Triptis – Marxgrün railway line

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Triptis-Marxgrün
The route (dotted here) roughly follows the BAB 9
The route (dotted here) roughly follows the BAB 9
Route number (DB) : 6683
Course book section (DB) : 556 Triptis – Lobenstein
557 Saalfeld – Blankenstein
Route length: 68.76 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed: 50 km / h
Legend
Route - straight ahead
 from Leipzig
Station, station
 0.00 Triptis 370.62 m
   
 to Saalfeld
   
 6.12 Auma 386.65 m
   
 10.16 Krölpa (near Auma) 408.68 m
   
 14.00 A 9
   
 14.37 Moßbach (near Neustadt / Orla) 465.25 m
   
 20.09 Dreba 468.55 m
   
 22.59 Knau 432.01 m
   
 24.77 Posenmühle 394.70 m
   
 28.00 Külmla depot (1938–1945)
   
 29.18 Kirchberg Tunnel (Ziegenrücker Tunnel) (105 m)
   
 30.15 Plothenbachtal Viaduct
   
 30.43 Ziegenrück 324.74 m
   
 30.85 Saale Viaduct
   
 31.00 Hemmkoppentunnel (181 m)
   
 33.06 Schweinbach tunnel (89 m)
   
 33.93 Liebschütz (Saale) 364.67 m
   
 34.94 Zschachen-Mühlberg-Tunnel (72 m)
   
 35.61 Ziemß tunnel (118 m)
   
 36.0 Ziemestal Bridge (120 m)
   
 37.50 Liebengrün depot (1938–1945)
   
 41.30 Gap mill 498.76 m
   
 42.80 At the Remptendorf substation
   
 44.10 Remptendorf 537.48 m
   
 47.42 Ebersdorf - Friesau 535.53 m
   
 by Hockeroda
Station, station
 51.75 Unterlemnitz ( wedge station )
Station, station
 54.37 Lobenstein (door) 489.21 m
Bridge (small)
 Bundesstrasse 90
   
 56.86 Lobenstein (Thür) Süd formerly Lemnitzhammer Gbf
Stop, stop
 58.39 Harra Nord formerly Lemnitzhammer
tunnel
 59.01 Totenfels (221 m)
Stop, stop
 59.98 Harra 435.06 m
   
 Connection railway ZPR
   
 62.45 Blankenstein (Saale) 435.04 m
   
 63.41 Thuringian Muschwitz ; Thuringia - Bavaria
BSicon exSTR.svg
   
 Erfurt – Regensburg border after 1945
BSicon exSTR.svg
   
 63.62 Lichtenberg (Ofr) 432.40 m
   
 64.50 Kesselberg (160 m)
   
 64.60 Selbitz Höllental
   
 64.70 Pulpit Rock (36 m)
   
 660 Slope bridge weir
   
 66.56 hell 479.86 m
   
 Eating
   
 Loading point Wiede (after discontinuation of the route towards Hell)
   
 Selbitz small forging
   
 68.24 Erfurt – Regensburg border before 1945
   
 from Bad Steben
Stop, stop
 68.76 Marxgrün (formerly Bf) 491.75 m
Route - straight ahead
 to court

The Triptis – Marxgrün line is a branch line in Thuringia and Bavaria , which was originally built and operated by the Prussian State Railways . It leads from Triptis via Ziegenrück , Bad Lobenstein and Blankenstein to Marxgrün . Only the section Ebersdorf-Friesau -Unterlemnitz-Lobenstein-Blankenstein in Thuringia is still in operation . The northern section is known as the Thuringian Oberlandbahn , the southern section as the Höllentalbahn in the Franconian Forest .

