Railway line Obernburg-Elsenfeld-Heimbuchenthal
| Obernburg-Elsenfeld-Heimbuchenthal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number : | 5226 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | last: 416e | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 16.8 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Obernburg-Elsenfeld-Heimbuchenthal railway was a branch line in Bavaria . It opened up the Elsavatal in the Spessart to the west to the Main valley . It was also known colloquially as the Spessartbahn .
history
The 16.8 km long standard gauge local railway - track was posted on January 10, 1910 by the Bavarian state railway opened. She had her connection in the station Obernburg - Elsenfeld the route Aschaffenburg - Miltenberg in Lower Franconia and led to the end station on the southern edge of the municipality Heimbuchenthal , a typical street village , which stretches north up the valley.
Passenger traffic essentially consisted of employees in the companies in the former district town of Obernburg am Main and in the Main Valley communities. But it was also the means of transport for students from the Elsava Valley to the secondary schools. The railway served tourism as a route to the famous moated castle in Mespelbrunn .
As early as 1914, two additional pairs of trains ran on Sundays in addition to the three pairs of trains customary on local railways; in 1939 there were six of them a day and in the fifties and sixties even up to eleven. The departures in Obernburg-Elsenfeld were geared towards the shift change of the Glanzstoffwerk , the last train usually left Obernburg-Elsenfeld after 11.30 p.m.
Passenger traffic by rail ceased on May 25, 1968. At the same time, freight traffic on the upper part of the route also ended. Up to the Eschau-Mönchberg station, a shunting locomotive served customers who had remained until the end of 1978, after which the line was dismantled.
A cycle path now runs mainly on the former railway line .
Heimbuchenthal train station
The Heimbuchenthal terminus was on the southern edge of Heimbuchenthal between Hauptstraße and Elsava. The station had three tracks: a long track on the loading road facing the town with a head ramp, a main track with a side ramp and a bypass and siding, from which the tracks to the two-tier locomotive shed branched off.
The one-storey station building with platform was still south of the entrance switch on the track between today's streets Buchrain and Am alten Bahnhof.
anecdote
The overhead heater
The "Schrecke Häwwel" was a well-known personality not only in Sommerau , but also in the entire Elsava Valley . His real name was Wilhelm Schreck (1899–1975) and was a chief locomotive heater for the Federal Railroad and came from Sommerau. With his locomotive built in 1911, a post and freight car and three older passenger cars, he drove the Elsava Valley from Obernburg-Elsenfeld to Heimbuchenthal and back. This train, the Elsava Railway, was affectionately known as the "Spessart Express".
The train lived up to its name. Snorting, slowly and expelling huge clouds of smoke, this train crawled groaning into the Spessart. But it was loved, because at that time, when there were hardly any cars and the roads were a real pothole paradise, it was the only way to get from the Spessart to the Main Valley. So it was mainly from gloss fabric workers who drove to the shift and back again, from workers who worked in the Main Valley or in Aschaffenburg , and above all from home tailors who had to deliver their blue bundles with sewn trousers or suits to the clothing factories in Aschaffenburg, utilized.
The horror Häwwel knew all of his passengers personally and made sure that everyone got the train. Whenever he saw a delayed Heimschneider rushing to the “train station” (actually just one stop) on the Wiesenweg to Eschau, he and his train driver, who was his boss, waited until the last one got on. Only then did he give the signal to leave with a loud whistle from his steam whistle.
This steam whistle plays a special role in this story. Häwwel meant it particularly well with the teachers in Sommerau and Eschau. Because when the school council went on a visit to the Elsava Valley, and he did so unannounced and as a surprise for some teachers, the Häwwel pressed his steam whistle on the way to the Geisheckenmühle - there was a so-called bell there - instead of three times. That was the signal for the teachers: the school council is on the train. We had a good view of the street to the train station from the classroom of the old schoolhouse and quickly prepared for the school council's visit. Sometimes the goblet passed us by and the school council went to Eschau or went to Hobbach.
In the evening we went mostly into the economy from Coy, where we also met regularly Häwwel that its here sundowners made. As a thank you for warning the school council, we gave him one or more glasses of apple wine (Äppelwoi). When toasting, the Häwwel said to us teachers: "Gelle - we officials have to stick together".
Dialect - At the ticket office in Schippach
A woman from Rück asks for a ticket at the ticket counter in Schippach: "Amol Äschi - hinerschi un verschi." That means in High German: "Once Eschau - there and back."
literature
- Wolfgang Bleiweis and Ekkehard Martin: Franconian branch lines then and now - Middle and Lower Franconia , Bufe, Egglham 1987, ISBN 3-922138-30-6
Individual evidence
- ^ Rainer Schreck: End in the field . In: railway magazine . No. 2 , 2020, p. 124-129 .
- ↑ A story by Lutz Nüllen, then a teacher in Sommerau. Copy from the booklet “PRESENTLY HEITER” by Lutz Nüllen. Addition by Otto Pfeifer: life data of Wilhelm Schreck.
- ↑ Excerpt from the story "Language Confusion" from the booklet "PREVIOUSLY HEITER" by Lutz Nüllen, then a teacher in Sommerau.