Tübingen – Horb railway line

Tübingen-Horb
Route number (DB) :	4600
Course book section (DB) :	774
Route length:	31.5 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	110 km / h
Legend Neckar-Alb railway from Plochingen 48.8 Tübingen Hbf Ammertalbahn to Herrenberg Zollernalbbahn to Sigmaringen 51.6 Weilheim (b Tübingen) 53.5 Kilchberg 56.3 Kiebingen former connection DHL 59.4 Rottenburg (Neckar) Neckar 62.9 Bad Niedernau Neckar 66.1 Bieringen (b Horb) Sulzau Tunnel (493 m) 72.4 Eyach from Eyach Landesbahn to Hechingen Eyach 77.0 Mills (b Horb) Gäubahn from Stuttgart 80.3 Horb Gäubahn to Hattingen

The Tübingen – Horb railway is a railway line in Baden-Württemberg . It leads from Tübingen to Horb am Neckar and is the continuation of the Plochingen – Tübingen railway line . In Horb it is linked to the Gäubahn . Historically, the entire route from Plochingen to Rottweil used to be called the Upper Neckar Railway . In the 1990s and 2000s, Deutsche Bahn only used that name for the central section dealt with here.

history

The line was created as a continuation of the line from Plochingen to Reutlingen, which was built until 1859 . The continuation via Tübingen to Rottenburg was completed in 1861, the next section Rottenburg – Eyach followed in 1864 and the last section Eyach – Horb in 1866.

passenger traffic

Rottenburg (Neckar) station

Cultural train at Bieringen station

The route is operated by the DB ZugBus Regionalverkehr Alb-Bodensee (RAB) with regional trains and is now known as a cultural train together with the connecting Nagold Valley Railway to Pforzheim . Between Tübingen and Rottenburg there is a half-hourly service, then to Horb at an approximate hourly rate with a focus on connections to the Intercity trains to and from Zurich and Singen / Konstanz as well as the Regional Express trains to and from Rottweil .

Some of the regional trains are tied through from Tübingen as Interregio-Express (IRE) to Stuttgart , in the opposite direction some of the trains run beyond Horb to Pforzheim . There are diesel railcars of series 612 and 650.3 are used.

Freight transport

On one to two working days a week, the route is served in the mornings by the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn from the Tübingen freight depot to transport the loads of a scrap dealer and wood in the direction of Mengen . In Eyach , the train changes to the state railway's own Eyach – Hechingen route .

There is no longer any regular freight traffic between Eyach and Horb . All rail connections on the line were shut down and partially built over. For example, the Rottenburg freight yard disappeared years ago in favor of a new bus station .

After the track was lowered at the Rastatt tunnel in mid-August 2017, the route was temporarily used around the clock on working days. Around 35 freight trains drove over the route every day.

Vehicles:

• MaK V 100 PA (Tübingen-Eyach)

Planning

For several years there have been plans to set up new or reactivated stops on the Tübingen – Rottenburg section, including Bühl , Kilchberg and Weilheim . However, a two-track expansion is sometimes necessary for this. Electrification as a diversion route for the Gäubahn in the Horb – Stuttgart section was also discussed several times .

For several years, there have been considerations of integrating the line into the Neckar-Alb regional light rail line, which is to be built according to the Karlsruhe model . This would also require electrification. Due to the general financing problems, however, implementation is currently not in sight.

In the long term, the control and safety technology for the route is to be operated together with the Nagoldtal and Zollernalbbahn via the regional electronic signal box in Freudenstadt .

Web links

• Location, course, permissible speeds and some signals of the route on the OpenRailwayMap

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Overview plan of the traffic area of ​​the HzL in Baden-Württemberg ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Nocturnal train traffic on the Neckar-Alb-Bahn (route Horb – Tübingen – Reutlingen – Plochingen). (No longer available online.) In: deutschebahn.com. Deutsche Bahn, August 17, 2017, archived from the original on August 16, 2017 ; accessed on August 17, 2017 . 
3. ^ After closing the Rhine Valley: Gäubahn opened early for long-distance and freight traffic. (No longer available online.) In: deutschebahn.com. Deutsche Bahn, September 4, 2017, archived from the original on September 5, 2017 ; accessed on September 4, 2017 . 
4. ↑ Christine Keck: Half of the freight trains are rolling again . In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten . tape 72 , no. 203 , September 2, 2017, p. 6 f .