Jagst Valley Railway

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Möckmühl – Dörzbach
Jagsttalbahn route
Route number : 9490
Course book section (DB) : 778 (until 1988)
Route length: 39.2 km
Gauge : 750 mm ( narrow gauge )
Maximum slope : 10  ‰
Minimum radius : 65 m
Legend
Route - straight ahead
 Frankenbahn to Heilbronn
Station, station
 0.0 Möckmühl
   
 Frankenbahn to Würzburg
   
 2.4 Ruchs
   
 7.6 Rams
   
 11.0 Olnhausen
   
 14.3 Jagsthausen
   
 18.5 Berlichingen
   
 20.5 Schöntal
   
 23.0 Bieringen (Jagst) Hp
   
 23.2 Bieringen (Jagst)
   
 26.0 Westernhausen
   
 28.1 Winzenhofen
   
 29.5 Marlach
   
 31.0 Gommersdorf
   
 33.5 Krautheim (Jagst)
   
 35.4 Assamstadt - Horrenbach
   
 37.0 Klepsau
   
 39.1 Dörzbach

The Jagsttalbahn is a 39.1 kilometer long, single-track, narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 750 millimeters in the north of Baden-Württemberg , which has not been in operation since 1988 .

Route

Bridge near Winzenhofen in 2009

The railway line runs along the Jagst from Möckmühl in the Heilbronn district to Dörzbach in the Hohenlohe district . The route between Möckmühl and Widdern was dismantled in 1997/1998 in order to set up a railway cycle path . The two bridges over the Jagst and the Seckach were also removed in Möckmühl . However, the old railway line is still protected today as part of the Jagsttalbahn monument and not overbuilt.

history

The operation of the Jagsttalbahn was preceded by the opening of the railway in the lower Jagsttal from Jagstfeld to Osterburken in 1869. In the years that followed, the desire to connect the central Jagst valley to this standard-gauge route was expressed, but this could not be realized. The middle Jagsttalgemeinden then decided in 1888 to build a narrow-gauge local railway for the first time . The execution of the planned steam tram from Züttlingen via Dörzbach to Mergentheim was initially rejected by the Württemberg railway administration in May 1889.

In 1892, the government of Baden and Wuerttemberg offered funds for such a route, so that the Berlin company Vering & Waechter was entrusted with the planning of the project. The city of Bad Mergentheim was not interested in the rail project, so the planning only provided for a branch line to Dörzbach. The starting point of the railway was also moved from Züttlingen to the larger Möckmühl, where there was a connection to the Heilbronn - Lauda line . The planners moved away from the steam tram in favor of a narrow-gauge railway with its own route.

On February 10, 1898, the state treaty between the Kingdom of Württemberg and the Grand Duchy of Baden was concluded for the construction of the line, construction began in June 1899. A consortium was formed for the construction, which included the Mitteldeutsche Kreditanstalt zu Berlin, a privy councilor Baron von Cohn and the company Vering & Waechter belonged. The actual construction of the line was mainly done by Italian guest workers. The construction of the route was supposed to exceed the estimated costs of around 1.9 million Reichsmarks in 1897 by around ten percent, as the local landowners proved to be tough negotiating partners.

Opening train on March 13, 1901 in Schöntal

The line was scheduled to go into operation on December 10, 1900. However, since there had been several landslides along the route, the route was initially only released for freight traffic, which ran as scheduled from December 18, 1900. On March 13, 1901, passenger traffic was finally started.

The Jagsttalbahn has always been a private railway , initially under the management of the railway construction and operating company Vering & Waechter GmbH & Co. KG , which had also built the railway and which had an operations department in Karlsruhe for this purpose . From 1918 the railway was owned by the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebsgesellschaft . When they sought the closure of its South German small and branch lines, the railway was the founded on 10 December 1962 as a rescue company on January 1, 1963 South West German traffic corporation acquired (SWEG), initially based in Ettlingen , then in Lahr had and which merged with Mittelbadische Eisenbahnen AG (MEG) in autumn 1971 .

Until 1951 there was freight and passenger traffic on the route. Passenger traffic, which is always insignificant compared to freight traffic, ended at the end of that year. On January 9, 1967 it was resumed for school traffic with purchased vehicles from the Rhein-Sieg Railway , the Osterode-Kreiensen District Railway and the Bottwartal Railway .

Museum train ready to depart in Dörzbach (July 1983)

In 1971 the German Society for Railway History (DGEG) set up one of the first museum railway operations in Germany in cooperation with the SWEG . Trains hauled by steam locomotives operated according to a fixed schedule as well as special trains made to order. The school transport remained until 1979 and then had made due to the transformation of the transport system in the region Hohenlohe , who henceforth envisaged a full bus operation, be shifted to the road.

Freight traffic, which was handled on trolleys , remained on the rails. In the last few years of operation, mainly sugar beets and artificial fertilizers were transported for the warehouses in Marlach, Krautheim and Dörzbach. The transport of sugar beet was given up at the end of 1986, with the result that the Jagst Valley Railway lost its main cargo.

