Roth – Greding railway line

Roth – Greding
Route number (DB) :	5944
Course book section (DB) :	911 (Roth-Hilpoltstein)
Route length:	39.2 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	27  ‰
Minimum radius :	180 m
Top speed:	60 km / h
Legend from Nürnberg Hbf (S-Bahn) from Nürnberg Hbf (long-distance train) 0.000 Roth 341 m to Treuchtlingen Rednitz 1.050 Anst Bayka (until 1987) 1.523 Lohgarten- Roth (formerly Bf) Bundesstrasse 2 4.400 Hofstetten Instead of Lena 6.075 Eckersmühlen (formerly Bf) 8.100 Loosing mill 10.973 Hilpoltstein (formerly Bf) 382 m 11.900 Anst Klingele Papierwerke (from 1960) 11.950 Anst Raiffeisenmarkt (from 1968) 14.500 Unterrödel 17.300 Heideck 20.100 Zell (Roth) 21.900 Eysölden 24.200 Alfershausen Anst Raiffeisenmarkt (until 1986) 27.400 Thalmassing Instead of Baywa 30.400 Göllersreuth 33.600 Höbing 35.200 Gunzenhofen 36.400 Hausen (b Greding) Federal motorway 9 39.200 Greding Swell:

The Roth – Greding railway is a branch line in Bavaria . It branches off the Treuchtlingen – Nuremberg railway line in Roth and leads via Hilpoltstein to Greding . Only the 11 km long route to Hilpoltstein is in operation today; the rest of the route has been closed since 1972.

history

Construction and opening

The first alignment was carried out by a project commission in October / November 1883.

The construction of the line was laid down in Section 68 of the Local Railway Act passed on April 7, 1884 by the Bavarian State Parliament and the Reichsratskammer . The planned construction costs amounted to 1.915 million gold marks (48,600 marks per kilometer). 1.754 million of this was raised from state funds, the remainder from funds from the Roth, Hilpoltstein and Greding districts.

The excavation work and the foundation was in six lots tendered . The first three lots (between Roth and Selingstadt) were awarded in a public tender on August 26, 1886. The builder Johann Huber from Gunzenhausen was able to prevail out of 17 applicants in all lots with a discount of 10.5% on the advertised prices. Work on earthworks and artificial structures will begin in September and will be completed in December of the same year.

The rest of the route (between Selingstadt and Greding) will be advertised on December 16. Huber wins two more tickets, between Selingstadt and Kleinhöbing, the rest of the route is made by Messrs. Grieshammer and Landfritz. On March 8, 1887, a locomotive ran for the first time in the urban area of ​​Roth. A construction train with three cars transports sleepers and rails. The tracks to Hilpoltstein lie in. In the same month, the building construction is awarded to numerous local craft businesses. At the end of April 1887, a Germanic burial ground from the Merovingian era was cut south of Thalmässing , twenty graves were opened and weapons and jewelry were recovered. In May 1887 the rails were laid to Heideck and in July to Eysölden. On August 11, 1887, a train reached Thalmässing for the first time.

On September 15, 1887, the material train first reached the final station in Greding . On September 19, two type D VII locomotives arrived, the first test run took place on October 22, 1887, and from October 25 a trial run of several months with two daily train pairs took place. The price for a return trip between Greding and Hilpoltstein was two marks - about a day's wage - and the journey time on the 39 km long local train was between 135 and 150 minutes. The trains were very popular - numerous overcrowded journeys are recorded. With the exception of one line to Freystadt , stagecoach traffic was stopped at the end of October 1887.

The official opening took place on June 1, 1888 with three daily train pairs. Two new locomotives of the same series, each with four freight and passenger cars, served a total of nine stations (with a station building) and seven stops (marked by boards). In the following timetable periods, sometimes two, sometimes three daily train pairs were offered, at times also three on individual weekdays.

The route was very popular and produced the tongue twister “The Gretel went to Greding with the Gredl”.

