Grand Ducal Baden State Railways
In the Grand Duchy of Baden , a state railway was established in 1840 , which in 1872 became an independent railway administration under the name of the Grand Ducal Badische Staatseisenbahnen , or BadStB for short . Your route network was last about 2,000 kilometers.
With the nationalization of the German state railways in the Weimar Republic , they were incorporated into the Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen in April 1920 , which were transferred to the independent state-owned Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) in 1924 .
history
founding
After the Duchy of Braunschweig , Baden was the second German state to take on the construction and operation of railroads on behalf of the state. In 1833, the Mannheim entrepreneur Ludwig Newhouse proposed the construction of a railway line from Mannheim to Basel for the first time , but initially this was not approved by the Baden government. Further advances, e.g. B. by Friedrich List , initially remained unsuccessful. It was not until a railway company was founded in neighboring Alsace to build a line (on the left bank of the Rhine) from Basel to Strasbourg in 1837 that serious plans were made to build a railway (on the right bank of the Rhine) in Baden in order to prevent traffic flows into Alsace. In an extraordinary state parliament on March 29, 1838 , the Baden Assembly of Estates passed three laws to build the first line between Mannheim and the Swiss border near Basel, along with a branch line to Baden-Baden and a branch line to Strasbourg. The construction of the railway was to be carried out at state expense, something which Karl Friedrich Nebenius in particular had advocated . Construction began in September 1838.
The Ministry of the Interior was responsible for the construction of the railway and founded its own authority, the Railway Construction Directorate , for this purpose . Later the railway building authority was incorporated into the head office of water and road construction . The operation of the railway, however, was assigned to the Foreign Ministry, which transferred this task to the Oberpostdirektion, which was henceforth called the Oberdirektion der Posten und Eisenbahnen . It was not until the Badische Post was incorporated into the Reichspost in 1872 that an independent railway administration emerged in Baden, the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways.
After the abdication of the Grand Duke on November 9, 1918, it was renamed the Baden State Railways . In 1920 the Baden State Railways, like all regional railways, were subordinated to the Reich Ministry of Transport as a Baden branch. Further renaming followed in 1921 (General Directorate Karlsruhe of the Deutsche Reichsbahn) and 1922 (Deutsche Reichsbahn, Reichsbahndirektion Karlsruhe).
Development of the main routes
The first line, also known as the Badische Hauptbahn , was gradually completed in the years 1840–1863. The first section, 18.5 km long, between Mannheim and Heidelberg was put into operation on September 12, 1840. Initially, the route was operated by the Greif and Löwe locomotives, and the third Heidelberg locomotive was added in 1841 . During the first two years of operation, the English engineer Thomas Turner was in charge of running operations; he came from the locomotive company Sharp, Roberts & Co. , which had supplied the first locomotives in Baden. In the expansion of the network, the sections to Karlsruhe 1843, Offenburg 1844, Freiburg im Breisgau 1845, Schliengen 1847, Efringen-Kirchen 1848 and Haltingen 1851 followed. The side railways to Kehl and Baden-Baden had already been opened in 1844 and 1845 respectively. The continuation of the main line through the Basle area required negotiations with the Swiss Confederation, whereby differences of opinion about the best place to connect the Baden railway to the Swiss network - Basel or Waldshut - led to delays. In the State Treaty of July 27, 1852, an agreement was found that enabled the Baden State Railways to build and operate their railway on Swiss territory .
Broad gauge
Baden was the only German state to initially build its railway lines in 1600 mm wide gauge . Likewise, the state tried to oblige Württemberg around 1844 in negotiations to build the Württemberg Western Railway to its gauge. After the wrong decision in choosing the gauge became obvious, Baden politics initially defended it vehemently. The Court Marshal Baron von Göler (1809–1862) argued at a meeting of the First Chamber of the Estates in 1846 :
“I think that the importance of matching the gauge is far too high; also assuming that one and the same track would pass through Germany, there would never be a car from Baden on the Württemberg railway. "
Standard gauge
Only after it turned out that all the neighboring countries, the standard gauge preferred (1435 mm), the Baden State Railways built in just one year 1854/55 all their routes created by then to ( gauging ).
