Frankfurt local train

This article covers the Frankfurter Lokalbahn AG. It should not be confused with the Frankfurt-Offenbacher local railway that existed from 1847 to 1955 .

The Frankfurt local railway AG (FLAG), the operator of several tram - and narrow-gauge railway lines in the area of today's cities Frankfurt , Bad Homburg and Oberursel .

The FLAG was founded on April 5, 1888 in Frankfurt, initially as a holding company for local transport companies in the Frankfurt area. The sole shareholder from 1912 was Elektrizitäts-AG, formerly W. Lahmeyer & Co. On January 1, 1955, the Frankfurt City Tram took over the operation of the remaining FLAG lines. They have been part of the A-route of the Frankfurt U-Bahn since 1968 and are now used by the U2 and U3 lines. The company was dissolved in 1956.

The Eschersheim Local Railway

Frankfurt-Eschersheim steam tram
Opening as a horse-drawn tram on May 12, 1888
Route of the Eschersheimer local railway (orange)
Route length:	4.7 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Eschersheim Local Railway
Legend Eschenheimer Tor Direction Hauptwache (FTG / Line 11) Oeder Weg (from September 1, 1893 / September 10, 1900) Grüneburgweg Heinestrasse Vogtstrasse Deaconess Hospital (line 13) (from January 21, 1901) Affensteiner Weg Milchkur-Anstalt (alternative point) At the iron blow (City limits until December 31, 1909) Poultry farming (until 1904) Roseggerstrasse (from 1904) Sinai Red way (villa colony) Lindenstrasse Eschersheim car shed Thielenstraße (until February 29, 1908) White stone (from 1.3.1909) Main-Weser Railway Frankfurt-Eschersheim train station (from October 1, 1909) Maybach Bridge Heddernheim

The Eschersheim Local Railway in the last year of operation, 1908

Condition of the wagon hall in Eschersheim in December 2008

Since 1851 a horse-drawn bus has been running between Heddernheim and Eschenheimer Tor via Eschersheimer Landstrasse , which at that time was still an unpaved road . In 1877 the first Eschersheim stop was built on the Main-Weser Railway . Since 1886 the village of Eschersheim belonged to the district of Frankfurt . Gradual population growth and the economic upturn in the early years caused the volume of traffic to grow significantly. In 1887 the newly founded Frankfurter Localbahn Actien-Gesellschaft applied for the construction of a horse-drawn railway from Eschenheimer Tor to Eschersheim under its general director, the engineer Julius Kollmann.

On May 12, 1888, this first FLAG line was opened for passenger traffic . The single-track route began in front of the Eschenheimer Tor and led 4.7 km north over the Eschersheimer Landstrasse . It ended in front of the level crossing in Eschersheim at the level of Thielenstrasse. To the north of today's Holzhausenstrasse, apart from a few isolated houses, the street was vacant and little more than a dirt road. It was "fabulous bumpy and dusty, an abomination almost all passers-by, especially for the cyclists!" As the only alternative location was on the so-called Milchkur Institution in the amount of puppy meadow , just before the former Frankfurt city limits. Today the Miquelallee runs here .

The journey time on the partly steep and winding route was 45 minutes; it was an ordeal for the horses and often could only be mastered with a leader . As early as October 15, 1888, the local railway switched to steam operation and became the first steam tram in Frankfurt. Initially, the fleet consisted of a two-axle, clad tram locomotives with a surrounding platform and three two-axle passenger cars painted dark blue. The wagons were covered, but not glazed. One of the cars even had benches on the open upper deck. The passengers, however, sat unprotected from the weather and were exposed to the smoke of the locomotive.

The travel time of the steam tram was reduced to 24 minutes. Shortly after the opening of operations, the tracks and, above all, the switches on the line were in poor condition because they did not have a solid substructure , but were simply laid on the uneven road bed. The frequent derailments soon made it necessary to procure two more locomotives in order to be able to maintain line operations in the event of derailments. The fleet was expanded to include four four-axle deck seat wagons, three open four-axle summer wagons and a market wagon for transporting people and goods. Two horse-drawn tram cars were sold to Lübeck in 1889 .

Even so, the trains were often late and did not keep to the timetables, so that the Eschersheim workers were late for work. The bumpy, unreliable local train was soon simply called Knochemiehl in Frankfurt vernacular . On January 20, 1897, a Frankfurt newspaper mockingly wrote: “If we were to write that there was not a day at the Eschersheim local railway without an accident, we would undoubtedly be guilty of exaggeration. We are getting pretty close to the truth when we claim that recently almost not a week has passed without an accident on this route. "The management of the local railway reported the day before:" As a result of a broken axle, the machine derailed and fell into the Chausseegraben directly on the track. Traffic was maintained by changing trains, so that only three trains had to be canceled. A passenger standing on the platform behind the aircraft has a dislocated thumb. "

On another occasion the connecting rods of the buffers of two cars broke. “The cars separated and only after 50 meters did the car think about it and stop. Only then did the train crew notice that the third part of the train had been lost. "

The bad reputation and the unreliable operation of the Eschersheim local railway called the Frankfurt magistrate to the scene. The mayor Franz Adickes , who has been in office since the beginning of 1891, sought to localize the companies that operated local public transport in Frankfurt. Since September 1, 1903, a horse-drawn tram line operated by the Frankfurt tram company has also operated at Eschenheimer Tor , with the option of changing between the Eschersheimer local railway and the horse-drawn tram. On January 1, 1898, the Frankfurt tram company became the property of the city; it became the municipal tram , which from 1899 began to gradually electrify all routes. On September 9, 1900, the horse-drawn tram ceased operations at Eschenheimer Tor; one day later the electric tram line 11 took over the traffic between Bornheimer Landstraße / Berger Straße and Galluswarte .

