Trackless railway Heilbronn – Böckingen
| Trackless railway Heilbronn – Böckingen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 5.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Gleislose Bahn Heilbronn – Böckingen was a trolleybus operation that existed from 1911 to 1916 - at that time still called Gleislose Bahn - in Württemberg . It connected the former imperial city of Heilbronn with the Böckingen district, which was independent until 1933 .
prehistory
As early as 1848 Heilbronn received a connection to the network of the Royal Württemberg State Railways with the Württemberg Northern Railway . Initially, Böckingen, two kilometers to the south-west, was not connected; the Böckingen stop was only opened in 1901. However, even after 1901, the state railway was only able to meet the local transport needs between the two places to a limited extent. On the one hand, the trains ran comparatively seldom; on the other hand, both the new Böckingen station and Heilbronn train station were unfavorable to the respective town center. This was particularly noticeable in the course of industrialization , when Böckingen developed into a typical workers' community.
To improve the situation, an omnibus line was set up between Heilbronn and Böckingen in August 1905 , but this had to be discontinued after five months due to unsuccessfulness. It revived in December 1909, but in April 1910 it had to stop operating again.
history
In order to permanently improve the transport connections to Böckingen, the Gleislose Bahn Heilbronn – Böckingen GmbH was founded in Böckingen in 1910 , with a capital contribution of 150,000 marks . As early as January 16, 1911, it was able to start operating trolleybuses between the Heilbronn Neckar Bridge - today's Friedrich-Ebert Bridge - and Böckingen. The route was covered on two different routes - once over the sun fountain and once over the Böckinger meadows . In fact, it was a ring line that was used in both directions. They drove every five or ten minutes, and together the four cars covered 1,100 kilometers a day. The Heilbronn terminus was at the western bridgehead of the Neckar Bridge in front of the then Neckar Hotel . The Neckar itself was therefore not crossed. The commercial and operational management of the Böckinger trolleybus was transferred to Heilbronner Straßenbahn AG , which had been in existence since 1897 .
However, the trackless railway ended on October 31, 1916, so it was not much more successful than its predecessor bus routes. On the one hand, the connection was not accepted sufficiently by the passengers, in particular many complained about the deep potholes. On the other hand, the wagons were requisitioned for military purposes, the copper overhead line was demolished in 1916 and supplied to the armaments industry as a raw material essential to the war effort . In the end, however, the operation was already very limited, in the last year of operation the trackless railway only ran during the three rush hours in the morning, at noon and in the evening, and then only every 30 to 40 minutes.
It took until 1926 until a tram line from Heilbronn to Böckingen was set up. From September 20, 1951 to December 30, 1960, there was again a trolleybus operation in Heilbronn , which in turn replaced the tram.
Infrastructure and vehicles
The Mercédès-Électrique-Stoll system was used on the Gleislose Bahn Heilbronn – Böckingen , and - as is common with this system - vehicles with wheel hub motors were used . A total of four cars were available, they each had two engines, which acted on the rear axle - each made 20 horsepower.
A special technical feature was the only 3.77 meter high railway underpass a little west of the Heilbronn train station, where the overhead line had to be installed particularly deep. The second railway underpass in Böckingen was only slightly higher. Another specialty was the "overhead line safety suspension" in the area of the level crossing with the Kraichgaubahn , that is, in the course of the Ludwigsburger Strasse level crossing that still exists today.
At the final stop at Neckarbrücke there was a so-called four - wire end loop (the term four-wire system was normally used to describe two-track routes), which means that the overhead line coming from the direction of the train station was split up using an air switch. Otherwise, all sections of the trackless railway were completely single-track. If two cars met, they had to stop briefly - likewise typical of the Mercédès-Électrique-Stoll system - and exchange the leads to the contact carts. They then drove on with the pantograph of the oncoming car.
literature
- Gottfried Bauer: Harmony please! Local traffic in Heilbronn the day before yesterday - yesterday - today . Druckhaus Münster, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-85649-055-8 . Pages 40-47
- Helmut Schmolz, Hubert Weckbach: Heilbronn with Böckingen, Neckargartach, Sontheim. The old city in words and pictures . (Volume 1.) Konrad, Weißenhorn 1966 ( Publications of the Archives of the City of Heilbronn Volume 14). Number 63: The Böckingen “Gleislose Straßenbahn” (trackless tram) at the Neckarbrücke terminus between 1911 and 1914 . Pages 49-50
Web links
- Historic advertising brochure from the year it was opened
- Separate print from No. 6 of the Allgemeine Automobil-Zeitung , Vienna, from February 5, 1911