When today's Federal Motorway 9 was built in 1935, a bridge was built between Greding and Hausen across the route and the route was adapted for this purpose. When the hard shoulder was built in 1970, the bridge was widened, only to be destroyed two years later when the route was dismantled.

Partial shutdown, modernization

On May 28, 1972, the traffic on the 12 kilometer long section Thalmässing - Greding was stopped, although the bridge of the route near Hausen was widened before the construction of the hard shoulder of the federal motorway A9 . On September 29, 1974 the passenger train service on the 16 kilometer long section Thalmässing - Hilpoltstein was stopped. Freight trains, on the other hand, continued to use the route section. In the following years there were also occasional steam train trips . The last steam train in the Heideck – Thalmässing section ran in September 1998. Freight traffic between Hilpoltstein and Thalmässing ended on January 1, 1998. On September 30, 1999, the Hilpoltstein – Thalmässing section was closed.

At the end of June 1995, Bavaria's Minister of Economic and Social Affairs, Otto Wiesheu, announced that the transport services would be included in the “ Integral Timetable Bavaria ” in the course of regionalization and that weekend operations would be resumed. A feared attitude is thus off the table. A reactivation of further sections of the route for passenger traffic, for example to Thalmässing, was considered. In autumn 1997, Deutsche Bahn announced that from 1998 there would no longer be any special train journeys between Roth and Thalmässing and justified this with the poor condition of the line.

Between 1989 and the beginning of 1999, 20 accidents with 2 fatalities and 15 injuries were counted at the five level crossings in Roth.

End of the line at the modernized Hilpoltstein station (2007)

Negotiations between the DB and the district about the sale of the disused route section between Hilpoltstein and Thalmässing stagnated in 1999. The DB demanded 3 DM per square meter for the 170,000 square meters. Plus the costs for the dismantling, the price of 870,000 DM exceeded the expectations of the prospective buyers. Some of the 29 diesel multiple units of the 642 series purchased by DB Regio Nordbayern and delivered from 2000 onwards are used on the route. In 2001, special steam trains ran again for the first time on the route that was now shortened to Hilpoltstein.

In the meantime, all traffic between Greding and Hilpoltstein has ceased and the route there dismantled. Between September 2005 and July 2006, a cycle path was built on the former track planum , initially 16.2 kilometers in length, which is now around 30 kilometers long. The planned construction costs were around 1.5 million euros. The Lohgarten-Roth and Hilpoltstein stations have been modernized and equipped with level platforms and shelters.

In the course of construction work in August 2010, the entire track bed between Eckersmühlen and Hilpoltstein was rehabilitated, and Hilpoltstein station was dismantled to a stopping point . In 2011 the track was changed over a length of 3.4 km between Eckersmühlen and shortly before Roth.

Todays use

Today (2020) vehicles of the 642 series (“Desiro”) are used on the remnant . On weekdays there is a one-hour cycle between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. During rush hour, individual trains run differently in order to be able to carry more passengers (in the morning) or to wait for schools to finish (noon / afternoon). At the weekend there is a two-hour cycle between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., which is briefly compressed to an hourly cycle on Saturday mornings.

The possible effects of passenger relocations on the Allersberg (Rothsee) station, which opened in December 2006, were initially unclear. The traffic management contract for the route initially ran until 2013. According to information from 2007, the extent to which operations will be maintained after that also depended on the acceptance of the new Allersberg station. After Allersberg station had been in operation for a year, DB Regio put the decrease in passengers on the Roth – Hilpoltstein route at 2.6 percent year-on-year.

In 2017, 1050 passengers were counted on the route every working day (Mon-Fri).

On May 1, 2017, the Gredl-Express (line 636) was set up, which is supposed to run on Sundays and public holidays from Hilpoltstein via Thalmässing to Greding. Some of the journeys should have a connection to or from Gredl. The district and the three municipalities each bear half of the deficit from the three-year transport contract, 38,000 euros minus the fare income.