Prehistory and construction

States in the Oberland at the beginning of the 20th century

Oberlandbahn Triptis – Blankenstein in Thuringia

The city of Ziegenrück was an exclave of the Prussian administrative district of Erfurt from the 19th century . A railway line was built by the Prussian State Railways to develop this area . This was preceded by a state treaty between Prussia and the states it traversed Reuss younger line , Reuss older line , Saxe-Weimar and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt . The route to Ziegenrück was opened on December 17, 1894 and extended to Lobenstein on September 16, 1895 . Further extensions followed on December 1, 1896 to the Lemnitzhammer freight yard (later Lobenstein Süd) and on July 15, 1897 to Blankenstein.

Höllentalbahn Blankenstein – Marxgrün in Bavaria

After the industrialization of the area had progressed further, in particular through Wiede's paper factory Rosenthal , an extension of the route through the Höllental to Marxgrün came into consideration. This project was welcomed by the paper mill, as the paper for southern Germany had to be brought to Hof on horse-drawn carts beforehand. Initially, the factory only made cardboard, but due to the great distance and the fact that paper was lighter than cardboard, production was switched. Prussia and Bavaria wanted the route through the Höllental, which is why both countries signed a contract to build the section on January 30, 1897. The route was planned under the direction of the Erfurt Railway Directorate, which was also the reason why the two station buildings in Hölle and Blankenstein were built in the Thuringian half-timbered style. Originally, only one stop without goods handling was planned for the city of Lichtenberg because of the unfavorable location of the train station, two kilometers away from the city. However, the city magistrate insisted on goods handling , which was only approved by the Erfurt Railway Directorate when the city called on the local companies, the paper finishing HH Ullstein in Blechschmidtenhammer and the fluorspar plant, whose raw material was shipped from Würzburg, to transport their goods by rail could move so that a good utilization of the route was guaranteed.

The company Werner from Sangerhausen was commissioned to build the route, and the company Joseph Müller from Schmalkalden to build the two tunnels through the Kessel and Kanzelfels . The cost of the entire construction of the route was borne by the state of Prussia. Work began in 1900 with a 250-strong team. 117 workers, who were mainly needed for the construction of the two tunnels and the three viaducts at Kleinschmieden, in Höllental and across the Muschwitz, came mainly from Austria and Italy. The two tunnels alone produced around 100,000 cubic meters of overburden; For the track bed in Höllental, two small quarries were developed at the entrance to the valley near Hölle and in the middle of the valley. You can still be recognized. There were serious concerns from the population, especially because of the cuts in the valley, which was still largely natural at the time. There were two accidents during the construction of the line: on March 20, 1900, a worker had a fatal accident while blasting and on October 10 of the same year, a house was set on fire by flying sparks from a steam locomotive in Blechschmidtenhammer.

The route was officially opened on August 14, 1901 with the first special trip by a passenger train from Marxgrün to Lobenstein. The travel time between the train stations in Hölle and Lichtenberg through the Höllental was seven minutes. The inauguration ceremony took place in Bad Steben. Regular operations began on August 15, 1901. The border between the Royal Bavarian State Railways and the Prussian State Railways ran shortly before the Marxgrün train station on Bavarian territory at 68.24 kilometers. This point later also marked the border between the Reichsbahn divisions Erfurt and Nuremberg and Regensburg.

Operation until 1945

In 1907 the Hockeroda – Unterlemnitz railway was opened, which was connected to the line to Marxgrün at Unterlemnitz station and enabled continuous traffic in the direction of Saalfeld . Much of the traffic was shifted to the new route. The trains from Triptis mostly ended in Lobenstein. This new direction of traffic is also reflected in the course book routes from 1944:

  • Route 189g Saalfeld – Lobenstein – Marxgrün
  • Route 189h Triptis – Lobenstein

Three freight trains drove in both directions on the route through the Höllental every day. Six passenger trains were also sent daily in the direction of Lobenstein, seven in the direction of Marxgrün. After other freight trains from Bohemia with wood goods were traveling north and coal trains from the Saxon lignite mining areas south, the route was well used and partly overloaded. Therefore, a large part of the domestic German rail traffic took the Höllentalbahn as a shortcut to Hof. Tourism was successful in passenger transport, and the Franconian Forest was a local recreation area for many Thuringians. The Bad Steben state baths, the Schwarzenbach am Wald area and, in the winter months, Döbra with the Döbraberg could benefit . After its completion in 1932 , the Bleilochtalsperre in Thuringia served as a local recreation area for Northern Bavaria. When the Deutsche Reichsbahn was founded in 1920, the southern terminus at Marxgrün lost its function as a transfer station between two railway companies.

