German railway company
The Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (originally abbreviated as AG with DEAG , later also DEGA , DEG or DEGV ), which today belongs to the Transdev Group , was one of the most important operating companies of private railways in Germany for around a hundred years .
history
The history of DEAG is closely linked to the development of the AG for Railway Construction and Operation (BBB). Both companies were founded in 1898 by a consortium of banks . a. the Deutsche Genossenschafts-Bank in Frankfurt am Main, the Westdeutsche Bank in Cologne and the Palatinate Bank in Ludwigshafen am Rhein belonged.
The BBB, which was founded on January 18, 1898, did not have its own railways, only holdings; She was also the operator for the DEAG railways. This was established as a securities holding company on June 3, 1898, but gradually acquired railways and holdings such as B. the Neustadt – Landau tram in the Palatinate. In the case of BBB, the acquisition of the majority of shares (95%) in the Württembergische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (WEG) in 1909 and 100% in the Continentalen Eisenbahn-Bau- und Betriebs-Gesellschaft (CEB) in 1914 was remarkable .
In 1922 DEAG acquired all BBB shares. A few years later, on January 1, 1928, it merged with what was then the most important private railway holding company in Germany, the AG for Transport (AGV). In the course of the reorganization of this group, the BBB was named Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft on June 4, 1929 and was now known as “DEGA”. By transferring the administrative tasks of the West German Railway Company in Cologne to the DEGA headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, AGV achieved considerable savings. In addition, the administrations of the Württembergische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and the Württembergischen Nebenbahnen AG were combined in Stuttgart; Here too, DEGA was now in charge of the overhead line.
In the years 1930/1931, DEGA operated a total of 24 railways with a route length of 450 kilometers, including the routes in Württemberg. In the years before the Second World War, DEGA was under - apart from the Württemberg branch lines - ten railways with a route length of 180 kilometers.
After the end of the war, AGV (since 1974 under the name AGIV ), which had lost a considerable part of its holdings in central and eastern Germany, transferred the management of the railways that remained to it in western Germany mainly to the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft January 1952 acted as a GmbH; in 1953 there were 22 tracks. In the period that followed, DEG also acted as the operator of foreign railways. In 1971 her area of responsibility had grown to include 13 AGV companies and 35 railways from other owners, a total of 613 kilometers of railway lines and 3,150 kilometers of bus routes.
The increasing restrictions on rail traffic on branch lines led DEG to a decline in 1983 to 11 AGIV companies and 4 third-party railways with a total of 333 km of routes. In addition, 21 companies were supported in sub-areas, e.g. B. by the provision of the top operations manager, as with the Bad Orber Kleinbahn , the Brohltal-Eisenbahn and the Kahlgrund-Verkehrs-GmbH .
The DEG soon traded as DEG-Verkehrs-GmbH (DEGV) and took on more and more consulting activities. However, when the privatization of the former federal railway lines in Germany began, it also took part in tenders for local rail services. In 1997, together with Bayerische Zugspitzbahn AG, it was awarded the contract for the Bayerische Oberlandbahn network .
This year, 60% of DEGV's shares were transferred to the French CGEA group (a predecessor company of the Transdev group ), 40% still held the Schwaben energy supply . From January 1, 2000, CGEA, which had been operating as Connex Verkehr since August 2000 and as Veolia Verkehr since 2006 , was a wholly-owned shareholder of DEGV. From January 1, 2003, their tasks were transferred to the various local railway and bus companies that had sprung up in all parts of Germany.
literature
- Peter Große: DEG: A centenarian on the road to success . In: Railway courier . No. 322 / Volume 33/1999. EK-Verlag, ISSN 0170-5288 , p. 24.
- Rolf Löttgers: Private railways in Germany: The German Railway Company 1960–1969 , Stuttgart 1983.