For the small timetable change on June 9, 2019, two additional departures per week, Fridays and Sundays at 10 p.m. from Roth, were introduced.

Due to a lack of train drivers, also due to the need for additional staff at other regional construction sites, operations on the line were suspended from August 5 to September 9, 2019. Operations had already been temporarily suspended in July 2019 due to a lack of staff.

outlook

In September 2013, the traffic management contract was extended by ten years to December 31, 2023. As part of the 2015 tender of the Nuremberg diesel network, which includes the operation of the route, consideration is being given to taking better account of the needs of school traffic, closing gaps in intervals, creating a uniform offer for evening traffic and better tapping tourist potential.

In mid-December 2015, the Bavarian Railway Company announced that it wanted to re-assign the transports in the Nuremberg diesel network to DB Regio. The formal award should take place on January 4th, 2016. The contract was finally signed on June 14, 2016. With the commissioning planned for June 9, 2019, the Roth – Hilpoltstein line is to be integrated. From December 2021, hourly intervals will also be offered on the weekend on the route.

The contract runs until June 2031. In the course of the tender, a person-operated sales point in Roth (with at least 45 opening hours per week) and Hilpoltstein (at least 35 opening hours per week) was required. The vehicles are to be subjected to a "redesign" before they start operating. Among other things, a new passenger information system, automatic passenger counting systems, new luggage racks as well as ticket machines and ticket validators on the train are planned.

In the 3rd expert draft of the Deutschland-Takt a three-minute transition from and to the S-Bahn, quarter-hour transitions to regional traffic from / to Nuremberg and five-minute turning times in Hilpoltstein are provided for in Roth station.

Citizens are campaigning to electrify the route by the expiry of the transport contract and to extend the Nuremberg S-Bahn from Roth to Hilpoltstein. As part of a feasibility study , the superstructure, electrification, level crossings as well as the renovation and expansion of train stations were to be examined. The cities of Roth and Hilpoltstein as well as the district should each cover a third of the costs of 30,000 euros.

The study, which became publicly known in August 2020, developed five variants:

• Variant 1: Improvement of travel time by removing and technically securing level crossings. At a cost of 6.2 million euros, the speed (with electrification) is to be increased from 60 to 80 km / h and the connections in Roth are to be improved.
• Variant 2A: 30-minute intervals without speeding up the route. With an additional vehicle and a crossing station in Eckersmühlen, additional connections are achieved. To this end, 2.5 million euros have to be invested in the infrastructure and 5 million euros in an additional vehicle.
• Variant 2B: 30-minute intervals with route acceleration. Additional connections are made in Roth at a total cost of EUR 8.7 million (infrastructure and vehicle).
• Variant 3A: Hourly connection of an S-Bahn to Hilpoltstein, with the station building in Roth being demolished, at a total cost of 22.6 million euros, of which 9.9 million euros for electrification. In this variant, no additional vehicles are required-
• Option 3B: Connection of all S-Bahn trains to Hilpoltstein, thus every 20 minutes with a travel time of 44 minutes between Hilpoltstein and Nuremberg main station. The costs for this amount to 24.1 million euros. The annual operating costs would rise from 2.2 to 3.2 million euros per year, the number of passengers could thus be doubled. Even an hourly S-Bahn connection would justify the electrification of the route, according to the study.

From the point of view of the study, any costs incurred for medium-term bridge renovations (9 million euros), the construction of an electronic interlocking in Roth and the barrier-free expansion and extension of platforms are not included in the above costs.

An accompanying potential analysis by the VGN expects 1270 passengers per day in the case of an S-Bahn extension alone within Roth, since the city center can be better reached via Lohgarten.

Three level crossings on the line are to be refurbished, ten technically secured and five more abandoned.

Deutsche Bahn would be very positive about the expansion, while VGN and BEG are skeptical due to the low number of passengers.

