Kleinbahn Wallersdorf – Münchshöfen
| Wallersdorf – Münchshöfen | |||||||||||||
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 Wallersdorf station from the south
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| Route length: | 7.7 km | ||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||
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The Kleinbahngenossenschaft Wallersdorf und Umgebung eGmbH , based in Büchling , operated a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 1,000 mm from 1926 to the end of 1949 , starting at the station in Wallersdorf , district of Dingolfing-Landau , to Münchshöfen in the municipality of Oberschneiding , district of Straubing-Bogen . The railway was used exclusively for freight traffic.
Railway construction
The Lower Bavarian market of Wallersdorf is located in the lower Isar valley 20 kilometers from the confluence of the Isar and the Danube near Plattling . The place is touched by the now electrified single-track railway line Landshut – Plattling (KBS 931). The former shunting and loading facilities of the station - route kilometers 52.9 - have been dismantled except for a simple crossing system for today's regional and freight trains.
Since the efforts of the Gäuboden communities, which have been ongoing since 1872, under the leadership of the city of Straubing to build a standard-gauge railway line from Straubing to Landau a. d. Isar remained unsuccessful, farmers founded a cooperative to build a narrow-gauge railway with a connection to the Landau – Plattling railway line. According to Zeitler, the cooperative already received permission to build a narrow-gauge railway from the train station in Wallersdorf via Büchling to Münchshöfen with the Bavarian law of June 26, 1908 . In the largely flat Gäuboden , the railway had the task of supplying agriculture with goods (fertilizer, coal and building materials) and, above all, of making the harvest, which was dominated by sugar beet and cabbage, inexpensive. The German Reich and the Free State of Bavaria each contributed 90,000 RM to the cooperative capital of 187,000 RM . The remaining municipalities and farmers held the remaining capital.
The construction of the line began only after the First World War . The intention was to acquire narrow-gauge tracks and vehicles with 600-mm-gauge from former army stocks cheaply. When this failed, the embankment, which was completed in 1923, was widened to accommodate a 1,000 mm track and put into operation on August 6, 1926. The railway had a route length of 7.7 km and a track length of 8.45 km.
The route ran from the Reichsbahn loading point in Wallersdorf station northwards via Vierhöfen (km 2.5) in the direction of Mattenkofen (km 4.2). One kilometer before the village it turned west and reached Büchling (km 5.8) approx. 500 m north of the village. Here was the railway headquarters with a coal bunker, water tank and a small workshop. While the route up to this point ran on flat terrain, there was now a steep, roughly 250 m long incline of 1:30 straight on towards Münchshöfen. The course of the railway along the road to near Mattenkofen can still be seen through the path overgrown with trees and bushes. The route continued on the field path known as “Rennweg” to the Münchshöfen loading station (km 7.7) on the road to Fierlbach.
Evidently, the route in Wallersdorf and Büchling had bypass tracks, and probably also at the terminus in Münchshöfen. All loading points were equipped with a piece of standard gauge track onto which the standard gauge wagons were pulled with the help of oxen or horses. As a result, the trolleys were free for further transports during loading or unloading.
A proposal by the Regensburg Railway Directorate to the city of Straubing and other communities of the Gäuboden interested in the railway line to Landau to join this branch line in 1928 was not accepted. Even a planned extension of 4 km to Oberschneiding could not be implemented due to a lack of capital.
Shutdown
The railway company only made a profit in two years of operation. Only between 7,000 t and 10,000 t were transported annually. As a result of the motorization of agriculture, which began quickly after the Second World War, and because of urgently needed investments in the line, operations were stopped on December 31, 1949 and the line was dismantled. The railway buildings and loading ramps have now been completely removed.
vehicles
In 1926 the railway bought five four-axle trolleys from Orenstein & Koppel . As photos show, the trolleys were pulled by a light construction locomotive, type Lenz, in the first two years. This locomotive was also used when the railway was built. In 1928, the Kleinbahngenossenschaft bought the almost 40-year-old machine No. 63 (Krauss 1889/2019, type C n2t) from the Walhallabahn for 3,727.95 RM , which was originally used in Thuringia and Upper Silesia. After a serious accident, the locomotive 99 133 (Krauss 1922/7986, Bayerische Pts 3/4 , type 1'C h2t) was bought from the Neuötting – Altötting steam tram , which had been shut down two years earlier, in 1932. It stayed in Wallersdorf until it was shut down scrapped.
literature
- Walther Zeitler: Railways in Lower Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate . 2nd Edition. Amberg 1997, ISBN 3-924350-61-2 .
- Rolf Löttgers: Wallersdorf – Münchshöfen . In: Wolf-Dietger Machel (ed.): Secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany . GeraMond, Munich.