The FLAG long resisted the takeover; instead, they modernized the vehicle fleet. In 1899 the company purchased a fourth locomotive and acquired three four-axle passenger cars from the Große Casseler Straßenbahn AG . The open summer wagons were given glass walls or were converted into closed wagons. In addition, Kollmann proposed his own expansion plans, including a connection from Eschersheim to the mountain railway from Oberursel to Hohemark, which opened in 1899, and a new double-track line from Eschersheim via Eckenheim , Preungesheim and the Heiligenstock to Bergen .

Adickes then let the Frankfurt Police Headquarters, as the competent licensing authority, know that the city could not tolerate any further private companies in urban local transport. The FLAG thus no longer had any growth opportunities in Frankfurt's local traffic and sold the Eschersheim Local Railway on January 1, 1901 for 500,000 marks to the city.

The city immediately had the tracks renewed on the entire route. The inner-city route from Eschenheimer Tor to the deaconess hospital on Holzhausenstrasse has been expanded to two tracks and electrified. From January 21, 1901, the new line 13 ran here together with the steam train via Schillerstraße and Hauptwache to the main station . Two additional passing points were built on the Eschersheim district. In 1904, the Geflügelmästerei stop on today's Liliencronstraße was moved north to Roseggerstraße at the height of today's Fritz-Tarnow-Straße underground station.

The further expansion and electrification of the railway dragged on because the municipality of Eschersheim did not want to participate in the expansion. In 1906 the city estimated the cost of the conversion to electrical operation at 345,000 marks and for the extension to Heddernheim at 995,000 marks. It was not until January 1, 1910, when the district was to be dissolved and incorporated into Frankfurt, that the negotiations began to move. On February 29, 1908, the steam tram ran for the last time. On March 1, 1908, the new urban tram line 23 took over electrical operation between the Schauspielhaus and Weißer Stein . The last section of the route down to Eschersheim has not been used since then because the route to the north was to be extended in the direction of Heddernheim, which was also incorporated on January 1, 1910.

The terrain proved to be a considerable obstacle for this. The northern Niddaufer in Eschersheim is a steep slope at the foot of which the railway runs. So two bridges had to be built, one over the railway and one over the Nidda, for the tram, as well as a dam to overcome the difference in height between Eschersheim and Heddernheim. The extended line to Heddernheim only went into operation on October 1, 1909.

The locomotives and wagons of the Eschersheimer local railway were handed over to the Frankfurter Waldbahn after the steam operation had ceased. The Eschersheimer Linie depot in Eschersheimer Landstrasse 552 near the northern terminus at the time was used for the 26 electric trams until 1967. Since then it has been standing in a backyard unnoticed. As it is not a listed building, the city plans to demolish the building for an extension to the drawing school .

The Oberursel – Hohemark mountain railway

Motor factory bus shelter

In the meantime, the FLAG had opened the Bad Homburg vor der Höhe electric tram in July 1899 as further sections of the planned connection from Frankfurt to the Taunus , and a steam-powered small train within Oberursel in October 1899 . This began at the Homburger Bahn station , today 's Oberursel S-Bahn station , where there were rail connections for goods traffic , and ran for 4.5 km to the terminus at Hohemark im Taunus. For the company in Oberursel, Hagans bought two B n2t tank locomotives , No. 1 “Oberursel” and No. 2 “Hohemark”. Two Henschel tram locomotives were sold on as early as 1908. After electrification, the two tank locomotives took over freight transport on the Taunusbahnen. Locomotive no. 1 retired in 1960 as a spare parts donor; Locomotive 2 was used until 1964 and is now in the Frankfurt Transport Museum in Frankfurt-Schwanheim .

Over the course of time, 22 open and covered freight wagons were procured for freight transport. An electric freight railcar was added later. Five closed and one open four-axle wagons were used for passenger traffic. They were decommissioned after electrification in 1910.

The routes to Bad Homburg and Oberursel

It took more than ten years to close the gap between the Frankfurt tram , which was now going beyond Eschersheim to Heddernheim , and the mountain railway in Oberursel, which was planned from the beginning . The Homburg tram , which opened in 1899 , was also connected to the Frankfurt network. The two regional trams of the FLAG were opened from Heddernheim on May 4, 1910 to Bad Homburg (line 25) and on May 31, 1910 to Oberursel (line 24). They were not licensed as a tram, but as a small railway similar to that of a branch line . But they were operated with electric trams.

