Karlsruhe local railway

Spöck – Durmersheim Grünwinkel – Daxlanden
Route length:	32.9 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	600 volts  =
Legend 16.0 Spöck 14.4 Friedrichstal 12.6 Staff location 11.1 Stutensee 8.7 Blankenloch (1891-1897) 7.9 Blankenloch 6.2 Büchig 4.5 Hagsfeld 5.0 Hagsfeld (until 1936) 3.8 Rheinbahn 3.7 Hagsfeld (terminus from 1936) Handover to the Rheinbahn (from 1921) 2.1 Hirtenweg depot (from 1921) 1.6 New cemetery Connection of Haid & Neu (1919–1956) Connection Haid & Neu 1.0 Roundabout 0.4 Durlacher gate 0.0 0.0 Local train station Handover to the state railway 0.2 Kronenstrasse (until 1917) 0.6 Winter monument new route from 1917 1.3 Karlstor / Karlstrasse 1.6 Hirschstrasse Hardtbahn (until 1913) 1.9 Westendstrasse / Lessingstrasse Connection DWM / consumption (1917–1952) Joined Moninger (1917–1935) 2.4 Border road new route from 1917 Schillerstrasse from 1908 Körnerstraße (tram only) 3.2 Swimming school avenue (1890–1895) from Karlsruhe West train station (from 1917) 3.8 Cool jug (until 1913: swimming school) 4.0 Winden – Karlsruhe railway line (from 1913) 4.5 0.0 Green angle 0.5 Pfalzstrasse 1.6 Appenmühle / festival hall 2.1 Daxlanden 5.0 Pfalzstrasse 7.5 Dodge (1911–1932) 9.2 Forchheim 11.3 Mörsch 14.1 Durmersheim Gasthof Lamm 14.8 Durmersheim

The Karlsruher Lokalbahn , abbreviated to KLB or colloquially known as Lobberle , was a meter- gauge narrow - gauge railway that connected Karlsruhe with Daxlanden , Durmersheim and Spöck . The local railway , which opened in 1890/91 - in some cases also classified as a small railway - had little economic success, so that most of the sections were closed again by 1938 . A residual traffic in the urban area of ​​Karlsruhe could hold up until 1955.

history

Emergence

After the Baden railway network was largely completed around 1880 , two major gaps remained in the Karlsruhe area: the places in the north-east of the city and in the south-west had no railway connection. Since a railway connection promised economic upturn at the time and enabled the residents to accept jobs in the emerging industrial companies of Karlsruhe, various considerations were made since 1883 about building a local railway that should close the gap in the railway network. Finally, the railway entrepreneur Herrmann Bachstein and his financiers were able to get interested in the project. After the concession was granted in 1888, construction work began. The general contractor and first operator was the central administration for Secundairbahnen Herrmann Bachstein .

The southern route from Karlsruhe via Grünwinkel , Forchheim , Mörsch to Durmersheim was opened on October 6, 1890. It began in Karlsruhe at the local train station, which was located on Kapellenstrasse not far from what was then the Karlsruhe main train station and where a workshop was set up. The end point in Durmersheim was today's Chennevieres-Platz.

The northern route was opened shortly after on 29 October that year and led first to local railway station to the then new cemetery called main cemetery of Karlsruhe . On January 29, 1891, the extension took place via Hagsfeld , Blankenloch , Staffort and Friedrichstal to Spöck. North of Blankenloch it led across the country in a zigzag and touched Staffort, Friedrichstal and Spöck only on the outskirts of the village. A coach house was built at the Spöck train station, which is still used by the subsequent bus traffic.

Operation in the early years

The trains were originally pulled by seven small box steam locomotives. Because of its low speed, the journey times were very long: the trains took about an hour for the 14.8 kilometers long southern route and 65 minutes for the 16.0 kilometers long northern route.

The Karlsruhe local railway was not granted a great economic success. Although the rush hour traffic was considerable, the rest of the traffic remained modest, and freight traffic also fell short of expectations. For the business year 1910/1911 1.8 million passengers, 781 dogs, 394 other animals, 15,000 pieces of luggage and 5,400 tons of goods are recorded. The construction of the main line Graben-Neudorf- Blankenloch-Karlsruhe-Durmersheim- Rastatt in 1895, which ran almost parallel to the local line and created considerable competition, contributed to the economically sobering results .

On April 1, 1897, the railway was transferred to the Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (SEG). Attempts to make the railways more attractive through electrification in the Karlsruhe urban area were not implemented. In contrast, on December 8, 1913, a branch line from Grünwinkel to Daxlanden was opened. The originally planned extension to the Karlsruhe Rheinhafen was no longer realized, as was the branch line to the former Mühlburg train station on Fliederplatz.

Takeover by the city of Karlsruhe

At the beginning of the 20th century, the city of Karlsruhe developed plans to open up the surrounding area with a network of small railways and intercity trams . The model was the city of Mannheim , which was able to achieve this goal in 1911 with the establishment of the Upper Rhine Railway Company . There were similar projects in Strasbourg and Basel . Therefore, the city of Karlsruhe tried to get the local railway and the also meter-gauge Albtalbahn into their hands by founding a joint operating company with municipal participation.

Negotiations regarding the Alb Valley Railway failed, but at least the city was able to buy the local railway from SEG for 1.95 million marks . On January 1, 1915, it was incorporated into the Municipal Railway Authority , which operated the standard-gauge tram network that had existed since 1877 .

