Empress Elisabeth Railway
The kk privileged Kaiserin Elisabeth-Bahn ( KEB ) was a railway company in Austria . The main line of the company was the Vienna – Salzburg railway with the branching connection Wels – Passau . In 1884 the company was nationalized.
history
Today the Westbahn is the most important railway line in Austria. During the time of the monarchy, however, its importance was far behind that of the southern railway (led to the port city of Trieste) and the Emperor Ferdinand's northern railway (led to the coal fields of Bohemia and Moravia). The Western Railway only went to Salzburg and Bavaria, and that parallel to the shipping traffic on the Danube. Therefore, construction began only after these two other rail connections.
On June 21, 1851, Austria and Bavaria signed a state treaty to set up railways between the two countries. The routes from Munich via Salzburg to Vienna , from Rosenheim via Kufstein to Innsbruck and the continuation of the route from Nuremberg via Regensburg to Linz were agreed . In addition, the contract also included the construction of the Brenner Railway to connect to the Lombard-Venetian railway from Bolzano to Verona . The completion of all lines was scheduled for March 1, 1858.
The originally planned route from Salzburg to Bruck an der Mur was counted as "one of the more difficult and expensive routes in Europe" shortly after the planning was completed in September 1852. At first the high costs were seen as justified, but the decision was made in November 1852 to abandon the construction because of the great difficulties and costs. That is why a more direct route from Salzburg to Linz was finally planned. The entrepreneur Hermann Dietrich Lindheim commissioned the chief inspector Karl Keissler to work out a project for a western railway from Vienna via Linz to Salzburg, and received a pre-license for this on October 19, 1854. Keissler was later director of the initially privately operated Kaiserin Elisabethbahn . For the financing, Lindheim founded a consortium together with the Hamburg entrepreneur Ernst Merck , to which, in addition to Creditanstalt and the banker Salomon Rothschild, several private investors belonged. This consortium was incorporated as a public company on June 22, 1856.
On April 21, 1856, a second state treaty was signed with Bavaria, which laid down the Salzburg-Vienna line. At the most within a period of five years ... counted from the day the ratifications were exchanged , the line should now go into operation. The branch line from Passau to Linz should be completed within seven years.
On March 8, 1856, the Austrian government awarded the concession for these lines to the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn . In the concession, a privilege period of 90 years and the state guarantee of an annual annuity of 52/10% for 5% interest and repayment of the investment capital were stated.
On August 12, 1860, the entire Vienna – Linz – Salzburg route was opened to traffic. The Wels – Passau branch line was completed on September 1, 1861. In the same year Friedrich Schey von Koromla became director of the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn.
The ceremonial opening of the Imperial and Royal Empress Elisabeth Railway took place in Salzburg on August 12, 1860 in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph and King Maximilian II of Bavaria, who arrived at the same time in Salzburg with court trains from opposite directions.
On the occasion of the opening of rail traffic between the cities of Vienna and Munich, a large festival was held on August 15, 1860 in Vienna's kk Augarten , which was also attended by the first guests arriving in Vienna from Munich. A grandiose celebration had been prepared and, as an exception, the Augarten belonging to Hofärar had been opened for use. In addition to the Strauss band under the direction of Josef Strauss , three military bands played, and the Vienna men's choir also played a part . On this occasion, Josef Strauss (1827–1870) performed his polka “Gruss an München” op. 90, composed for this festival, for the first time. It is doubtful whether the gracefully friendly work was also honored that day. Because the festival was so turbulent that the masses of visitors devastated the carefully tended Augarten so thoroughly that the Obersthofmeisteramt no longer approved a festival in the Augarten for a long time. The publisher Carl Haslinger hurried to promptly produce and deliver the Josef Strauss polka. The piano edition, on the title page of which the most modern locomotive was racing towards the silhouette of Munich visible in the background, was ready for sale in time for the festival. As a result, the polka had the typical fate of an occasional composition: it was forgotten just as quickly as the reason for its creation.
In 1857, the lines Linz – Lambach – Gmunden and Linz – Budweis, operated as horse-drawn railways , were owned by the Imperial Royal Privilege First Railway Company and owned by the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn. These routes had to be re-gauged and partially re-routed for locomotive operation.
In 1884 the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn was nationalized. The vehicles and routes were transferred to the property of the kk Staatsbahnen (kkStB).