The railway reached Basel in 1855, Waldshut in 1856 and Konstanz in 1863. This completed the 414.3 km long Badische Hauptbahn. After the important north-south axis Mannheim-Basel and the connection of the Lake Constance area had been realized with the Badische Hauptbahn, the further network expansion concentrated on the development of the Pforzheim area with the Karlsruhe - Pforzheim - Mühlacker line (opened 1859–1863), the Connection of the Odenwald and Tauberfrankens with the Odenwaldbahn Heidelberg - Mosbach - Würzburg (opened 1862–1866) and the creation of a direct connection from Karlsruhe to Constance without the detour via Basel in the form of the Black Forest Railway (opened 1866–1873).
Connection to the neighboring countries
The link to the Swiss railway network was already planned when the Baden main line was built. This could be completed for the first time with the commissioning of the Rhine bridge built by Robert Gerwig near Waldshut on August 18, 1859. Further connections were established in Schaffhausen in 1863 , in Constance in 1871 and in Singen am Hohentwiel in 1875 . The Basel connecting railway , which connects the Badischer Bahnhof on the right bank of the Rhine with the Centralbahnhof on the left bank of the Rhine and which is the most important rail link between Germany and Switzerland today, was only opened in 1873.
The connection to the north in the direction of Weinheim - Darmstadt - Frankfurt am Main was established in 1846 by the Main-Neckar Railway , in which the Grand Duchy of Baden was involved. The Riedbahn followed in 1879, although Baden did not have a share in it. Since 1861, after the construction of the Rhine bridge between Kehl and Strasbourg, there was also a direct connection with France. The connection to the Palatinate was first realized in 1865 with a ship bridge near Karlsruhe-Maxau and in 1867 with the connection between Mannheim and Ludwigshafen . The connection with Bavaria took place with the opening of the Badische Odenwaldbahn in 1866.
Negotiations about a connection with Württemberg were particularly difficult , especially as both countries competed directly for traffic between Germany and the Alpine passes. While Baden favored the connection via Pforzheim, Württemberg was interested in the most direct connection possible in Bruchsal . The agreement was sealed in a treaty on 4 December 1850 with Württemberg the construction of the direct line Stuttgart - Mühlacker - Bretten -Bruchsal ( Württembergische Western Railway ) was also granted to Badischer territory, while Baden partially lying in Württemberg connection Pforzheim -Mühlacker (see Karlsruhe – Mühlacker railway ) was allowed to build and operate. The connection in Bruchsal was put into operation as early as 1853.
On April 1, 1918, in alignment with the neighboring Prussian State Railways ( Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate Mainz ), 4th class was also introduced at the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways .
Further extensions
Further expansions of the route network served in particular for regional development or were built under military aspects. Worth mentioning are:
- the Neckar Valley Railway Neckargemünd - Eberbach - Jagstfeld , opened in 1879
- the Höllentalbahn Freiburg (Breisgau) - Neustadt (Black Forest) , opened in 1887
- the strategic bypass lines on the Upper Rhine: the Weil am Rhein – Lörrach line , the Wehratal line and the completion of the Wutach valley line (all between 1887 and 1890)
- the strategic railway Graben-Neudorf - Karlsruhe - Rastatt - Roeschwoog (Alsace), opened in 1895
By 1895, the railway network of the Baden State Railroad was completed, apart from minor additions. In 1900 it comprised 1996 km of line length, of which 1521 km were owned by the State Railways. In the following years, the focus of the expansion measures was on the renovation of the junction stations. The most important modifications concerned:
- New construction of the marshalling yard in Karlsruhe, 1895
- New construction of Rastatt station, 1895
- Construction of a new freight bypass line in Freiburg (Breisgau) , 1905
- New construction of the Badischer Güterbahnhof in Basel, 1905
- New construction of the Bruchsal freight bypass railway, 1906
- Construction of a new marshalling yard in Mannheim, 1906–1907
- New construction of Offenburg station with marshalling yard, 1911
- New construction of Badischer Bahnhof in Basel with a new Baden marshalling yard adjacent to the north near Weil am Rhein , 1913
- New construction of the main train station in Karlsruhe, 1913
- New construction of the marshalling yard and freight yard in Heidelberg, 1914
The new construction of Heidelberg Central Station could no longer be completed due to the beginning of the First World War , so construction was delayed until 1955.