Modernization, electrification and start of freight transport

The city of Karlsruhe soon began to modernize the local railway. In the city area, a new, shared, three- track route was created with the tram through Mathystrasse and the previous route through Kriegsstrasse was abandoned; the new section was put into operation on September 15, 1917. At the same time, goods traffic with trolleys within Karlsruhe began. The following companies received their own sidings for this purpose :

• the Moninger brewery at Kriegsstrasse 128–130 (later 210–216), access via Moningerstrasse
• the Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) in Gartenstrasse 71
• the Karlsruhe Living Needs Association (later Konsum ) at Roonstrasse 28

Due to the former connection, part of the original route through the Kriegsstrasse was retained after 1917. The freight wagons for the necessity association also had to pass the DWM site, which means that the two companies shared a common track. In 1919, the Haid & Neu sewing machine factory (later Singer ) in Haid-und-Neu-Strasse 7 followed.

Also in 1917, the city began electrifying the local train station – Hagsfeld and local train station – Grünwinkel – Daxlanden, which, however, due to the war, could only be completed when electrical operations opened on February 12, 1919 between the local train station and Hagsfeld and 1921 to Daxlanden. Two-axle passenger cars converted into electric multiple units were used on the electrified routes , for which a storage hall had been built on Hirtenweg. In 1923, regular traffic was set up on the two electric lines. The trains to Durmersheim and Spöck continued to run with steam locomotives.

The poor economic situation after the First World War finally brought the end of the local railway line to Spöck. The Hagsfeld – Spöck section was closed on January 1, 1922 due to unprofitability. In the mid-1920s, considerations to revive the line at least as far as Blankenloch as an electric intercity tram could not be implemented.

The operation on the southern route to Durmersheim was also characterized by low profitability. Nevertheless, the city of Karlsruhe had it electrified. Electric operation was opened on November 16, 1929 with the two-axle railcars that also ran to Daxlanden and Hagsfeld. By purchasing three electric baggage locomotives from the Rastatt wagon factory , steam operations could be limited to serving the sidings from 1930 onwards.

Shutdown

Despite modernization, the economic situation of the Karlsruhe local railway remained critical. The section through the city center was abandoned in 1932 for passenger traffic. The local train from Hagsfeld - now called line 11 - ended at the main cemetery, the trains from Durmersheim and Daxlanden - where line 12 went - at the Kühlen Krug , where you had to change to the standard-gauge tram. In 1935, goods traffic to the brewery also ended.

Worn out tracks and a lack of demand ultimately led to the closure of the Mörsch – Durmersheim (April 26, 1936), Mörsch – Grünwinkel (August 14, 1937) and Daxlanden – Kühler Krug (March 31, 1938) lines. The end point of the line in Hagsfeld was moved in front of the level crossing in 1936. Due to the Second World War , only passenger traffic to Hagsfeld and goods traffic in the south-west town could last longer. Ultimately, the DWM / Konsum connection was in operation until 1952, passenger traffic to Hagsfeld ended on May 2, 1955, and goods traffic to Haid & Neu in 1956.

Further development

Although the city of Karlsruhe's plans to create an overland tram network failed in the first half of the 20th century, the plans were not abandoned even after the Second World War.

With the integration of the Albtalbahn into the Karlsruhe tram network at the end of the 1950s, a phase of network expansion was ushered in, in the course of which, from 1989, a route was created with today's S2 urban railway line that partly follows the course of the former Karlsruhe local railway and the Mörsch in the south with it Karlsruhe and Spöck in the north connects. However, it is standard gauge and drives through the middle of Karlsruhe city center. An extension in the south to Durmersheim was discussed, but did not find a political majority.

Relics

Dreischieniges Gleisjoch, now dismantled, as a memorial

Plaque

After the Karlsruhe local railway was shut down, the tracks and systems were dismantled piece by piece. The following relics have been preserved:

• Catenary rosettes in various places
• part of the three-rail siding on the former Haid & Neu site, now the Karlsruhe technology factory
• at the main cemetery the former waiting hall of the local railway, it was built in the years 1905–1906 by Friedrich Beichel from the municipal building department and is today a cultural monument .
• near Schloss Stutensee the bridge over the Heglach .

The locomotives and electric railcars of the local railway were scrapped, some cars could be sold to other railways and some have been preserved until today. The monument at Ettlinger Tor , a three-rail track yoke sunk into the ground, was removed in the course of the construction work for the combined solution . The memorial was an original track remnant, which until 2001 was on Kriegsstrasse just before Mendelssohnplatz.

literature

• Wolfram-Christian Geyer: The Karlsruhe Local Railway. From Lobberle to Stadtbahn - from Spöck to Durmersheim. Verlag Regionalkultur, Heidelberg et al. 2006, ISBN 3-89735-464-0 .
• Klaus Bindewald, Wolfram-Christian Geyer: The Karlsruhe local railways. In: Manfred Koch (Ed.): Unter Strom. History of local public transport in Karlsruhe. Badenia Verlag, Karlsruhe 2000, ISBN 3-7617-0324-4 ( publications of the Karlsruhe City Archives 20).
• Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany. Volume 6: Bathing. EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1999, ISBN 3-88255-337-5 .
• Gerd Wolff, Hans-Dieter Menges: German small and private railways. Volume 2: Bathing . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-653-6 , p. 63-77 .
• Wolfram-Christian Geyer: The Karlsruhe local railway (s) Karlsruhe - Spöck / Durmersheim and -Daxlanden. In: Tram magazine. No. 67, 1988, ISSN  0340-7071 .
• Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 60-64 .

Web links

• The local railway in the Karlsruhe city wiki

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.beitraege.lokomotive.de
2. ↑ Database of Karlsruhe cultural monuments on web1.karlsruhe.de
3. ↑ Traffic relicts in and around Karlsruhe at www.schygulla.de ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.