Route description

The line leaves Roth train station in a south-easterly direction, crosses the Rednitz- Aue and reaches the Lohgarten-Roth stop. On the outskirts of Roth, the route reaches a parallel position to the state road 2220 , crosses under the federal road 2 and rises with a gradient of up to 27 per thousand. The route passes Hofstetten and reaches the Eckersmühlen stop. The route leaves the parallel position to the St 2220 and crosses the Roth and finally leads through the Höglach forest before reaching Hilpoltstein.

Most of the route is passable at 60 km / h. In Roth, the maximum speed is usually 50 km / h, in the area of ​​Roth train station and the Hilpoltstein and Eckersmühlen stops at 30 km / h. The level crossings in Roth are technically secured with warning lights and mostly with barriers, the other level crossings are not technically secured, approaching trains are mostly announced by whistles.

• 

  Hilpoltstein station in 2004

• 

  Former loading track at Hilpoltstein station (now closed)

• 

  Railway embankment and remains of the bridge over the Gänsbach in the Hilpoltstein city park (about 11.1 km of the route)

• 

  Beginning of the cycle path and information board in Hilpoltstein, about 11.4 kilometers (2007)

literature

• Frank Larsen: The "Gredl". History of the branch line to Greding in the triangle Nuremberg - Augsburg - Regensburg. Eisenbahn-Fachbuch-Verlag, Neustadt bei Coburg 2005, ISBN 3-9807748-4-8 .
• District of Roth (ed.): 100 years of Gredl: 1888–1988. In: Local history forays . Roth 1988, ISSN  0724-1100 .
• Ulrich Rockelmann: Searching for traces. Dismantled railway lines in the Nuremberg area. Hoffmann Verlag, Nuremberg 1999, ISBN 3-87191-270-0 .

