Frankfurt-Hanau Railway Company
The Frankfurt-Hanauer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft ( FHE for short ) is a former private railway company that was founded in 1844 for the purpose of building the main route from Frankfurt to Hanau .
In addition to the main route and its later extension to the Bavarian town of Kahl am Main , the FHE took over the management to Aschaffenburg and via the Frankfurt am Main municipal railway .
The FHE was taken over by the Hessian Ludwig Railway in 1872 .
history
founding
The Frankfurt-Hanauer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was founded on the initiative of the later consul Moritz von Bethmann and with the significant financial commitment of the banking houses Gebrüder Bethmann (Frankfurt) and Bernus du Fay (Hanau). On April 12, 1843, the company received a preliminary building permit from Kurhessen , which was converted into a state concession in 1844. The concession was important in order to be able to expropriate necessary land if necessary. The originally 16.4 kilometer long route lies on the right bank of the Main and was designed by Paul Camille von Denis . The construction work was largely the responsibility of the engineer Johann Peter Wilhelm Zobel (the old Hanau train station in Frankfurt was on Zobelstrasse, which is now named after him ). The construction of the railway started in October 1845 in the district of Dörnigheim (today: Maintal ). There were no topographical obstacles worth mentioning. The two only - long - curves are caused by the Fechenheimer Main bend and the connection to the excursion destination Wilhelmsbad . A larger bridge was only required over the Kinzig , just before the Hanau train station. Resistance to the building arose in Dörnigheim, whose district was divided by the railway, but which initially had no train station . Initially only one track was laid, but the route has already been prepared for two tracks. The stations on the route were equipped with an alternative for train crossings .
Start of operations and revolution
The route was opened to public transport on September 10, 1848 and was already used by 15,000 people on the first day, which led to chaotic scenes. The opening trip for invited guests had already taken place the day before, including members of the National Assembly meeting in Frankfurt and other celebrities, including the revolutionary August Schärttner . The Hanau train station was decorated with the black, red and gold flag . Just a week after the opening, the railway was involved in the revolutionary events: After a vote by the National Assembly on the Treaty of Malmö , on September 16, 1848, an attempted uprising by the radical democratic forces in Frankfurt took place. In order to prevent the Hanau democrats from arriving by train, Prussian troops dismantled rails at Mainkur.
The route ran from the Hanau train station in Frankfurt to today's Hanau West stop . It operated the traffic between the up-and-coming industrial city of Hanau and the important market in Frankfurt. Since the 17th century there has been regular traffic on this route with a market ship on the Main , whose course was abandoned after the railway opened.
Connection to the railway network
On July 22, 1854, the FHE extended the line by 8.9 kilometers to the Bavarian border and the subsequent section of the Ludwigs-Westbahn to Aschaffenburg was leased by the FHE from the Royal Bavarian State Railways . In the run-up to the construction, there was a government crisis in Hesse in 1852 because Elector Friedrich Wilhelm expected a bribe of 100,000 thalers from Bank Bernus du Fay, which was financing the expansion of the railway in the direction of Aschaffenburg , before he signed the corresponding concession. The leading minister, Ludwig Hassenpflug , then offered to resign, but the elector refused to resign.
From January 31, 1859, the FHE also ran the municipal connection line in Frankfurt am Main, which was in operation at that time , the connection between the Hanau train station and the Frankfurt West train stations . The main route of the FHE was connected for the first time with the other routes in Frankfurt.
Takeover by the Hessische Ludwigsbahn
The route network of the Hessische Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (HLB), based in the Grand Duchy of Hesse , extended from Mainz to Ludwigshafen, Aschaffenburg and Bingen at the beginning of the 1860s, and in early 1863 it opened the Mainbahn to Frankfurt. The HLB recognized the importance of the FHE routes for the expansion of the railway connections in the Rhine-Main area, particularly in the direction of the province of Upper Hesse , an exclave of the Grand Duchy, from the Rhine-Main area in the direction of Bavaria and through the Kinzig valley in the direction of Bebra . It had therefore tried to acquire the FHE as early as 1862, but the merger failed because of the objection of the state of Hesse . The HLB initially only took over the operational management of the FHE for the period from January 1, 1863 to December 31, 1872. After the annexation of Kurhessen in the German War in 1866, the FHE was finally merged into the HLB in 1872.