From 1939, the number of people on the route continued to increase, so that between 12 and 13 trains ran daily. There were also continuous trains between Saalfeld and Hof. During the Second World War, the Triptis – Marxgrün route served as a diversion route for north-south traffic, as it was far away from the bomb-threatened metropolitan areas. To increase the line capacity, two additional crossing stations were set up in the war years. Adolf Hitler's special train also ran regularly on this route on the way from Berlin to Berchtesgaden. During the day it was parked in the Kesselberg tunnel in a bombproof manner, as for safety reasons it was only driven at night. During this time all other train traffic was idle.

At the end of the war, a large part of the passenger traffic on the route was stopped. There were only eight trains running daily, and only six on weekends. On April 11, 1945, the last train ran between Marxgrün and Lobenstein. On April 13, 1945, the city of Lichtenberg was occupied by the Americans. Passenger and freight traffic came to a complete standstill, with the exception of a few military trains that still passed this route. After Soviet troops marched into Blankenstein on July 2, 1945, the railway line at the border was interrupted on the bridge over the Muschwitz the following day.

In the early years Prussian locomotives were used:

Standard locomotives were added later:

  • BR 86 , freight train tank locomotive

Operation after 1945

Former border bridge between the then GDR and the then FRG

After the occupation of Thuringia by the Red Army in June 1945, the Bavarian-Thuringian border became the demarcation line between the American and Soviet-occupied zones of Germany. Train traffic across the border was therefore stopped on June 3, 1945. The boundaries of the railway directorates were later adjusted to the national borders.

Oberlandbahn Triptis – Blankenstein in Thuringia

The station building of the Triptis branch station was destroyed by a bomb at the end of the Second World War. The building was not rebuilt, but replaced by a makeshift building that still exists.

Since the late 1960s, most of the route has been included in the timetables as route book route 534 Triptis – Lobenstein (Thür). The remainder to Blankenstein was part of the course book route 565 Saalfeld – Lobenstein (Thür) –Blankenstein. The Blankenstein train station was located in the restricted area directly on the inner-German border . Therefore all travelers were checked by the police.

Continuous passenger trains between Triptis or Saalfeld and Blankenstein hardly ran any more during the GDR era, and trains were almost always broken off in Lobenstein. In the mid-1990s, the trains from Saalfeld to Blankenstein were tied through and train traffic was synchronized. On the other hand, only a few passenger trains ran on the section of the Oberlandbahn from Triptis to Unterlemnitz.

On May 24, 1998 the passenger train service between Triptis and Unterlemnitz was canceled by the state of Thuringia, at the end of 1998 the freight traffic between Triptis and Ebersdorf-Friesau was stopped. The Ebersdorf-Friesau station with the siding of a large sawmill was served from Saalfeld. This meant that the routes between Triptis and Ebersdorf-Friesau were virtually without traffic. Shortly before the shutdown, several transformer transports drove to the Remptendorf substation. On January 1, 2005, the section was shut down , but the track was not dismantled.