Web links

Commons : Roth – Greding railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Route with kilometers, permissible speeds and signals on the OpenRailwayMap
• "Gredlweg comes from Greding" and record time for the Gredlweg prospectus Article about the development of the Gredl cycle path in the Roth Hilpoltsteiner Volkszeitung on March 8, 2007
• 37-minute documentary about the Gredl and the farewell trip from 1998
• Working group S-Bahn 2030 . Website of the working group that campaigns for an S-Bahn across the route.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Clemens Helldörfer: Instead of the Gredl, the skaters are panting now . In: Nürnberger Zeitung . July 14, 2010, p. 1 .
3. ↑ Who is the owner of the Gredl? In: pro-bahn.de. Pro Bahn, Middle and Upper Franconia, February 6, 1999, archived from the original on September 28, 2007 ; accessed on December 23, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Federal Railway Office : List of disused routes in Bavaria (since January 1, 1994) ( Microsoft Excel file, 16 kB) on eba.bund.de, September 11, 2017, accessed on December 19, 2018.
5. ↑ Free travel for the Gredl . In: Hilpoltsteiner Kurier . July 1, 1995, ZDB ID 1256658-5 .
6. ↑ Yes to the train station . In: Roth-Hilpoltsteiner Volkszeitung . July 1, 1995, ZDB ID 1264431-6 .
7. ↑ The "Gredl" has evaporated . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . October 16, 1997.
8. ^ Horst M .: Balance of the horror . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . February 22, 1999.
9. ↑ Price is too high . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . August 12, 1999.
10. ↑ Peter Millian: New locomotives make the railway run . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . July 11, 2000.
11. ↑ The Gredl is steaming . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . June 5, 2001.
12. ↑ Gredl cycle path brochure (PDF).
13. ↑ The starting shot for the Gredl cycle path is given in summer. In: landratsamt-roth.de. District Office Roth, April 12, 2006, archived from the original on September 28, 2007 ; accessed on December 23, 2016 . 
14. ↑ "Makeover" goes into the last round. In: nordbayern.de. September 4, 2010, accessed December 29, 2016 . 
15. ^ Call for tenders in the Nuremberg area, Erlangen, Ansbach, Dinkelsbühl for rail renewal. In: bahnmarkt.eu. Retrieved December 29, 2016 . 
16. ↑ Highest railroad for a makeover . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . May 3, 2011, p. 16 .
17. ↑ Hans Pühn : Express deserves its name . In: Roth-Hilpoltsteiner Volkszeitung . August 15, 2006, ZDB ID 1264431-6 .
18. ↑ Hans Pühn: Better the Gredl than a small loan. In: roth-hilpoltsteiner-volkszeitung.de. March 24, 2007, archived from the original on September 28, 2007 ; accessed on December 23, 2016 . 
19. ^ Hans Pühn: Allersberg-Express costs the Rother S-Bahn passengers . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . December 5, 2007.
20. ^ Rainer Messingschlager: With the express to Greding. In: donaukurier.de. April 27, 2017. Retrieved May 20, 2017 . 
21. ↑ S5 is still late. In: donaukurier.de. June 7, 2019, accessed June 10, 2019 . 
22. ↑ In the absence of a train driver: Gredl-Bahn stands still in August. August 1, 2019, accessed August 1, 2019 . 
23. ↑ Gredl is on vacation. In: donaukurier.de. August 5, 2019, accessed August 10, 2019 . 
24. ↑ Why the "Gredl" cable car stopped at the weekend. In: nordbayern.de. July 15, 2019, accessed August 12, 2019 . 
25. ↑ The Gredl does not fall by the wayside. In: Roth-Hilpoltsteiner Volkszeitung. September 12th, 2013.
26. ↑ Rainer Messingschlager: It's going in the right direction . In: Hilpoltsteiner Kurier . July 18, 2015, ZDB ID 1256658-5 .
27. ↑ ^{a b} National Express Rail is to be awarded a contract for S-Bahn traffic in Nuremberg, DB Regio is to remain the operator of the Nuremberg diesel network. (PDF) press release. Bavarian Railway Company , December 15, 2015, accessed on December 24, 2015 . 
28. ↑ ^{a b} DB Regio Franken will operate the Nuremberg diesel network for another twelve years. Press release. Bavarian Railway Company, June 14, 2016, accessed on June 16, 2016 . 
29. ↑ BEG supervisory board decides clock amplifiers and S-Bahn night traffic around Nuremberg. In: stmb.bayern.de. Bavarian Railway Company, December 3, 2019, accessed on December 5, 2019 . 
30. ^ Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft (Ed.): Tenders 2015 Diesel Network Nuremberg . 2015, p. 2, 5 ( beg.bahnland-bayern.de [PDF]). beg.bahnland-bayern.de ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
31. ↑ DB Regio Franken continues to run the Middle Franconia Railway. (No longer available online.) Deutsche Bahn, June 14, 2016, archived from the original on June 16, 2016 ; accessed on June 16, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
32. ↑ Destination timetable Germany-Takt. (PDF) Third expert draft Bavaria. SMA und Partner AG, June 30, 2020, accessed on July 22, 2020 . 
33. ↑ Robert Kofer: "Gredl" should become the S-Bahn . In: Hilpoltsteiner Kurier . No. 254 , November 3, 2016, ZDB -ID 1256658-5 , p. 21 ( donaukurier.de ).
34. ↑ Carola Scherbel: Should the Gredl run instead of the S-Bahn? In: nordbayern.de. January 17, 2019, accessed January 20, 2019 . 
35. ↑ S 2 from Roth to Hilpoltstein extend! In: pro-bahn.de. Passenger association PRO BAHN, March 2018, accessed on June 12, 2020 . 
36. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Stefan Bergauer: Will the Gredl become an S-Bahn? In: Hilpoltsteiner Zeitung . August 8, 2020.
37. ↑ Jochen Münch: An ultra marathon for the "Grandpa Railway" . In: Hilpoltsteiner Kurier . No. 182 , August 8, 2020, ZDB -ID 1256658-5 , p. 21 ( online ).
38. ↑ S-Bahn study is presented . In: Hilpoltsteiner Kurier . No. 176 , August 1, 2020, ZDB -ID 1477609-1 , p. 21 ( online ).