Strasbourg – Basel railway line
The Strasbourg-Basel railway is a cross-border section of the RFF and connects the French Strasbourg with the Swiss Basel . At its southern end, it became the first railway line on Swiss soil and is now an important link in international long-distance traffic. It also connects cities such as Mulhouse and Colmar to rail traffic.
history
Before building
On October 18, 1837, Nicolas Koechlin from Alsace was granted the concession for a railway line between Strasbourg and Switzerland. Koechlin had already built the railway line between Mulhouse and Thann . The initial project envisaged a route length of around 140 kilometers and the cost was estimated at 16 million francs. Interestingly, the end of the route on Swiss soil was planned, but without informing the government in Bern, and the route between Mulhouse and Basel was not yet definitely determined. In 1838, Koechlin and his brother Edouard founded the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Strasbourg à Bâle . Then construction work could begin.
Openings
On October 25, 1840, the first sections were opened to traffic, it concerned the sections Benfeld - Colmar and Mulhouse - Saint Louis directly on the Swiss border. In 1841 the line from Benfeld to Koenigshoffen , located directly near Strasbourg, was extended. In the same year, the connection between Colmar and Mulhouse was put into operation, so that most of the route that exists today could be used continuously. In 1844 and 1846 the last two sections, Koenigshoffen – Strasbourg and Saint-Louis – Basel, went into operation. Thus, on June 15, 1844, about three years before the first railway line in Switzerland , the Spanish-Brötli Railway , railroad trains first reached Swiss soil. The Königshofen station, which has now been closed, is located on the Strasbourg freight bypass and is no longer directly connected to the Strasbourg-Ville main station .
The Basel terminus
In Basel, the location of the terminus, either inside or outside the city walls, has been debated since the license was submitted in 1840. The reason was, on the one hand, Basel's status as a fortress, on the other hand, the fact that the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Strasbourg à Bâle (StB) was a foreign company. In 1841 the Basel Grand Council decided in favor of a train station within the city walls. Then the location was set to the Schällemätteli and for the introduction of the railway line a piece of the old Basel jumps had to give way to a new city moat. The Compagnie du chemin de fer de Strasbourg à Bâle was forced by contract to build a bridge over the moat with a lockable gate in addition to the line and the train station. The opening was delayed, however, so that a provisional station was built outside the city walls, which was roughly on the site of today's St. Johann station , which opened in 1844 but burned down in 1845. In 1845 the Basel train station went into operation. In 1860, the route from St. Johann to the new shared station with the Schweizerische Centralbahn was run, before this in turn had to give way in 1907 to the new building that exists today.
After the opening
In 1854 the StB was taken over by the Chemin de Fer de l'Est and so the line changed hands. In 1871 the track under the administration of the Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine , France after the peace treaty after the French German War the territory of Alsace-Lorraine to the German Empire had to cede. At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, cross-border traffic on the route was interrupted, and freight traffic resumed at the end of 1915.
After the end of the First World War in 1918, Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France and the route became the property of the Réseau ferroviaire d'Alsace-Lorraine , which became part of the SNCF when it was nationalized in 1938 . TGV operations between Paris and Strasbourg began on June 10, 2007 . Some pairs of trains ran until 2011 on the route to Mulhouse, Basel SBB and Zurich HB .
Function and technology
In contrast to traffic in the rest of France, the double-track line since its opening is used in right-hand traffic due to the German past. The original purpose of the line was to create a continuous connection between Switzerland and the French capital together with the Strasbourg line to Paris . It had not received the desired function, because traffic instead circulated via the Ostbahn-Hauptlinie via Belfort, which was opened to traffic between 1856 and 1858 . Only with the opening of LGV Est did TGV trains run between Paris and Basel on the route, but only until the LGV Rhin-Rhône opened in December 2011. It is equipped with the automatic French signaling system Block automatique lumineux (BAL) .