In 1873 the "Bebra-Hanauer Bahn" was built as the Frankfurt-Bebraer Eisenbahn . The route crossed that of the FHE extension to Kahl. To the south of the intersection, about one kilometer east of what was then the edge of the city's development, the Hanau Ost train station , now Hanau Hauptbahnhof , was built. This location, away from the city, was given by the location of the Main Bridge near Steinheim .
On February 1, 1897, the lines of the former FHE together with the HLB were taken over by the Prussian State Railway and placed under the Frankfurt Railway Directorate.
stretch
The Frankfurt-Hanauer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was responsible for the management of three routes, some of which were built by other companies or donors.
Frankfurt (East) - Hanau (West)
The Frankfurt – Hanau railway line was the company's eponymous main line. The company received the concession for the construction of the line from the Electorate of Hesse , over whose territory the line ran outside the urban area of the Free City of Frankfurt .
Construction of the line began in 1845 and opened three years later. This route was originally an island operation between the two terminal stations, the Hanau train station in Frankfurt (with the depot, replaced by the Ostbahnhof in 1913 ) and the Hanau train station (today the Hanau West stop ).
Hanau train station
The Hanau station in Frankfurt was three tracks, each with an outboard platform for incoming and outgoing trains and a centrally located platform to locomotives to the other end of the train rank to. The parking facilities for the vehicles and the FHE railway depot were also located in the Hanau train station .
The original Hanau station was replaced by today's Ostbahnhof (route kilometers 2.4) in 1913 . Opposite the position of the original train station, the new train station was located further to the south-east to enable the ascent curve to the Deutschherrnbrücke. The urban connecting railway and the urban port railway connect to the Ostbahnhof .
Mainkur train station
The name is derived from a former excursion business located there. The name for the station was chosen because the neighboring villages of Fechenheim and Enkheim could not agree on a station name. Until the end of the German War and the annexation of both the Free City of Frankfurt and the Electorate of Hesse by Prussia in 1866, the Mainkur station (today: Frankfurt-Mainkur ) was the Kurhessian border station on the state border between the two states with customs clearance .
Functionally, it is now the train station in the Fechenheim district of Frankfurt . The buildings date from the years 1913–1918. The train station is on the outskirts of Fechenheim. It is therefore intended to replace it with a “Fechenheim” stop during the construction of the Nordmainische S-Bahn , which would be about a kilometer further to the west.
Bischofsheim-Rumpenheim / Maintal West
The Rumpenheim stop was set up later and was not part of the original inventory from the opening time of the line. It was later renamed Bischofsheim-Rumpenheim . It is noteworthy that the eponymous place Rumpenheim - in contrast to its train station - is located south of the Main and the train station can only be reached via a ferry and a longer route. Rumpenheim is now incorporated into Offenbach am Main . The reason for naming the station after Rumpenheim was that Rumpenheim belonged to the Electoral Hesse state territory and there was a castle in which the Landgraves of Hessen-Rumpenheim , at that time a branch line of the ruling house in Electoral Hesse , were located well into the 20th century resided in it. Today: Maintal West .
Hochstadt-Dörnigheim / Maintal Ost
The Hochstadt-Dörnigheim station was set up later, but before 1858, and was not part of the original inventory from the opening time of the line. In 1858 it was called “Hochstadt”, at least since 1897 “Hochstadt-Dörnigheim”. Today: Maintal Ost .
Wilhelmsbad station
The station building of the Hanau Wilhelmsbad stop is one of the oldest that has been preserved in Hesse and is part of the original line from 1848. The architect was Julius Eugen Ruhl . It is now used for gastronomic purposes and can now be counted as part of the building ensemble of the neighboring former Wilhelmsbad health resort from the late 18th century. (Today: Hanau-Wilhelmsbad )
Hanau / Hanau West
The railway facilities of Hanau's first train station were in the western area of today's Hanau West stop , northwest of Philippsruher Allee , and the reception building east of the tracks, facing Hanau city center. With the construction of the underpass in the 1960s, today's stopping point that bridged the road was created. In the course of this work, the original reception building - essentially from the time it was built and also by Julius Eugen Ruhl - was demolished.
