Railway line Zell im Wiesental – Todtnau

Zell im Wiesental – Todtnau
Opening train on July 7, 1889 in Todtnau
Course book range :	last 304b
Route length:	18.74 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Maximum slope :	28.6  ‰
Minimum radius :	70 m
Legend Wiesentalbahn from Lörrach 0.00 Zell (Wiesental) reloading station 427.5 m 0.62 Zell (Wiesental) 427.5 m 2.52 Atzenbach 443.5 m 4.53 Mambach 461.8 m 5.20 Pfaffenbach 6.40 Silver pig 7.00 Bändelbach 7.15 Hepschingen 488.6 m 7.50 Hepschinger Bach 7.93 Hepschinger Tunnel (80 m) 8.94 Kasteler Bridge 505.0 m 10.00 Böllenbach 10.28 Wembach 514.5 m 11.14 Connection fire 11.25 Connection fire 12.01 Schönau 529.7 m Connection of the Riegeler beer shelf 13.08 Beautiful beech 538.7 m Connection of colored weaving mill Hipp 13.50 Aiternbach 13.80 Wiedenbach 14.55 Utzenfeld 553.6 m Connection Finstergrund 16.36 Swiftly 591.6 m 17.36 Schlechtnau 614.9 m 18.74 Todtnau 642.0 m

The railway line Zell im Wiesental – Todtnau was a privately operated meter- gauge narrow - gauge railway 18.74 kilometers long from Zell im Wiesental to Todtnau . As a continuation of the standard gauge Wiesentalbahn from Basel via Lörrach to Zell, it was also referred to as the Obere Wiesentalbahn . With the local population it was called Todtnauerli , in the large-scale colloquial language Todtnauerle; see. the article -li .

history

Since it was not possible for the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways, for financial reasons, to connect the numerous commercial enterprises and small factories located in the Upper Wiesental to the railway network after the construction of the line leading through the lower Wiesental to Zell, non-state financing of the continuation was decided . The Baden Railway Consortium, with the participation of Herrmann Bachstein and the Bank for Trade and Industry , the Rheinische Kreditbank and the banking house W. H. Ladenburg & Sons, opened the operation of this second narrow-gauge railway in the entire Grand Duchy of Baden on July 7, 1889 in the presence of Grand Duke Friedrich I. (after the meter-gauge connection Mannheim-Weinheim opened two years earlier ). On April 1, 1897, it was transferred to the Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (SEG) founded by Bachstein .

simplified elevation profile of the route

Initially, the use of trolleys was only allowed to travel as far as the Atzenbach spinning mill, but from 1922 to 1924 the route was converted to accommodate the higher axle loads of trolleys and the clearance profile for standard gauge wagons on bolsters was expanded. A three-track system for loading and unloading trolleys was built in Zell . This made it possible to transport standard-gauge wagons on trolleys along the entire route.

After the concession expired, the state of Baden-Württemberg took over the line on January 1, 1953 and incorporated it into Mittelbadische Eisenbahnen AG. The decline in traffic led to the closure of passenger traffic on September 25, 1966 and freight traffic on September 24, 1967. The track systems have been completely dismantled. Today the route can be experienced as a railway cycle path . Passenger transport was switched to bus and is now operated by SBG ( Südbadenbus GmbH).

With a gradient of 1:35 at one point, the line had the greatest gradient of a private railway in Baden. However, it had to share this title with the Upper Rhine Railway and the Albtal Railway . In addition, the line was the only private railway in the southern Black Forest that had a tunnel.

There were various proposals for an extension. One idea was to run the route via Brandenberg, St. Wilhelm and Oberried to Kirchzarten in order to make a connection with the Höllentalbahn ; a long tunnel would have had to be built between Brandenberg and St. Wilhelm for this purpose. According to another idea, the route from Todtnau to Feldberg would have been extended in order to connect to the Dreiseenbahn . For all variants, the entire route would have to be re-gauged to standard gauge.

Today the Todtnauerliweg in Atzenbach is reminiscent of the Todtnauerli .

vehicles

The locomotive ZTE 74 (C n2t, Krauss 1888), which was part of the original equipment, was kept by the German Society for Railway History in the Bochum-Dahlhausen Railway Museum. The two mallet steam locomotives SEG 104 (C'C, Hanomag 1925) and 105 (B'B, Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe 1918) as well as the C4 No. 171 passenger car are now on the Blonay – Chamby museum railway in Switzerland. Two other passenger cars with rebuilds 1954, formerly SEG C4 Nr. 174 (Herbrandsdatter 1891 DEV no. 25) and formerly SEG C4 # 124. (MAN 1886 DEV no. 26) 1971 to 1981 at the Spiekerooger Inselbahn used were owned by the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Verein in Bruchhausen-Vilsen, and both cars were sold to a private person in 2014. In addition to these two, there is a third Reko car in southeast France. It is also privately owned and not ready to drive. The MEG T 15 multiple unit purchased from Waggonfabrik Fuchs in 1955 remained on the line until it was shut down in 1967 and is now with the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways as No. 187 012-0 .

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  Mallet steam locomotive SEG 104 (Hanomag 1925) in Chamby-Musée (Chaulin)

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  Mallet steam locomotive SEG 105 (Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe 1918, ex Heeresfeldbahn ) in Blonay

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  Passenger car 171 (Herbrand 1891) in Chamby-Musée (Chaulin)

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  T 15 as 187 012 of the HSB in Wernigerode Western gate

Trivia

In 1958, the music film Schwarzwälder Kirsch with Marianne Hold, Edith Hancke, Dietmar Schönherr, Wolfgang Neuss, Boy Gobert and Willy Reichert was filmed at various train stations in the upper Wiesental and also on the train . In addition to various exterior shots of the moving train consisting of three passenger cars, including MEG No. 252, and a baggage car pulled by the steam locomotive 74, on the open route and in three different stations, partial views of the interior of a car can also be seen.

literature

• Ludger Kenning; Michael Kopfmann: Narrow-gauge railway Zell – Todtnau . Kenning Verlag, Nordhorn 2003. (secondary line documentation 74), ISBN 3-933613-49-3 .
• Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 122-127 .
• Gerd Wolff, Hans-Dieter Menges: German small and private railways. Volume 2: Bathing . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-653-6 , p. 258-273 .
• Rolf Reissmann: Two small ones next to the big ones , Badische Zeitung , October 19, 2013

Web links

• Film recordings of a trip on the Todtnauerli
• forget-bahnen.de: Zell (Wiesental) - Todtnau (Todtnauerli)
• Digital copies in the Baden-Württemberg State Archive

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Harald Noth: Alemannisches Dialekt Handbuch vom Kaiserstuhl and its surroundings (German edition) . Schillinger, ISBN 978-3-89155-151-6 , p. 450.
2. ↑ Sven Meyer: Out of the dark rooms , Sunday , June 13, 2008, accessed on April 25, 2009.
3. ^ Horst-Werner Dumjahn: Handbook of the German Railway Lines: Opening dates 1835-1935, line lengths, concessions, ownership structure . Dumjahn, Mainz 1984, ISBN 3-921426-29-4 .
4. ^ Albert Kuntzemüller : The Baden Railways 1840-1940, self-published by the Geographical Institutes of the Universities of Freiburg i. Br. And Heidelberg, Freiburg im Breisgau 1940, p. 191
5. ^ Johann Hansing: The railways in Baden. A contribution to traffic and economic history , Fleischhauer & Spohn, Stuttgart 1929, p. 58
6. ↑ 140 years of the railway in Freiburg - branch lines . Freiburg 1985