Today's situation and outlook

Ziemestal Bridge from the northwest
Bahnhof Blankenstein (Saale) , 2018
Scenic, disused route in the area of ​​the Saale reservoirs at the southwest portal of the Zschachen-Mühlberg-Tunnel

On the most scenic section between Moßbach and Lückenmühle (27 km), the Thuringian Oberlandbahn e. V. has been offering bicycle trolley trips since 2011. In addition to the views of the fjord landscape of the Upper Saale, the 32 meter high and 114 meter long Ziemestal bridge, several tunnels and two large stone viaducts are particularly impressive. Scheduled passenger traffic only takes place between Unterlemnitz and Blankenstein. Regional trains run from Saalfeld to Blankenstein every two hours. Freight trains also run on this section, mainly to the Rosenthal pulp and paper factory (ZPR). Another goods customer is a woodworks in Ebersdorf-Friesau, which is approached from Lobenstein. The other sections are closed, but not de-dedicated. The remaining passenger traffic between Saalfeld, Unterlemnitz and Blankenstein has been operated by the Erfurter Bahn since June 2012 .

The city of Lobenstein has been officially called Bad Lobenstein since March 21, 2005 . This did not affect the station name. It is still Lobenstein (Thür) , but is mentioned in the course book Bad Lobenstein .

The Thuringian Oberlandbahn e. V. advocates reactivating the Oberlandbahn between Triptis and Ebersdorf-Friesau. The German Regional Railway (DRE) initially leased the line between Triptis and Ebersdorf-Friesau until December 31, 2009 with the aim of securing the route. The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled in March 2008 that the railway overpass at Moßbach must not be demolished when the Federal Motorway 9 is widened. After this judgment, DRE was able to conclude an intersection agreement with Deutsche Einheit Fernstraßenplanungs- und Baugesellschaft mbH (DEGES) at the end of October 2008 , which led to the demolition of the bridge on October 18, 2009. After the widening of the motorway, the construction of the new railway bridge is planned. In 2006, the then Thuringian Prime Minister Dieter Althaus was opposed to a reactivation of passenger traffic, as "the Remptendorf – Triptis section (...) has no traffic significance".

After the state elections in 2014, the coalition factions made a declaration of intent to close the gap on the Höllentalbahn and ZPR would also welcome a reactivation of the route. Even more freight trains are to run over the existing route in Thuringia in order to further relieve the roads. To this end, ZPR is investing a total of 10 million euros in its works railway. In July 2020, this section of the route was also included in the position paper of the VDV as requiring reactivation.

Locomotive use

Steam locomotives
Diesel locomotives
Diesel railcars
Plothental Viaduct in Ziegenrück (March 1984)
  • 641 (Alstom Coradia A TER)
  • 642 (Siemens Desiro Classic)
  • 650 (Stadler Regio-Shuttle)

Höllentalbahn Marxgrün – Lichtenberg (–Blankenstein) in Bavaria

Freight transport

North portal of the Kesselberg tunnel 2009

After the Second World War, only local freight traffic was operated between Marxgrün and Lichtenberg (Ofr). The route was given the course book number 419r . It was handled with class 86 locomotives and diesel locomotives from the Bundesbahn classes V 60 and V 100 as well as small locomotives from the Köf III series .

Since May 23, 1971, the traffic has been set and the line closed. Just before the station hell but the loading point restart was set up on a long time, produced in the past off the track carbon dioxide plant the company re carbonic acid was removed. This remainder of the route was operated as a junction . On September 6, 1982, the track dismantling began in Höllental. The rails were reused in Bamberg harbor. On October 7, 1983, the Federal Railroad released the station in Lichtenberg (Ofr) for sale. The train station in Hell had already been demolished in 1979. The city of Lichtenberg (Upper Franconia) acquired the station building in 1985 and deducted the costs for the acquisition from the border region subsidy in the district of Hof. These funds were used to renovate and convert the station into an information center, which opened on July 31, 1986. On October 30, 1987 the service of the company Wiede ended and the remaining route was also dismantled. The bridges in Höllental were not torn down; the tunnels were walled up for safety reasons.

