Grand Ducal Hessian State Railways

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The Grand Ducal Hessian State Railways belonged to the state railways in the time of the German Empire .

The Grand Duchy of Hesse consisted of three provinces in the 19th century. Between the Rhine, Main and Neckar, the Starkenburg Province comprised the Odenwald and the Hessian Ried. The royal seat of Darmstadt also belonged to it . To the left of the Rhine was the province of Rheinhessen with Mainz, Worms and Bingen. Without any direct connection to this area, the province of Upper Hesse enclosed the Vogelsberg and the Wetterau .

Due to this territorial fragmentation, there was initially no construction of its own state railway. Rather, Hessen participated in joint railway undertakings together with the neighboring states. Those were

In addition, the extensive projects of the private Hessian Ludwig Railway Company (700 km) were funded .

It was not until 1876 that the Grand Duchy of Hesse founded its own state railway. Their basis was the acquisition of the Upper Hessian Railway Company . This had opened and operated the Vogelsbergbahn and the Lahn-Kinzig-Bahn from Gießen between 1869 and 1871 . Of a total of 175.8 km (1880), 147.2 km were in Hesse-Darmstadt and 28.0 km in Prussia.

After the transition to the state administration, this expanded the network in accordance with a law of May 29, 1884 by three branch lines, which led from the Gießen-Gelnhausen line into the Vogelsberg:

Grand-Ducal Hessian state bond for 5000 marks from October 3, 1896 to finance the nationalization of the Hessian Ludwig Railway

Another state branch line was opened on December 20, 1886 between Eberstadt and Pfungstadt . It was only 1.9 km long and was operated by the Main-Neckar Railway , but had its own staff as well as its own locomotives and passenger cars.

Further followed south of Offenbach am Main

as well as in the north, northeast of Giessen

  • the Lumdatalbahn from Grünberg, from August 1, 1896 initially to Londorf, from 1902 on to Lollar.

The Hessische Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was nationalized and incorporated by state treaty dated June 23, 1896.

The last stretch of the Grand Ducal Hessian State Railways was opened in 1897 east of Darmstadt, the Darmstadt Ost – Groß -zimmer line.

By the highest decree of March 17, 1897, the administration of the Prussian State Railways took over the management of the state railways of the Grand Duchy of Hesse under the common name of the Prussian-Hessian Railway Operation and Financial Community, briefly known as the Prussian-Hessian Railway Community. The joint Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate got its seat in Mainz.

In 1920 the now Hessian State Railways, like the other state railways, were transferred to the Reich and the Deutsche Reichsbahn .

References and comments

  1. ↑ See: Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Collection of the published official gazettes of March 2, 1901. Volume 5, No. 9, Announcement No. 81, p. 51.
  2. ^ Chronicle of the Mainz Railway Directorate
  3. ^ Chronicle of the Mainz Railway Directorate
  4. ^ Reichsgesetzblatt 1920, page 773 ff