The FLAG and the city tram signed a contract for joint operation and integration into the Frankfurt route network. The routes from the two Taunus cities to Heddernheim were operated by the FLAG. From there the trains drove on the city tram to the terminus at the Schauspielhaus , today's Willy-Brandt-Platz . Both companies provided a number of trains according to their share of the car kilometers. The seven Frankfurt class V railcars were supplied by Waggonfabrik Uerdingen and Siemens , the 18, largely identical, FLAG wagons by Herbrand and AEG . The same manufacturers also supplied 12 sidecars of the v series to the city trams and 21 sidecars to the FLAG. The V series had 24 seats and 34 standing places with an empty weight of 16.3  t . It had a larger wheelbase and a higher drive power of 2 × 85 hp than the other Frankfurt trams. Another special feature of the suburban trains was a compressed air brake , which enabled otherwise unusual train compositions up to four-part trains.

In Bad Homburg, the FLAG used the tracks of the local tram to the terminus on the market square. The city tram cars were stationed in Heddernheim. In 1910 the FLAG built a depot for its trains in Bommersheim near Oberursel with a four-track wagon hall , which is now used by the Frankfurt U-Bahn . In Bad Homburg the FLAG expanded the depot of the Homburg tram in Höhestraße.

The routes were used for commuter and excursion traffic for passengers and (until 1983) for freight traffic . The main customers were the Motorenfabrik Oberursel and the Heddernheimer Kupferwerke , which, as a copper and aluminum factory with an affiliated production of aircraft engines, delivered significant freight volumes , especially during the Second World War . Beets were also transported from Nieder- and Ober-Eschbach via the state train station in Oberursel.

Low-floor - sidecar of FLAG, built in 1923 by the DÜWAG

A 1923 erbauter low-floor - Sidecar in 1924 by the DÜWAG delivered to the FLAG. This vehicle, unique at the time, was intended to generate new orders from the manufacturer's point of view, but remained a one-off. It was in operation until December 31, 1954. It was decommissioned because the BOStrab stipulated the new rail brakes at the time , but the new bogies required for this would have been too expensive. The vehicle is now in the Frankfurt Transport Museum.

The end of the Frankfurt local train

On July 31, 1935, the Bad Homburg tram was shut down. The line to Saalburg , which connects to the FLAG at the market square , has been replaced by a bus. The FLAG continued to use the double-track Rondell - Markt (1.43 km) (- Depot) of the Homburg tram in Homburger Louisenstraße . The FLAG has been operating a bus route in the Hochtaunus region from Hohemark to Schmitten since 1925 . From 1950 to 1954 the FLAG also operated an express bus line (with red buses) from Frankfurt - Bad Homburg on the motorway next to the "blue" line of Schnellbus-Braun KG.

Due to Article 41 of the Socialization Article 41 of the Constitution of the State of Hesse , the city of Frankfurt took over the FLAG on January 1, 1955 for 4.8 million DM . The corporation was dissolved in 1956. The city tram took over the operation of the lines from Heddernheim to Oberursel-Hohemark and Bad Homburg, now called Taunusbahnen of the city of Frankfurt . They have been part of the A-route of the Frankfurt U-Bahn since 1968 .

literature

• Dieter Höltge, Günter H. Köhler: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany . 2nd Edition. 1: Hessen. EK-Verlag , Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-335-9 (contains a complete list of vehicles).
• Horst Michelke, Claude Jeanmaire: One hundred years of Frankfurt trams: 1872 - 1899 - 1972 = Tramways of Frankfurt am Main (Western Germany) . 1st edition. Villigen AG: Verlag Eisenbahn, book publisher for railway and tramway literature, Brugg / Switzerland 1972, ISBN 3-85649-018-3 .
• Walter Söhnlein, Jürgen Leindecker: The Frankfurter Lokalbahn and its electric Taunus-Bahnen . GeraMond Verlag , Munich 2000, ISBN 3-932785-04-5 .
• Walter Söhnlein, Gerta Walsh: Clear the way! - Railways in the Taunus 1860–1910–2010 . Societäts Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-7973-1223-5 .
• Anton Wiedenbauer, Hans-Jürgen Hoyer: Driving into the future - The history of the Frankfurt tram . Waldemar Kramer publishing house , Frankfurt am Main 1968.

Web links

Commons : Frankfurter Lokalbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Early documents and newspaper articles on the Frankfurt local railway in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Walter Gerteis: The unknown Frankfurt. Third series , Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1964, ISBN 3-92034607-6 , p. 122
2. ^ ^{A b} Jörg R. Köhler: Urban development and urban policy in the Wilhelminian Frankfurt. A social history (=  studies on Frankfurt history . Volume 37 ). Waldemar Kramer , Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-7829-0457-5 , p. 240 .
3. ↑ Historical city and transport network maps on the tramfan-ffm.de website, accessed on July 11, 2020
4. ↑ Statement of the magistrate: Template ST 450: Condition of the Eschersheim car shed. (PDF) In: stvv.frankfurt.de. City of Frankfurt am Main, February 22, 2019, accessed on July 12, 2020 .