Kleinbahn Eltville – Schlangenbad

Eltville – Schlangenbad

Course book section (DB) :

209-276 (1914)
209E (1917 and 1927)
257e (1934)

Route length:

7.80 km

Gauge :

1000 mm ( meter gauge )

Maximum slope :

approx. 45 ‰

Legend

		Right stretch of the Rhine from Wiesbaden
	0.00	Eltville small train station
		Right Rhine route to Cologne
		Eltville German House
		Eltville gym
		depot
	3.6	Neudorf
	4.4	Rauenthal
		Tiefenthal Abbey
		Crossing point
	7.80	Snake bath

The Eltville – Schlangenbad steam tram was opened on July 1, 1895, initially as an Eltville small train . On March 25, 1899, it was re- licensed as a tram , not least because freight traffic only played a subordinate role.

history

The reason for the construction was that the up-and-coming health resort Schlangenbad had no connection to the railway network and the previous feeder service with horse-drawn vehicles to the next train station in the small Rheingau town of Eltville was not attractive for spa guests to Schlangenbad. The spa administration therefore began negotiations with the Allgemeine Deutsche Kleinbahn-AG (ADKA) in Berlin in 1894 about the construction of a small railway.

The ADKG built the line in the spring of 1895. The construction costs amounted to 532,000 marks. The first test drive on June 20th was followed by the official opening of the route on July 1st.

It began at the Eltville train station on the right line of the Rhine from Wiesbaden to Koblenz . From the station forecourt there it led with a steady incline on the country road through the vineyards and the winegrowing town of Neudorf (today Martinsthal), then through the Walluftal (Waldaffatal) past the high Rauenthal in the Taunus up to the health resort Schlangenbad, which has been known for two centuries. An extension to Bad Schwalbach was also planned. Between the start and finish point there was a 7.8 km route and an altitude difference of 220 meters.

In Eltville there was a siding to the freight station, 800 meters above the starting point was the depot with locomotive and wagon hall. In Eltville, a 1200 meter long freight track to the local Rhine port and a 120 meter long rail connection to a malt factory are said to have existed for a few years.

former station building in Martinsthal (formerly Neudorf)

The passage through Neudorf was so narrow that the conductor was obliged to go ahead of the train with a bell to warn pedestrians. In Rauenthal there was an escape route for oncoming trains.

The route was laid out in meter gauge , for which five tram locomotives were available; plus nine four-axle passenger cars and five freight cars. The 1914 summer timetable included ten train pairs on weekdays and even thirteen on Sundays.

In 1907 ADKA negotiated with Siemens and AEG about electrification of the line, but this was ultimately not done for cost reasons. The line had only been profitable for around five years and subsequently fell back into a deficit that had to be borne by the neighboring communities due to contractual regulations.

While in the "good times" numerous complaints about inadequate operations led to the expected number of passengers not being reached, the First World War and the subsequent Allied occupation of the Rhineland led to an enormous decline in the number of spa guests and day trippers in this part of the Taunus .

Therefore, on December 1, 1922 - with the exception of a few weekend trains when the weather was fine - rail operations were discontinued by the previous owner, Allgemeine Deutsche Kleinbahn-AG and its operating company, Allgemeine Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebs-GmbH (ADEG), which had been operating since 1915 . Even when the economic situation had improved somewhat, the ADEG was not prepared to continue operating the railway and in 1925 received permission to finally shut down and dismantle the railway.

To prevent this, the city of Eltville acquired the company and resumed operations on April 3, 1927. According to the Reich Course Book of July 1, 1927 - timetable 209 E - seven pairs of trains were planned on weekdays and ten on Sundays. But there was no success. After a short period of upturn, the global economic crisis followed, and passengers migrated to the parallel Wiesbaden - Schlangenbad bus line.

The city of Eltville was unable to sustain the deficit of the tram, which was used less by itself and more by the community of Schlangenbad, and on March 17, 1933, the railway was shut down. The Kraftpost took over with their buses, which took only 21 minutes instead of 33-36 minutes for the route. Little visible evidence of the railway has survived.

literature

Gerd Wolff, Andreas Christopher: German small and private railways - Volume 8 Hessen. Eisenbahn-Kurier-Verlag, Freiburg 2004, ISBN 3-88255-667-6 (pages 87ff.)
Lothar Riedel: The narrow-gauge steam tram Eltville-Schlangenbad . Self-published 2003. ISBN 3-8330-1029-0
Dieter Höltge, Günter H. Köhler: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany . 2nd Edition. 1: Hessen. EK-Verlag , Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-335-9 , p. 41 ff .
Heinz Söhnlein: The former steam tram from Eltville (Rhine) to Schlangenbad. Self-published, Mainz-Gonsenheim (1974).

Web links

Pictures of the Eltville – Schlangenbad steam tram
The Rheingau small railway project on www.rheingau-genealogie.de
Rail connection between Taunus and Rheingau ( Memento from November 9, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (archived article from February 4, 2004 on www.wiesbadener-tagblatt.de)