Planning for museum operations

After the complete closure in 1971, a local railway working group (LAG) was founded in Hof . The aim of the LAG was to organize a museum on the Höllentalbahn. The LAG's domicile was the engine shed in Marxgrün. A steam locomotive from the Regensburg sugar factory from 1937 was already waiting there. The repair of the line exceeded the financial possibilities of the LAG. The engine shed in Marxgrün has now been cleared. The building is in a desolate condition. The half-timbered station building in the climatic health resort of Hell was to be preserved and used as the guest house. However, these plans from 1977 could not be implemented. The building was demolished in 1979 and the station area was converted into a park.

Information center

Lichtenberg Train Station (Ofr)

An information center for the Franconian Forest Nature Park was later set up in the former Lichtenberg (Ofr) train station . There is a working model of the Höllentalbahn in scale 1:87 ( H0 ). The system is operated by MEC 01 Münchberger Eisenbahnfreunde e. V. supervised. In front of the Lichtenberg train station, a parked steam storage locomotive (Lok 3; Cfl; Babelsberg 1969/219189; FLC - 92061) of the pulp and paper factory Rosenthal (ZPR) in Blankenstein as well as a blunderbuss , an accompanying baggage wagon and a box wagon of the Hofer Brewery Löwenhof to the rail traffic in Höllental.

Route number

With the introduction of route numbers , the Lichtenberg (Ofr) –Marxgrün section was assigned the DB route number 5022. Since the unification of the German State Railways, route number 6683 has been used for the entire route from Triptis.

Today's situation and outlook

The former Marxgrün station is only one stop on the Hof – Bad Steben connection

There have been and are repeated efforts to reactivate parts of the route. The Rosenthal pulp and paper factory based in Blankenstein is very interested in closing the gap in the direction of Bavaria. 63 percent of production is transported by rail. This share could be further increased by a direct connection to the south. The company therefore organized a traffic conference on infrastructure development in the southern Saale-Orla district on December 9, 2008. In 2008, the city of Naila demanded that the reactivation of the route between Marxgrün and Blankenstein be included in the Upper Franconian East regional plan. This was justified by the fact that tourism traffic between Bavaria and Thuringia and the freight traffic of the timber industry would be improved. The transport initiative Hoellennetz e. V. is promoting the reactivation of the line through the Höllental in order to create an efficient rail connection between Thuringia and Bavaria for freight traffic. The Thuringian Prime Minister Christine Lieberknecht also spoke out in favor of reactivation in 2012.

In 2008 the DRE made efforts to lease the route of the Höllentalbahn Blankenstein – Marxgrün, which will not be pursued any further.

The gap closing was not included in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 . The reason given is:

“Since only a low demand for rail freight is expected on the route and the new line would be used by rail freight alone, the investment costs will not be covered by the benefits for cross-regional traffic. Since the project is therefore not economical, it should not be included in the BVWP. "

- Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure : Draft Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030

Opponents of the restart point out, among other things, that the Höllental was declared a nature reserve in 1997 . If the railway were to be rebuilt, defoliant would have to be used several times a year, which would endanger the spring water and thus the existence of the Höllensprudel company. In addition, there could be problems with the wall, which was only renovated in 2007, which supports the Röhrensteig and the pipes of the Höllental power plant and which is not designed for railway operations running below. The East Thuringia Chamber of Commerce and Industry therefore wants to commission a feasibility study that would take into account nature conservation in the Höllental and also the mineral spring company Höllensprudel.

The responsible group representative of Deutsche Bahn for Thuringia, Eckart Fricke, expressed a strong interest of the company in the freight volume and the restart of the line in 2018. In July 2020, VDV and Allianz Pro Schiene are calling for the route to be reactivated as soon as possible.

