Regensburg – Falkenstein railway line
| Regensburg-Falkenstein | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Course of the former Regensburg – Falkenstein railway line
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| Route number : | 5863 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | 872 (1984) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 35.4 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 25 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 200 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Regensburg – Falkenstein line was a branch line in Bavaria . From the capital of the Upper Palatinate it opened up the western part of the Bavarian Forest , the scenic Vorwald.
history
Prehistory and construction
After the main railway lines in Bavaria went into operation in the 19th century and the rural area was then increasingly developed with branch lines, the Falkenstein forest district on the border between Upper Palatinate and Lower Bavaria only received a rail connection shortly before the First World War. This was preceded by countless petitions from 1896 to build a railway line. Interim plans to connect Falkenstein to the narrow-gauge Walhalla Railway operated by the local railway company in Wörth ad Donau had failed.
The Bavarian Local Railway Act of June 26, 1908 had approved the construction of a branch line to Falkenstein. The single-track standard-gauge railway line was to branch off from the Regensburg - Schwandorf railway line in Wutzlhofen, 7.6 km north of Regensburg, and end after 35.4 kilometers in Falkenstein. The rural area was characterized by agriculture and tourism. As the crow flies, the route would have been 25 km. However, as was customary at the time, it was built in an arch over a number of other communities, often at a considerable distance from their town centers, after Falkenstein. This enabled a large granite quarry in Rossbach to be connected as a rail customer. In addition to the affiliated communities, the city of Regensburg also contributed to the raising of over 200,000 marks for the property required for the construction.
In July 1912, construction began in five lots. The route rose by 262 meters to the watershed between the Danube and Regen near Hetzenbach and then fell again by 31 meters to the terminus. With a smallest radius of curvature of 200 m, there are slopes of 25 per thousand in front of the watershed. The largest bridge with a span of 17.4 meters was built near Wenzenbach . A two-room locomotive shed with coal storage and water supply was built in Falkenstein, and the locomotives could refill water at the stop in Wenzenbach.
business
The line went into operation on December 21, 1913, earlier than planned. For pure passenger trains, a maximum speed of 40 km / h applied, from 1934 even 50 km / h, all other trains were allowed to travel at most 30 km / h. Outside of the restricted war traffic, three pairs of trains initially ran on the route, of which the two mixed pairs of trains required around 2½ hours of travel time due to the shunting work. The pair of passenger trains at noon made the journey in under two hours. The trains soon drove beyond Wutzlhofen to Regensburg.
The use of class 133 000ff and 135 000ff railcars from 1932 until the outbreak of war and the use of pure freight trains from 1928 made it possible to significantly reduce travel times. Individual trains now made the route in around 80 minutes. However, until the beginning of the 1950s, this traffic ran on the completely worn track material from 1913, so that in addition to the railcars, only the old Bavarian local railway machines with their low axle pressures could be used on the line. Initially these were the Bavarian series D XI (BR 98.4) and 98.10 , later also the series Pt 2/3 (BR 70.0). Only after the basic renovation of the tracks by the Federal Railroad could modern branch line locomotives such as B. drive the class 64 to Falkenstein. The main traffic then took over the rail buses and the modern diesel locomotives.
Shutdown
With the growth of private transport, the number of passengers on the route fell. The Federal Railroad also promoted this by using bus lines parallel to the route. While there were still six pairs of trains and one pair of freight trains in operation in 1967, in 1975 it was approx. 500 passengers a day only four pairs of trains. In 1983, only two pairs of trains, the so-called concession trains , ran at unfavorable traffic times on working days. On weekends the traffic was completely silent.
The German Federal Railroad stopped the passenger traffic on June 1, 1984 on the entire route. After this date, three special trips with sold out trains were carried out on private initiative. After September 9, 1984, no passenger trains ran on this route. The Federal Railroad stopped freight traffic between Wenzenbach and Falkenstein on June 2, 1985, and then between Wenzenbach and Wutzlhofen on September 28, 1986. These shutdowns took place without the protests that are otherwise used on other railway lines. After the tracks were dismantled, the affected communities rebuilt the route from 1987 to 1992 into a hiking and cycling path known as the Falkenstein Cycle Path .
Route
The route began in the Regensburg - Wutzlhofen station in the northeast of the city. Since the twenties, the trains began in Regensburg main station and used the tracks of the main line Regensburg - Schwandorf to Wutzlhofen. From there, the single-track route of the local railway first ran in a north-easterly direction via Wenzenbach and Bernhardswald to Lambertsneukirchen and then turned east. Via Rossbach-Wald and Gfung , where an altitude of more than 600 meters was exceeded, it reached the end point, the Falkenstein market in the former Roding district office, which then had only 650 inhabitants.
Others
In Lambertsneukirchen there is a private open-air museum with numerous railway artifacts. Among other things, signal masts, rail parts from 1857, carbide lamps, a stone cart from the Falkensteiner Bockerl , renovated station clocks and a signal box are on display.
- Open-air museum with numerous railway artifacts in Lambertsneukirchen at kilometer stone 16.2
View of the open air museum
open air museum
history
Railroad track
St. Andrew's Cross
Milestone of the Royal Bavarian Railway Company
literature
- Josef Dollhofer: Regensburg-Wutzlhofen-Falkenstein . in: Branch and narrow-gauge railways in Germany then and now, GeraNova, Munich.
- Peter Heigl: The Falkensteiner Bockerl . Verlag der Mittelbayerische Zeitung, Regensburg 1993, ISBN 3-927529-89-3
- Udo Kandler: tragic end, Regensburg - Falkenstein . in: Lok-Magazin February 2007, GeraMond Munich.
- Gerald Hoch, Andreas Kuhfahl: Branch lines in the Upper Palatinate Neustadt near Coburg 2000
Web links
- The Falkensteiner Bockerl history of the route with numerous illustrations
Individual evidence
- ↑ Falkenstein cycle path. Tourismusverband Ostbayern eV, accessed on August 18, 2019 .