The routes
- Vienna – Linz (born December 15, 1858)
- Linz – Salzburg – Reich border (* August 12, 1860)
- Wels – Passau (born September 1, 1861)
- Budweis – Linz – Gmunden (taken on October 1, 1857 as a narrow-gauge line)
- Linz – Lambach (born September 1, 1859 as a standard gauge line)
- Summerau – Budweis (born December 1, 1871)
- St. Valentin – Summerau (born November 6, 1872)
- Linz – Gaisbach-Wartberg (* December 20, 1873)
- Neumarkt-Kallham-Braunau am Inn (acquired October 23, 1870, * December 20, 1870)
- Braunau-Simbach (born July 1, 1871)
- Salzburg – Hallein (born July 15, 1871)
- Hallein – Bischofshofen – Wörgl (born August 6, 1875)
- Bischofshofen – Selzthal (born August 6, 1875)
- Penzing – St.Veit – Maxing – Hetzendorf (* December 20, 1860)
- Maxing - Kaiser-Ebersdorf (born May 1, 1872)
- Hütteldorf – St. Veit (born June 28, 1883)
Routes operated for the owner's account
- Holzleithen – Thomasroith (born October 23, 1877)
- Steindorf – Aching – Braunau (born September 10, 1873)
Locomotives
| Locomotives of the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KEB series | number | Manufacturer | Construction year | Axis formula | kkStB no. | image | ||
| 0 | 5 | Saxon machine factory | 1873 | C n2t | 61.01-05 |
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| I. | 54 | Wiener Neustadt , StEG , Sigl / Vienna , KEB workshop | 1858-1859, 1863 | 1B n2 | 12.01-37 |
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| II | 30th | Wiener Neustadt , StEG | 1869-1872 | 1B n2 | 21.01-30 |
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| III | 35 | Wiener Neustadt , StEG , Sigl / Vienna , KEB workshop | 1860, 1862, 1866 | C n2 | 33.01-35 | |||
| IV | 69 | Wr. Neustadt , StEG , Sigl / Vienna , KEB workshop, Krauss / Linz | 1867-1884 | C n2 | 47.01-69 |
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| V | 24 | Saxon machine factory , Wiener Neustadt , Floridsdorf | 1873-1875 | D n2 | 70.01-24 |
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| L. | 5 | Wiener Neustadt | 1880 | B n2t | 88.01-05 |
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Route descriptions from 1859 and 1860
A detailed description of the two routes and their immediate surroundings at the time of their opening in 1858 (Vienna-Linz) and 1860 (Linz-Salzburg [-Munich]) were provided by the two travel guides published by the Austrian Lloyd in Trieste , illustrated with route maps and views of the area Vienna to Linz. Travel guide for all stations of the Kaiserin Elisabeth-Westbahn from Linz to Vienna including the Danube journey from Linz to Vienna ”and“ From Vienna to Munich. Travel guide for all stations of the Kaiserin Elisabeth-Westbahn and the k. bair. State railway and Danube journey from Passau to Vienna ”.
literature
- Peter Wegenstein: Austria's railway lines . Pospischil Publishing House, Vienna 2007.
- Österreichischer Lloyd (Ed.): From Vienna to Munich. Travel guide for all stations of the Kaiserin Elisabeth-Westbahn and the k. bair. State railway and Danube journey from Passau to Vienna . Trieste 1861
Web links
- Victor von Röll: Encyclopedia of the Railway System Volume 6 (1914) on www.zeno.org
- To the history of the "Braunau-Strasswalchener-Bahn", which was only operated by the KEB.
Individual evidence
- ^ State treaty between Austria and Bavaria of June 21, 1851 concerning the connection of the railways to be built on the two sides. In: Reich Law and Government Gazette for the Empire of Austria , year 1852, p. 189 (online at ANNO ).
- ^ Telegraphic dispatches. In: foreigners sheet of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet and tag news of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet / foreigner sheet with Vedette / foreigner sheet with military supplement Die Vedette , September 18th 1852, p. 1 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ Austria. In: Innsbrucker Zeitung / Innsbrucker Zeitung. For freedom, truth and justice! , September 21, 1852, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).
- ^ Telegraphic dispatches. In: foreigners sheet of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet and tag news of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet / foreigner sheet with Vedette / foreigner sheet with military supplement Die Vedette , November 17th 1852, p. 1 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ Vienna. In: foreigners sheet of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet and tag news of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet / foreigner sheet with Vedette / foreigner sheet with military supplement Die Vedette , May 28th 1863, p. 3 (online at ANNO ).
- ^ Building history of the Western Railway in Manfred Wehdorn and Ute Georgeacopol-Winischhofer: Architectural monuments of technology and industry in Austria , Volume 1, Böhlau, Graz-Vienna 1964, p. 218
- ^ State treaty between Austria and Bavaria of April 21, 1856 on the connection of the railways on both sides. In: Imperial Law and Government Gazette for the Empire of Austria , year 1856, p. 415 (online at ANNO ).