Donnersbergbahn

Alzey-Marnheim
Route number (DB) :	3322 (Marnheim – state border) 3523 (state border – Alzey)
Course book section (DB) :	661 (2017)
Route length:	20.5 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	C4
Maximum slope :	13.5  ‰
Minimum radius :	300 m
Top speed:	100 km / h
Legend Route to Mainz Rheinhessenbahn from Bingen 8,974 Alzey Rheinhessenbahn to Worms 7,902 EIU limit DB / RPE 7.8 Alzey West 4.115 Wahlheim (district of Alzey) 2.8 Freimersheim 0.000 25.729 former national border 24.4 Morschheim (formerly Pbf) 20.9 Awanst Basalt AG 20.3 Kirchheimbolanden 19,548 Kirchheimbolanden (old Bf) 15,862 Awning Viaduct Zellertalbahn from Monsheim 14.136 Marnheim Zellertalbahn to Langmeil

Awning Viaduct

Marnheim station , early 20th century

Donnersbergbahn shortly before Kirchheimbolanden

The Selztaler trains used earlier ...

... and Elwetritsche in Alzeyer Bahnhof (2009)

The Donnersbergbahn is a branch line from Alzey to Kirchheimbolanden , which originally ran to Marnheim . She participated as part of the highway Kaiserslautern - Mainz a main track , it was blowing up the Pfrimmtalviaduktes interrupted in 1945 during the Second World War between Kirchheimbolanden and Marnheim. Plans to re-establish the connection by means of re-routing failed. Passenger traffic on the remnant section initially ended in 1951, but was reactivated in 1999.

designation

The route got its name because it opens up the eastern catchment area of ​​the Donnersberg along its entire length and this is always within sight along its entire length. The latter also applies to the continuation to Langmeil , which was operationally assigned to the Zellertal Railway after the Second World War .

Route

The Donnersbergbahn begins in Alzey station on the Rheinhessenbahn . Shortly after leaving it to the left, she reaches the newly established Alzey West stop . Then the places Wahlheim and Freimersheim are passed as well as the former border between Hesse and the Palatinate, which belonged to Bavaria until 1945.

Shortly afterwards, it passes through the Morschheim depot , which, due to its long distance from the town of the same name, was not reactivated after it was restarted for passenger traffic in 1999. Basalt AG loading tracks are three and a half kilometers further before the Donnersbergbahn ends on the northern outskirts of Kirchheimbolanden.

The section to the former Kirchheimbolanden train station , which was located much closer to the city center, has now been dismantled, as has the continuation to Marnheim. Using the 1945 blasted Pfrimmtalviadukts she crossed the corresponding river valley and the Zeller Valley Railway to get together with these the Marnheim station to reach.

From Alzey to Freimersheim the route is in the Alzey-Worms district , from Morschheim - including the dismantled Kirchheimbolanden – Marnheim section - the Donnersbergkreis is crossed.

history

Planning, construction, opening and subsequent period (1840–1945)

The first plans for a railway line in the immediate catchment area of ​​the Donnersberg as part of a mainline Mainz – Saarbrücken – France go back to the 1840s. The model for this was an old Kaiserstrasse, the course of which it should roughly orientate itself on. However, the realization of the route was delayed due to several factors: For example, the Rheinhessen railway network came under Prussian administration after the German War . In addition, the war meant that the necessary money to finance the railway construction was not available. The border to the Palatinate , which at that time belonged to Bavaria, was also crossed along the planned route . The latter also required a state treaty. There was also disagreement about whether the state should take over the financing or whether this should be done privately. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and 1871, in which the railroad first played an important role, there was a greater interest in so-called “strategic railroad lines”, especially in southwest Germany, in the course of which the construction of a line in the catchment area of ​​the Donnersberg was decided. The largest engineering structure along the route was the so-called Pfrimm Valley Viaduct , which widely crosses the Pfrimm Valley between Kirchheimbolanden and Marnheim.

The section from Alzey to Kirchheimbolanden (then: Kirchheim-Bolanden) was opened in January 1874, the continuation to Marnheim followed six months later on July 18, 1874. In the following period, the Donnersbergbahn developed into a part of the long-distance traffic line Kaiserslautern-Mainz.

On February 10, 1914, “when darkness fell” between Alzey and Wahlheim, new “double light pre-signals ” were put into operation, which corresponded to the model of the form signal that is still in use today .

Shutdown (1945–1995)

On March 20, 1945 at three in the morning, the 220-meter-long Pfrim Valley Viaduct near Marnheim was blown up. After the war there were some efforts to rebuild the viaduct, but this failed because of the costs. A new route without a viaduct was also considered, bypassing Marnheim and affecting the towns of Weierhof and Bolanden. Although this variant would have cost less than half the cost of rebuilding the bridge, it was discarded. In addition, the railway had switched to buses.