On December 23, 1988, all operations were discontinued due to defects in the superstructure ; however, there was never a formal shutdown.

Efforts to recommission

Former Schöntal train station at Schöntal Abbey
Route in Aries (July 2008)

The municipalities of Dörzbach and Krautheim founded the Jagsttalbahn AG in 2000, to which land and historic vehicles were handed over in the following years, on the one hand to preserve the listed assets of all the facilities relating to the Jagsttalbahn and on the other hand to work towards a restart of the line.

At the beginning of 2002, the SWEG handed over the vehicles it owned to Jagsttalbahn AG. In May 2004, the properties of the Jagsttalbahn were transferred from the SWEG to the local authorities, who wanted to transfer them to the Jagsttalbahn AG for the sections to be put back into operation. On July 13, 2004, Jagsttalbahn AG was entered in the Schwäbisch Hall commercial register (HRB 775K) after the formal requirements for this had been met with the handover of the operational properties of the old Jagsttalbahn to the Jagsttal communities. With effect from August 15, 2004, the company received approval as a railway infrastructure company in accordance with Section 6 of the General Railway Act .

This created all the important prerequisites for the reconstruction of the first section between Dörzbach and Krautheim , which the new Jagsttalbahn AG and Jagsttalbahnfreunde e. V. and the communities now wanted to cope.

Since the spring of 2005, the Dörzbach train station has been renovated and the sheds and technical equipment repaired. Inside the Dörzbach train station, old layers of paint were carefully exposed in order to be able to reconstruct the original color scheme of the rooms from the early days of the Jagst Valley Railway. The doors and some of the furnishings including the original ticket office could also be refurbished.

On February 2, 2006, however, the Krautheim municipal council repealed all previous positive decisions on the Jagsttalbahn and refused to participate financially in the renovation of the route. The Jagsttalbahnfreunde e. V. want to pursue the project further and look for other financing options.

On April 13, 2007, a discussion took place with representatives of the Hohenlohe district and the five neighboring communities Dörzbach, Krautheim, Schöntal, Jagsthausen and Widdern, in which the future procedure was to be coordinated. It was agreed that restarting would depend on the consent of all parties involved. While the communities of Dörzbach, Jagsthausen and Widdern as well as the participating districts of Hohenlohe and Heilbronn were in favor of restarting the route, the communities of Schöntal and especially Krautheim finally decided against restarting it after three months.

The Jagsttalbahnfreunde e. V. is currently concentrating on the reconstruction of the railway facilities in Dörzbach station (the station and an approx. 600 m long section of the track are currently being restored) and on supporting the reopening efforts of the neighboring communities of Widdern and Jagsthausen.

In July 2010, the district council approved a subsidy for the resumption of operations in the amount of 516,000 euros, which should take place at Whitsun 2012 between Aries and Jagsthausen. Funding from European programs had also already been applied for and approved. However, as a result of intense controversy within the city of Aries, the project failed after the municipal council of the city of Widdern approved additional funding of 127,000 euros at its meeting on December 7, 2010.

Renovated engine shed at Dörzbach station with parked summer car (photo 2014)

In a referendum carried out on July 10, 2011 in Widdern, 55.7 percent of the participants voted against the plans to restart operations between Widdern and Jagsthausen, supported by the municipal council. The turnout was around 62 percent.

literature

  • Michael Brod: The Jagst Valley Railway Möckmühl – Dörzbach . German Society for Railway History, Karlsruhe 1979.
  • Hermann Braun: The vehicles of the Jagst Valley Railway: steam locomotives, diesel locomotives, railcars, passenger cars, mail cars, baggage cars, freight cars, roller stands, buffer cars, special vehicles . Jagsttalbahn-Freunde, Dörzbach 1984, ISBN 3-924660-00-X .
  • Martin Uhlig: The Jagst Valley Railway . Bahn-Verlag Schiefer, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-924969-01-9 .
  • Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: Railways between Neckar, Tauber and Main . tape 1 : Historical development and railway construction . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-88255-766-4 .
  • Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: Railways between Neckar, Tauber and Main . tape 2 : Design, operation and machine service . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-88255-768-0 .
  • Utz von Wagner: The Jagst Valley Railway: on a narrow track from Möckmühl to Dörzbach . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2002, ISBN 3-88255-453-3 .
  • Gerd Wolff, Hans-Dieter Menges: German small and private railways. Volume 2: Bathing . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-653-6 , p. 336-354 .
  • Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 153-157 .

Movie

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IBSE telegram 237 (August 2010), p. 3.
  2. ^ Christian Gleichauf: Jagsttalbahn lifted onto the track . In: Heilbronn voice . December 9, 2010 ( from Stimme.de [accessed January 20, 2011]).
  3. ^ Christian Gleichauf: Widderner vote against Jagsttalbahn . In: Heilbronn voice . July 10, 2011 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on July 11, 2011]).
  4. ^ Film railway romance

Web links

Commons : Jagsttalbahn  - album with pictures, videos and audio files