Hasseler tunnel
| Hasseler tunnel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number : | 3450 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | 674, ex 680 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Hasseler Tunnel or Rothenkopf Tunnel was a 507 meter long structure of the Würzbach Railway Schwarzenacker - St. Ingbert between Hassel and St. Ingbert. At the time of its construction (1865 to 1867) the route led via Bierbach , Lautzkirchen, (Nieder-) Würzbach and Hassel to St. Ingbert . The St. Ingbert station was at that time the western border station of Bavaria ( West Palatinate ) and the first to lead from Saarbrücken to the area of today's Saarpfalz district .
meaning
The structure itself was constructed using the usual mining technology with blasting and driving. However, the construction was not granted long duration: the surface layer was obviously too thin, because from 1892 the tunnel caused considerable problems with penetrating water. The sandstone in the ground was too soft and the pressure generated by both sides - especially on the Hassel side - under the influence of the water was too great. A 150-meter-long steel corset was pulled into the tunnel from Hasseler, narrowing the tube. In front of both tunnel portals, wooden templates were set up (which corresponded to the new cross-section of the tunnel) and so-called template guards were used to ensure that no wagons were carried with protruding parts such as running boards or the like. For example, beer carts could not be carried because they had protruding leash eyelets. As a result of these security measures, the width was only 3.08 meters, the clear height 4.44 meters.
course
The course of the feed runs today behind the site of the hardware store in Schiffelland, crosses today's Südstraße and Autobahn exactly under the saddle between Kahlenberg and Rothenkopf parallel to the road 111 between Hassel and St. Ingbert. The route can be seen better on Hassel’s side: on a cattle pasture, the former embankment can be recognized by a straight line of hawthorn hedges. It protrudes about 50 cm from the meadow area. A slight right turn to the south allows the route to pass Hassel to the south and crosses the L 111 at today's southern end of the village towards Oberwürzbach , only to meet the current route about 500 meters later.
Shutdown
The military in particular placed great value on an operational railway line in order to be able to serve the Lorraine deployment area quickly. This safety was no longer guaranteed: the tunnel profile was too small and the tunnel could only be driven through at very slow speed in order to be able to stop at any time. A contemporary newspaper report stated:
"When looking at the carpentry and supports installed in it [one gets a] feeling of shyness and anxiety."
Three options were up for discussion in 1892: firstly, a complete walling of the vault with the acceptance of a year-long closure, secondly a completely new tunnel, this one at a horizontal distance of about 40 meters, and thirdly a completely new route. The lining with hard rock near Albersweiler was valued at 574,000 marks, the new bypass route at 1.174 million marks.
The reason for the new route via Rohrbach said:
"When choosing between the two projects in question [there was soon no more talk of a new tunnel] [...] the economic importance of the new line for the municipality of Rohrbach with 1504 inhabitants should be taken into account. The stop to be built there will not only be important for the active population of this Bavarian community itself, but will also offer the best railway opportunities for the miners in the nearby Prussian towns of Spiesen and Elversberg. "
New routing
The importance of this railway line can also be seen from the fact that the new route was co-financed by Prussia and the new construction was regulated by a state treaty between Prussia and Bavaria. The region west of the Palatinate Forest was previously only accessible from two routes. On the one hand from the Palatinate Ludwigsbahn via Kaiserslautern, on the other hand via the Nahe Valley Railway via Bad Kreuznach and Türkismühle. The failure of one of these two routes would have had incalculable consequences, especially for the military, and was unacceptable. That is why closing the tunnel for a year was out of the question.
Alerted by the mandatory report in the bulletin of the "Managing Administration of the Association of German Railway Administrations" in May 1892, which said: "Between the Hassel and St. Ingbert stations ... no longer tunnels as before, according to loading profile D, but only wagons loaded according to loading profile B can be transported. "
The request from Berlin was:
"Since it is not evident in the notice that this profile restriction is only temporary, the Reichs-Eisenbahn-Amt would, in the interests of national defense, owe a special thanks to the Royal Ministry of State for a very pleasant message about whether a early restoration of the previous profile can be expected. According to the preliminary investigations carried out, there is a considerable number of wagons on the German railways, the adjoining of which exceeds the loading gauge B and which can then not be used in the event of mobilization for transport on the route in question "
After tough negotiations between the Reichs-Eisenbahn-Amt and the Royal Government of the Palatinate, Chamber of the Interior in Speyer, which included a visit to the tunnel as well as several appointments in Berlin, an agreement was reached on the new building on June 3, 1893. Speyer is obliged to complete the building by the end of March 1895, while Berlin is obliged to contribute 160,000 marks to the construction, half of which is to be paid at the beginning and half after completion.
Due to various adverse circumstances, such as an extremely long period of frost in the spring of 1895, which prevented earthworks, the approximately two and a half kilometers longer bypass route via Rohrbach was only inaugurated at the end of September 1895, i.e. half a year later, as agreed, and the Hassel tunnel was no longer open to traffic used. In this context, Hassel received a new station building on the eastern edge of the village. During the Second World War , the tunnel was used as protection against air attacks, and a railway gun was installed on the St. Ingbert side .
Apart from the route, no more buildings can be seen of the former railway line including the tunnel. On the Hassel side, a lot of sand was flushed out with two tunnel breaks in the 1930s, which was deposited in front of the tunnel portal and turned the deeply cut railway line into a long lake. The portal on the St. Ingbert side was filled in with the construction of the motorway. Only a drainage shaft with an inspection option was built. Before that, during the Cold War , the former railway tunnel had been extensively prepared for use as an air raid shelter . A corresponding dedication was never made because the tectonic conditions were assessed as too uncertain. On the industrial site near the St.-Ingbert-Mitte motorway exit there is still an access hatch for the inspection shaft.
On the Hasseler side, an approximately 4 × 4 meter foundation in the forest directly on the route suggests a tunnel keeper's house. Newer houses and gardens have been built on the site of the former Hassel train station.
literature
- Friedrich Müller: The railroad in Rohrbach . Wassermann Verlag, St. Ingbert 1996, ISBN 3-928030-24-8
- Friedrich Müller: The Hasseler Tunnel . Wassermann Verlag, St. Ingbert 2009, ISBN 978-3-928030-34-2
Web links
- The train in and around Niederwürzbach! ( Memento of August 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), detailed description of the Würzbach railway systems
- Image of the tunnel portal
Coordinates: 49 ° 16 ′ 1.04 " N , 7 ° 8 ′ 17.92" E