Hanau (West) - Aschaffenburg
From 1850, the trunk line was further built across Kurhessian territory north of the Main to the Bavarian border in Kahl am Main . There the line was connected to the Ludwigs-Westbahn of the Bavarian State Railways in 1854 .
The Bavarian State Railways transferred the operational management of their section between Kahl and Aschaffenburg to the Frankfurt-Hanauer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, which carried out rail traffic on the entire route between Frankfurt and Aschaffenburg.
Municipal connection line Frankfurt
To the west, Frankfurt had a supraregional connection to the railway network through the Taunus Railway , the Main-Neckar-Railway and the Main-Weser-Bahn , whose stations were connected with each other by tracks (see), a connection to the east was not planned. In 1856, the Hessian Ludwig Railway began building the Rhine-Main Railway , which was to create a continuous connection from Mainz via Darmstadt to Aschaffenburg across the territory of the Grand Duchy of Hesse .
The Free City of Frankfurt feared that with the completion of this line it would lose its central importance for rail traffic and decided to build a connecting line between the line via Hanau to Aschaffenburg and Frankfurt's western train stations in its own urban area . The connecting line, which at the same time also opened up the port of Frankfurt, was opened in 1859 and its management was in turn transferred to the Frankfurt-Hanauer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft.
Current state
Today the line has two tracks, electrified and is used for the long-distance connection between Frankfurt am Main and Munich . Today goods and people are transported there, both long-distance and local. In the area of the Frankfurt Ost train station - after the demolition of the central Frankfurt freight station - is the largest freight station in Frankfurt, which also includes a container station .
Planning
The main route of the Frankfurt-Hanau Railway corresponds to the route planned for the Nordmainische S-Bahn. Some overpasses that have been newly built in recent years and all planned high-rise buildings were and are therefore designed for four tracks.
vehicles
The passenger cars had a green base color, the metal parts were painted blue and black, the window frames and thresholds were brown. In the third grade they wore yellow, in the first and second grades they wore gold. The wall panels below the windows were also kept in these colors. The baggage cars and freight cars were also kept in the same green color.
literature
- Ludwig Brake: The first railways in Hesse . Railway policy and railway construction in Frankfurt, Hessen-Darmstadt, Kurhessen and Nassau. In: Publications of the Historical Commission for Nassau . tape 51 . Wiesbaden 1991, ISBN 3-922244-83-1 .
- Heinz Schomann : Railway in Hessen . Railway buildings and routes 1839–1939. In: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Cultural monuments in Hessen. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Three volumes in a slipcase. tape 2.1 . Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , p. 119 ff . (Route 007).
- Heinz Schomann : Railway in Hessen . Railway buildings and routes 1839–1939. In: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Cultural monuments in Hessen. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Three volumes in a slipcase. tape 2.1 . Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , p. 199 ff . (Route 011).
- Rüdiger Ham: Ludwig Hassenpflug: statesman and lawyer between revolution and reaction . A political biography. In: Studies on historical research in modern times . tape 50 . Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-2764-5 .
- Alexander Piesenecker: North Main Railway . In: City time . History magazine on the occasion of the 150 years of revolution and gymnastics movement Hanau 1848–1998. 1998, p. 197 ff .
- Reichsbahndirektion Frankfurt (Main): Guide over the lines of the district of the Reichsbahndirektion Frankfurt (Main) . Frankfurt 1926.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brake, p. 180.
- ↑ Piesenecker, pp. 200f.
- ↑ Ham, p. 385f with further references.
- ↑ Railway in Hessen, p. 126.
- ↑ See timetables when the line opened in 1848 and from 1858 - illustrated in: Piesenecker, pp. 199, 203.
- ↑ See timetables when the line opened in 1848 and from 1858 - illustrated in: Piesenecker, pp. 199, 203.
- ↑ Reichsbahndirektion, Führer, p. 20, states that before the Second World War it was planned not to lower the street but to lay the railway higher.
- ↑ Conditions for the delivery of passenger, luggage and goods wagons by the Frankfurt-Hanauer-Eisenbahngesellschaft. In: Wolfgang Diener: Painting and designation of motor coaches and passenger coaches . Fürstenfeldbruck 2014, ISBN 978-3-8375-1160-4 , pp. 209f. (Reproduction of the text from: Supplement to the organ for the progress of the railway system in technical terms , Issue 1, 1854)