State-run private railways
Several railway lines in Baden were privately built, but operated by the State Railways and in most cases later taken over completely. These are not only secondary lines of exclusively local importance such as the Wiesentalbahn Basel - Schopfheim - Zell im Wiesental , opened in 1862, but also main lines . In addition to the efforts of the cities, which had previously remained without a railway connection, for a better connection to the transport network, the larger cities of the state also committed themselves to the construction of railways in order to develop their surrounding areas and to consolidate their position as transport hubs. The city of Mannheim, for example, built a direct rail link to Karlsruhe without the detour via Heidelberg, in order to step out of the traffic shadow into which it was caught by linking the Baden main line with the Main-Neckar line, which continued to the north, in Friedrichsfeld and Heidelberg was. In return, the city of Heidelberg committed itself to the construction of the Heidelberg– Schwetzingen - Speyer line in order to consolidate its position as a hub.
The most important of the privately built lines operated by the state railway are:
- the Maxau Railway from Karlsruhe to the Rhine, built by the city of Karlsruhe, opened in 1862, established the first connection between the railways of Baden and the Palatinate, nationalized in 1906
- the Rheinbahn Mannheim - Schwetzingen - Graben-Neudorf - Eggenstein - Karlsruhe , built by the city of Mannheim, opened in 1870 and taken over by the Baden State Railway on the day it opened
- the Kraichgaubahn Karlsruhe - Bretten - Eppingen with continuation to Heilbronn , built by the city of Karlsruhe, opened in 1879 and taken over by the Baden State Railway on the day of the opening
Incorporation into the Reichsbahn
With the establishment of the Reichseisenbahnen on April 1st, 1920, the Badische Staatsbahn became the property of the Reich. The railway administration in Karlsruhe became the Reichsbahndirektion Karlsruhe . When the Reichsbahn was founded, a wish list was drawn up for unrealized railway lines in Baden, of which only four were built:
- the extension of the Renchtalbahn to Bad Peterstal in 1926 and Bad Griesbach in 1933
- the Titisee – Seebrugg three- way railway in 1926
- the gap closure on the Murg Valley Railway in 1928
- the branch line Neckarsteinach - Schönau (Odenwald) 1928
The construction of the railway connection Bretten - Kürnbach (with a possible connection to the Zabergäubahn in Leonbronn ) had begun, but the line was never completed.
Electrical operation
On September 13, 1913, the Badische Staatsbahn opened electrical operation with alternating current 15 kV, 16⅔ Hz on the Wiesentalbahn Basel - Zell im Wiesental as well as on the branching line Schopfheim - Bad Säckingen . For the operation of the series A¹ 11 were in addition to a total Versuchslok Elloks of the rows of A and A³ ( DR series E 61 obtained). All locomotives had a rod drive that worked on three axles. The electrification of the Wiesentalbahn was primarily used to test electrical traction; it was not of any major traffic importance. Due to the difficult economic situation after the First World War, there was no expansion of electrical operations ; the electrification of the Baden railway network was only continued on a larger scale from 1952.
Route network
The routes of the Badische Staatsbahn were opened as follows:
On the cross-border routes marked with ¹ , only the section up to the state border belongs to the Baden State Railways. The Basel connecting line was built by the Swiss Central Railway and co-financed by the Baden State Railway. The Donaueschingen-Hüfingen section intended for the Höllentalbahn was built at state expense, but initially maintained and operated by the Bregtalbahn as a private railway. After the opening of the Höllentalbahn in 1901, the management and maintenance of this section was taken over by the Baden State Railways and a joint operation was introduced.