Since a bus line was initially set up as a replacement between Marnheim and Kirchheimbolanden and this was extended to Alzey at the request of the two towns, the number of passengers fell significantly on the remaining section of the railway line due to the parallel traffic. Therefore, on May 20, 1951, the remaining stretch between Alzey and Kirchheimbolanden was closed for passenger traffic. Freight traffic lasted for more than four decades. It was only discontinued on January 1, 1995.

reactivation

In the course of the Rhineland-Palatinate cycle , the line was reactivated on May 29, 1999 by the private infrastructure company RP-Eisenbahn GmbH . On the one hand, this required the purchase of the railway line from DB Netz AG, as well as track renewal and further reconstruction work. Since then, the route has been served by the eurobahn as part of this local transport concept. Since the expected demand on the railway line was classified as rather low, the restart should initially only take a year. Contrary to expectations, however, the number of passengers developed positively, so that the Donnersbergbahn was already included in the regular service of the Rhineland-Palatinate cycle in 2000.

After the reactivation, the former Kirchheimbolanden station could no longer be approached because the railway line in this area had meanwhile been built over. Instead, the city was given a new stop north of the settlement area, which has since been the southern end of the route and was only provisionally prepared in the first few years. Until the beginning of 2007, the operator was the Franco-German Rhenus Keolis GmbH & Co. KG . In the course of the division of the company, it went to Rhenus Veniro GmbH & Co. KG .

In 2006 the parking lot of a new shopping center was built in front of the former reception building of the Kirchheimbolanden train station. The new terminus of the Donnersbergbahn is approx. 800 m further north, at the castle garden, at a greater distance from the town center. The approximately ten meter high embankment between the new terminus and the train station still exists and is overgrown with bushes and trees. There are no longer any rails on it.

The route is operated in train control. In 2014, the line's top speed was increased to 100 km / h.

present

Vlexx train in Kirchheimbolanden station (2016)

Since the timetable change in December 2014, Vlexx , a subsidiary of the Regentalbahn of the Netinera group , has taken over train services on the Donnersbergbahn. Since then, the trains have been running to Mainz Hbf and to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf during rush hour.

business

Infrastructure

The line is single-track. Many culverts and bridges, however, show that efforts were made to build a second track, but these were never realized. Train crossings are only possible in the only train station on the route, in Morschheim. A traffic stop for passenger trains is no longer provided in this station, however, as the associated location is far away from the railway line and the number of passengers is too low. The station buildings of Kirchheimbolanden and Marnheim as well as the Pfrim Valley Viaduct are also listed.

Timetable

The trains run from Kirchheimbolanden via Alzey to Mainz Hbf every hour with a change of frequency at lunchtime. The travel time of the RE is around an hour, the RB takes around eight to ten minutes longer. The journey time to Alzey is 16 minutes. Depending on the time of day, there are sometimes short change options in the direction of Worms and Bingen via the Rheinhessenbahn. The route can be found in the course book under number 661.

Rates

The tariffs of the Rhein-Neckar transport association (VRN) and the Rhine-Nahe local transport association (RNN) apply along the route . Vlexx GmbH's in- house tariff applies to trips beyond the boundaries of the association , since Vlexx is a member of the tariff association of the federal and non-federal railways in Germany (TBNE), the Vlexx tickets also correspond to the local transport tariff of Deutsche Bahn AG . The valid state tickets for Rhineland-Palatinate, the Rhineland-Palatinate Ticket and the Rhineland-Palatinate Ticket + LUX (including Luxembourg ), are also valid on the trains of the Donnersbergbahn, as is the Quer-Durch-Land-Ticket .

vehicles

In the first years of operation after reactivation, traffic was initially handled with two DWA LVT / S diesel multiple units . Then the thunder mountain railway sailed railcar of the type Regio-Shuttle RS1 , of Adtranz (now Stadler ). The two railcars were named Elwetritsche and Selztaler in a competition in which names were sought for the cars . The railcars had the designations VT 1.01 and 1.02, both were built in 2000 and could be rented from Rhenus Veniro .

Since December 2014, vlexx GmbH has been using Coradia LINT 54 vehicles as a two-part diesel multiple unit with 162 seats.

literature

• Klaus D. Holzborn : Railway areas Palatinate . transpress, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-344-70790-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Route data
2. ↑ ^{a b} Holzborn, p. 35.
3. ↑ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Journal of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of January 24, 1914, No. 5. Announcement No. 50, p. 33.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Holzborn, p. 32.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Holzborn, p. 33.
6. ↑ Network Conditions of Use
7. ↑ Alzey-Kirchheimbolanden. RP Eisenbahn GmbH, accessed on February 11, 2017 . 
8. ^ Vlexx: Vehicles - Coradia Lint. In: Vehicles - Coradia Lint. Retrieved March 4, 2016 . 

Web links

Commons : Donnersbergbahn  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Site of the RP-Eisenbahn, infrastructure operator of the Donnersbergbahn