literature

  • Horst W. Bauer: From paradise to hell. In: Hp1 - Railway Modeling Today. No. 17/2001, Willy Kosak Verlag, Neuhaus (Pegnitz) 2001.
  • Siegfried Bufe: Railway in Upper Franconia . Bufe-Fachbuch-Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-922138-13-6 .
  • Deutsche Reichsbahn: The German railways in their development 1835–1935. Reichsdruckerei, Berlin 1935. (Reprint: with foreword by Horst-Werner Dumjahn. Dumjahn Verlag, Mainz 1984, ISBN 3-921426-29-4 )
  • Matthias Gather, Nadja Kreher, Sebastian Sommer: Investigation of the traffic conditions for passenger and freight traffic along the Höllentalbahn . Erfurt 2010. ( Digitized ; PDF; 9.0 MB)
  • Steffen Höbelt: Railway Triptis - Marxgrün / A branch line in the vortex of history. Volume 1, self-published, Ziegenrück 2016, ISBN 978-3-00-053242-9 .
  • Steffen Höbelt: Railway Triptis - Marxgrün / A branch line in the vortex of history. Volume 2, Eisenbahn-Fachbuch-Verlag, Neustadt bei Coburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-944237-24-4 .
  • Joachim Käferstein: The branch lines around Lobenstein - By train to the upper Saale valley . Wolfgang Herdam Fotoverlag, Wesseling / Rhein 1997, ISBN 3-9804798-6-2 .
  • Ralf Roman Rossberg : Border over German rails . Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1980, ISBN 3-88255-828-8 .
  • Stefan Winkler: Once to hell and back . Special edition of the railway journal 1/93.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Herta Vogel: Das Höllental . Ackermann Verlag, Hof 1989, pp. 43 to 49, 91 to 95.
  2. ↑ From paradise to hell! (PDF) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 16, 2007 ; accessed on September 12, 2017 .
  3. ^ Infrastructure register. DB Netze, accessed on March 1, 2019 .
  4. ↑ 557 Saalfeld - Bad Lobenstein - Blankenstein. (PDF) Retrieved September 12, 2017 .
  5. ↑ STATUTE OF THE ASSOCIATION "Thüringer Oberlandbahn e. V. “ Retrieved September 12, 2017 .
  6. ↑ See DRE press release of April 3, 2008, printed in: www.hoellentalbahn.net/news.htm, News of March 27, 2008. Accessed on December 16, 2010 .
  7. ↑ Autobahn 9 free again. (No longer available online.) Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, October 18, 2009, archived from the original on October 19, 2009 ; accessed on October 10, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Press article from the Ostthüringer Zeitung . November 5, 2008 ( sormitztalbahn.de [PDF; 50 kB ; accessed on November 13, 2010]).
  9. ↑ Die Linke, SPD, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen (Ed.): Coalition agreement between the parties Die Linke, SPD, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen for the 6th electoral term of the Thuringian state parliament . Final version of the content. Status: November 20, 2014. Erfurt November 20, 2014, p. 78 ( online [PDF; accessed on December 9, 2014] Quote: “We are committed to closing the gaps in the rails at the Werrabahn and Höllentalbahn […].”). online ( Memento from September 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Uwe Frost: Blankensteiner pulp company wants to move from road to rail. In: Ostthüringer Zeitung . February 17, 2015, accessed February 17, 2015 .
  11. ↑ With 10 million in advance: ZPR in Blankenstein continues to put hope in Höllentalbahn. Retrieved October 24, 2016 .
  12. ^ VDV: reactivation of railway lines. Retrieved August 5, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Route number file 2005.
  14. ↑ Kristina Künzel: Finally closing the gap to the east. In: Frankenpost, Naila department. December 17, 2008, accessed December 28, 2008 .
  15. ^ Railway report . 6/2012, p. 56.
  16. ↑ Railway infrastructure of the DRE group. ( Memento from December 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Project Information System (PRINS) to the draft Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030. Other projects (rail) are not part of the BVWP 2030
  18. ↑ Deutsche Bahn is interested in reopening the Höllentalbahn. MDR Thuringia, July 22, 2018, accessed on November 15, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Railway expansion: Höllental and Werra railway are to be reactivated. July 10, 2020, accessed August 5, 2020 .