Railway line Zwiesel – Bodenmais

Zwiesel – Bodenmais
Route number :	5820
Course book section (DB) :	907
Route length:	14.585 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	C2
Maximum slope :	approx. 22  ‰
Top speed:	50 km / h
Legend by Bayerisch Eisenstein 0.000 Zwiesel (Bay) 578 m to Grafenau to Plattling 4,568 Außenried 6.262 Langdorf 12.055 Boehmhof 708 m 14,585 Bodenmais (formerly Bf) 673 m Swell:

The Zwiesel – Bodenmais line is a branch line in Bavaria . It is the last railway line built in Lower Bavaria .

history

Zwiesel station before the renovation (2006)

The railway viaduct at Reisachmühle

The line was built from 1921 in the course of emergency works and put into operation on September 3, 1928. The 14.5 km long branch line in Zwiesel connects to the Bavarian Forest Railway from Plattling to Bayerisch Eisenstein , which opened on September 16, 1877, and to the railway line from Zwiesel to Grafenau, which opened on September 1, 1890 .

The first test drive took place on August 9, 1928. At the opening ceremony on September 3, 1928, crowds of people stood at the train stations and stops, and the newly opened railway carried around 2500 passengers to Bodenmais that day. All speakers expressed their hope that the route would soon be extended through the Zellertal .

The planned extension of Bodenmais through the Zellertal to Bad Kötzting was not realized. One reason for this was, among other things, the extension of the Gotteszell – Blaibach railway line opened by the Regentalbahn in 1927 from the previous Viechtach terminus to Blaibach , with which there was a connection between the Waldbahn and the route around Cham station just a few kilometers away . In addition, there were significant opponents of further construction. The extension of Bodenmais – Bad Kötzting was canceled at the beginning of the 1930s on the grounds that the municipalities there were not in agreement about the construction of the railway.

Soon after the opening, the low profitability of the route became apparent. As early as the 1960s there were rumors that the route would be closed . In the 1970s and 1980s this topic was repeatedly taken up in the media. In January 1984 there was a large televised discussion about the continuation of the line. On September 27, 1984 the Federal Railway Directorate Nuremberg stated that they had been trying for 15 years to bring about a decision on the future of the particularly weakly used Zwiesel – Bodenmais line. Despite all fears, rail traffic on the route was able to be maintained.

In the summer timetables from 1980 to 1987, special trips from Hamburg-Altona to Bodenmais operated by the German Travel Agency under the name Alpen-See-Express ran on this route . These were carried out with class 601 railcars . From 1983 onwards there were occasional trips from Dortmund to Bodenmais in the industrial cycle. This year the curious situation arose that the rail buses of trains N 8470 and N 8475 were blocked by the two combined Alpen-See-Express trains in Bodenmais. Therefore, these special trips between Zwiesel and Bodenmais were released for general traffic in order to create a replacement. In the following year, the timetable of the local train was changed so that this was no longer necessary.

present

Railcar ready for departure to Bodenmais in Zwiesel (June 2012)

On the route from Zwiesel to Bodenmais there are the demand stopping points Außenried, Langdorf and Böhmhof. Only Zwiesel train station is manned by staff . The Bodenmais station area was acquired by Markt Bodenmais in 1987 and built a new building there, which serves as the town hall and tourist information office.

Uerdingen rail buses ran on the route in the second half of the 20th century . From 1993 the Regentalbahn operated this route on behalf of the DB with their old Esslingen railcars , since 1996 every hour. The Regentalbahn has been operating since the beginning of 1997 with Regio-Shuttle railcars , the travel time for one journey is 20 minutes.

Two diesel multiple units of the Waldbahn at the Bodenmais terminus (2010)

The number of passengers increased due to the introduction of the clock hub in Zwiesel and the introduction of the Bayerwald ticket as part of the national park traffic concept in the early 2000s. Since then there has been a direct connection to the Bay in Zwiesel. Eisenstein, Plattling (every hour) and Grafenau (every 2 hours). With Zwiesel (since 2010) and Langdorf (since 2011) two of the three neighboring communities on the route introduced the guest service environmental ticket .

The municipality of Bodenmais occasionally runs special train services in cooperation with travel agencies. Since these trains replace the regular local trains on the route for operational reasons, these are released for general traffic between Zwiesel and Bodenmais.

As part of the invitation to tender for the "Regional Train Network East Bavaria" by the Bavarian Railway Company , the train performance was also reassigned on this route. The winner, the previous DB Regio subcontractor Netinera with its Waldbahn brand , took over operations in December 2013. This tender does not provide for any major changes to the train services on this route.

As part of the station offensive of the Bavarian Railway Company and DB Station & Service , a new Bodenmais Süd stop was to be built on this route between the streets Am Sonnenhang and Silberbergstraße. The construction costs for the platform are estimated at 800,000 euros. The market council of the municipality rejected this project in mid-July 2015 due to the additional financial burden for the municipality due to surrounding measures amounting to 100,000 euros.

The DB networks plant, the operation procedure on the route of Zugleitbetrieb according Ril 436 (ZLB) in Ril 408 switch. ^[outdated]

Today, Waldbahn trains run on the WBA2 line on the Zwiesel – Bodenmais route every hour, with a single train running from Bayerisch Eisenstein as a through car to Bodenmais.

Others

• An operating procedure proposed by ProBahn in the course of setting up this clock hub in Zwiesel with a combined management of the trains from Zwiesel to Plattling has not yet been implemented. The advantage of this concept would be connection-free connections from Grafenau and Bodenmais to the long-distance traffic hub at Plattling station .

However, there are several points that make this concept very complex. This means that capacities could no longer be regulated based on volume. There would always have to be at least three regional shuttles between Zwiesel and Deggendorf instead of between one and four railcars as was previously the case. Due to the length of the platform, which allows a maximum of four-fold traction, only one regional shuttle each and two regional shuttles on one branch could drive to Bodenmais, Grafenau or Bayerisch Eisenstein . Especially in school traffic, the capacities would not be sufficient here, so line breaks, strengthening or additional services would have to be used.

Due to the screw couplings on the Regio-Shuttles, they cannot be automatically separated and combined. This would mean a longer stay at the Zwiesler train station. This in turn would mean that in Bodenmais and Grafenau (or with an hourly service on this line in Spiegelau) the turning and crossing times are no longer sufficient and the routes would therefore have to be expanded. The Zwiesel train station would also have to be rebuilt. In addition to intermediate signals in order to be able to drive into occupied tracks, the track plan would also have to be adapted, since only track 5 is suitable for driving in all four directions. For the concept, track 2 would also have to be upgraded so that it can also be driven out in the direction of Bodenmais.

• As it was built in 1983, the route is part of the “German Railroads Volume 7 Der Bayerische Wald” expansion of the Microsoft Train Simulator that was published on October 22, 2006 .

Web links

Commons : Category: Zwiesel – Bodenmais railway line  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ^ Rüdiger Block: The TEE railcars of the Deutsche Bundesbahn. VT 11.5 series
4. ↑ Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft: Station offensive in Bavaria , accessed on April 7, 2015
5. ↑ Bayerwald-Bote: "Market Council rejects new train stop", July 14, 2015
6. ↑ Migrations of new operating procedures currently being implemented and planned. (No longer available online.) DB Netze, August 30, 2016, archived from the original on October 22, 2016 ; accessed on October 21, 2016 .