The following were opened as state-run private railways:
| Route section | as part of the route | opened on | nationalized on | built by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basel Badischer Bahnhof - Schopfheim | Wiesentalbahn | June 7, 1862 | Jan. 1, 1889 | Wiesental Railway Company |
| Karlsruhe - Maxau | Maxau Railway | Aug 5, 1862 | Aug 14, 1906 | City of Karlsruhe |
| Maxau - Maximiliansau ¹ | Maxau Railway | May 8, 1865 | Aug 14, 1906 | City of Karlsruhe |
| Dinglingen– Lahr / Black Forest | Lahr – Lahr Stadt railway line | Nov 15, 1865 | Sept. 29, 1906 | Lahrer Eisenbahn-Aktien-Gesellschaft |
| Rastatt - Gernsbach | Murg Valley Railway | June 1, 1869 | July 1, 1904 | Murgthal-Eisenbahn-Aktiengesellschaft |
|
Mannheim - Schwetzingen - Graben-Neudorf - Eggenstein - Karlsruhe |
Rheinbahn | Aug 4, 1870 | Aug 4, 1870 | City of Mannheim |
| Freiburg (Breisgau) - Breisach | Freiburg – Colmar railway line | Feb 6, 1871 | Dec 6, 1881 | City of Freiburg, city of Breisach |
| Heidelberg - Schwetzingen | Heidelberg – Speyer railway line | July 17, 1873 | July 1, 1894 | Heidelberg-Speyer-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft |
| Schwetzingen - Speyer | Heidelberg – Speyer railway line | Dec 10, 1873 | July 1, 1894 | Heidelberg-Speyer-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft |
| Denzlingen - Waldkirch | Elz Valley Railway | Jan. 1, 1875 | Apr 1, 1886 | City of Waldkirch |
| Schopfheim - Zell im Wiesental | Wiesentalbahn | Feb 5, 1876 | Jan. 1, 1890 | Schopfheim-Zeller Railway Company |
| Appenweier - Oppenau | Renchtalbahn | June 1, 1876 | May 31, 1909 | Renchtal Railway Company |
| Breisach - Colmar ¹ | Freiburg – Colmar railway line | Jan. 5, 1878 | Dec 6, 1881 | City of Freiburg, Breisach, State of Baden |
| Grötzingen - Bretten - Eppingen | Kraichgaubahn | Oct 15, 1879 | Oct 15, 1879 | City of Karlsruhe |
| Ettlingen West – Ettlingen Hereditary Prince | Ettlinger Seitenbahn | 25 Aug 1885 | - | City of Ettlingen, Jan. 1, 1898 to BLEAG |
| Ettlingen Hereditary Prince – Ettlingen city | Ettlinger Seitenbahn | July 15, 1887 | - | City of Ettlingen, Jan. 1, 1898 to BLEAG |
| Gernsbach - Weisenbach | Murg Valley Railway | May 1, 1894 | July 1, 1904 | Murgthal-Eisenbahn-Aktiengesellschaft |
With the exception of the Ettlingen West – Ettlingen Stadt line, which was taken over by BLEAG on January 1, 1898 , all state-run private railways became state-owned over time.
The Mosbach – Mudau line plays a special role as a privately operated state railway line and as the only narrow-gauge railway of the Baden State Railway, which opened on June 3, 1905. The company Vering & Waechter was commissioned with the construction and operation of this line .
As a privately operated state railway was opened:
| Track (track width 1000 mm) | opened on | built by | Operational management |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mosbach – Mudau route | June 3, 1905 | Vering & Waechter |
Vering & Waechter , April 1, 1917 to BLEAG , May 1, 1931 to Deutsche Reichsbahn |
In addition to the railways operated by the Baden State Railways, there were also completely privately operated railways from 1887 that are not included in this list.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn completed the Baden route network by 1945 with the following routes:
| Route section | as part of the route | opened on |
|---|---|---|
| Oppenau - Bad Peterstal | Renchtalbahn | Nov 28, 1926 |
| Titisee- Seebrugg | Triple railway | Dec. 1, 1926 |
| Raumünzach– Klosterreichenbach | Murg Valley Railway | April 13, 1928 |
| Neckarsteinach - Schönau (Odenwald) | Neckarsteinach – Schönau | Oct 21, 1928 |
| Bad Peterstal - Bad Griesbach | Renchtalbahn | May 25, 1933 |
| Tuttlingen- Hattingen (Baden) | Gäubahn Stuttgart – Singen | May 15, 1934 |
| Freiburg (Breisgau) - Freiburg-Wiehre | Höllentalbahn | Nov 8, 1934 |
Furthermore, some lines were built by foreign state railways that touched Baden territory. The Bretten – Bruchsal section became the property of the Baden State Railways in 1878.
