02.15.2013 B7 ).
5. ↑ Freight traffic in Primstal . In: railway magazine . No. 8 , 2019, pp. 29 .
6. ↑ Saarbahn website to expand to Lebach. Archived from the original on November 28, 2014 ; Retrieved December 9, 2017 . 
7. ↑ New signal box in Wemmetsweiler went into operation. In: bahnaktuell.net. November 30, 2009, accessed March 4, 2018 . 
8. ^ Barbara Neu: Saarland railway stations of the 19th century. 1994, accessed on March 4, 2018 (Master's thesis in art history at Saarland University). 
9. ↑ Germany-Saarbrücken: Public Rail Transport / Public Rail Transport 2014 / S 181-319331. In: Official Journal of the European Union. Ministry of Economy, Labor, Energy and Transport, September 20, 2014, accessed March 4, 2018 . 
10. ↑ State government adheres to the goal of electrifying the Illtal Railway between Wemmetsweiler and Lebach-Jabach , in: Saarnews from November 3, 2018, accessed on April 21, 2019
11. ↑ Eurailpress, Saarland: Award of Saarbrücken - Lebach with battery trains, January 2nd, 2019
12. ↑ Pages 18-22 Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labor, Energy and Transport, VEP ÖPNV Saarland, concept for the strategic further development of local public transport in Saarland, state press conference, December 3rd, 2019