The line has been electrified throughout since 1957. The French traction current system with 25 kV 50 Hz ~ is also used on the short section in Switzerland from the border to Basel SNCF station . This means that French electric locomotives can drive through to Basel without changing the system and the use of multi-system vehicles is not necessary. A system change will only take place at the transition to Basel SBB train station. Conversely, this means that the Basel St. Johann station cannot be approached by Swiss electric locomotives if they are not also suitable for the French electricity system.
traffic
passenger traffic
Long-distance transport
- International
The route is of great importance in both long-distance and regional traffic. In long-distance traffic there are various TGV routes, for example between Paris and Mulhouse and between Paris and Zurich, but also between Strasbourg and Montpellier-Saint-Roch or Marseille-Saint-Charles . The latter route takes a hairpin bend in Mulhouse to get on the LGV Rhin-Rhône to Besançon Franche-Comté TGV and on via Dijon and Lyon to the LGV Méditerranée . With the opening of the LGV Rhin-Rhône in December 2011, the TGV trains from Switzerland from Mulhouse will also run on this new line to then switch north of Dijon to the LGV Sud-Est , which will reduce the journey time by 30 minutes. The TGV trains stopped at the terminus in Strasbourg and Basel in Colmar and Mulhouse. Since March 2012, a pair of TGV trains has been running daily from Frankfurt am Main to Marseille .
- Internal French traffic
With the commissioning of the LGV Rhin-Rhône in December 2011, the Corail trains previously running on the route were replaced by TGV connections. Most of the trains that start or end in Strasbourg stop at Mulhouse-Ville station and most of them also in Colmar . Destination stations include Lyon , Marseille and Montpellier .
In addition, night trains , which have been called Intercités de nuit since the beginning of 2012 , run between Strasbourg and Nice as well as between Strasbourg and Cerbère or Portbou . Intermediate stops are Sélestat, Colmar and Mulhouse.
Regional traffic
In regional traffic, TER Alsace trains operate on the Metz / Nancy / Strasbourg-Basel and Strasbourg / Colmar-Mulhouse routes, with the latter having a higher stop frequency than the connections to Basel.
Freight transport
In freight transport, trains from Fret SNCF and DB Schenker Rail , but also the French EWS subsidiary Euro Cargo Rail , which also belongs to DB Schenker , use the route.
future
- With the opening of the second phase of LGV Rhin-Rhône, the TGV trains to Paris will be even faster.
- The Basel SNCF train station will be handed over to the SBB in the medium term, which will handle all operations in the Basel SBB train station, so that the adjoining area of the SNCF train station will be free for further use.
- A connection to Basel-Mulhouse airport via the EuroAirport airport train station and a six-kilometer bilateral connection to the Strasbourg-Basel railway line is in planning.
literature
- Pièrre Dominique Bazaine: Chemin de fer de Strasbourg à Bâle . Paris 1892.
- André Lefevre: La ligne de Strasbourg à Bâle . PH Heitz, Strasbourg, Zurich 1947.
Web links
- Badische Zeitung , August 10, 2013, Rolf Reissmann: badische-zeitung.de: It all began with the Elsässerbahn (August 11, 2013)
- To the rail connection project "EAP by Rail"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated May 13, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Koechlin, Nicolas et frères: Avant-projet d'un chemin de fer de Strasbourg à Mulhouse et à Bâle. P. Baret, Mulhouse 1837
- ^ Joanne, Adolphe (1859). Atlas historique et statistique des chemins de fer français. Paris: L. Hachette. p. 39. (In French)
- ^ Direction Générale des Ponts et Chaussées et des Chemins de Fer (1869) (in French). Statistique centrale des chemins de fer. Chemins de fer français. Situation au 31 December 1869. Paris: Ministère des Travaux Publics, pp. 146–160.
- ↑ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Official Journal of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of November 20, 1915, No. 57. Announcement No. 758, p. 372.
- ↑ Revue Chemins de Fer, éditée par l'AFAC, n ° 393 de 1988, p. 263. (French)
- ^ Map of the new LGV Rhin-Rhône branch Est line