vehicles
The first two steam locomotives for the Baden State Railroad were manufactured by the English locomotive forge Sharp, Roberts & Co and delivered in 1839. They were named Löwe and Greif . With the expansion of the railway lines, the vehicle fleet grew rapidly. At the time the gauge was changed from wide to standard gauge in 1854/55, there were already 66 locomotives, 65 tenders and 1,133 cars in the fleet. At the end of the First World War , the vehicle fleet was 915 locomotives, 27,600 freight cars and 2,500 passenger cars, of which, according to the Versailles Treaty, 106 locomotives, 7,307 freight cars and 400 passenger cars were to be given to the victorious powers as reparations . An overview of the Baden locomotive series can be found in the list of Baden locomotives and railcars .
The Badische Staatsbahn promoted the development of its own railway vehicle industry in Baden through preferential ordering from local companies. The preferred manufacturer of locomotives was the machine works of Keßler and Martiensen in Karlsruhe, from which the Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe later developed. The three most important wagon suppliers of the Baden State Railways since 1842 were the Schmieder & Mayer wagon factory in Karlsruhe, the Fuchs wagon factory founded in Heidelberg in 1862 and the Rastatt wagon factory founded in 1897 . The main workshop in Karlsruhe also manufactured a small number of railroad cars itself.
Grand Ducal Badische Bodenseedampfschiffahrt
On June 13, 1863, the Badische Hauptbahn reached the city of Konstanz on Lake Constance and thus its southeastern end point, as the lake line did not continue to Romanshorn until 1871. The Stahringen – Friedrichshafen railway line and the Friedrichshafen – Lindau railway line on the north side of the lake did not even connect South Baden with Lindau in Bavaria and Bregenz in Austria until 1901. For onward transport of travelers and goods, only the steamboat connections from the port of Constance came into consideration. As early as July 1, 1863, the Baden state took over the "Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft für den Bodensee und Rhein" in Konstanz, a private stock corporation founded in 1830 that operated regulated shipping on Lake Constance with four smooth-deck steamers and three goods tugboats and placed it under the name of the "Grand Ducal Badische Bodenseedampfschiffahrt" “Of the Transport Department and Foreign Affairs in Karlsruhe. The administration was assigned to the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways and carried out by district officials in Constance.
In order to adapt the capacity to the increased demand, two new smooth deck steamers were ordered in 1863. In 1871 the first representative saloon steamship Kaiser Wilhelm was put into service, followed by five half saloon steamships by 1902. In addition, two non-powered trajectory ships carried railway wagons between Constance and Bregenz and Lindau. After the First World War, the Grand Ducal Badische Bodenseedampfschiffahrt was subordinated to the German Reich in 1920, like all regional railways , and in 1924 it became part of the Deutsche Reichsbahn . The seven Baden ships sailed under the imperial flag and the Kaiser Wilhelm was given the new name Baden . The different colors of the Baden, Württemberg and Bavarian ships were replaced by a uniform white - the White Fleet succeeded the formerly "colorful fleet".
See also
literature
- Karl Müller: The Baden railways in a historical-statistical representation . Heidelberger Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei, Heidelberg 1904 (online version) . Reprint 2010 ISBN 1148112391
- Albert Kuntzemüller : The Baden Railways . Verlag G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1953 ISBN 3-9800019-0-3
- Wolfgang von Hippel, Joachim Stephan, Peter Gleber, Hans-Jürgen Enzweiler: Railway fever: Baden's departure into the railway age . Regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher, 1990 ISBN 3-9802218-2-2 .
- Fridolin Schell: 110 years of the Karlsruhe Railway Directorate . Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg 1982
- Jens Freese: The passenger coaches of the Grand Ducal Baden State Railways . Eisenbahn-Kurier Verlag, Freiburg 2001, ISBN 3-88255-767-2 .
- Dietmar Bönke: paddle wheel and impeller. The shipping of the railway on Lake Constance . GeraMond Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-86245-714-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Additional source for the broad gauge section : Bernt Mester: Partikularismus der Schiene. The development of national rail systems by 1870 . In: Harm-Hinrich Brandt (Ed.): Train of time - time of trains. German Railways 1835–1985 . Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-88680-146-2 , p. 204 .
- ↑ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of March 16, 1918, No. 12. Announcement No. 214, p. 86.