Klingbach Valley Railway
| Klingbach Valley Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number : | 3441 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book range : | last 282c | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 9.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Klingbachtalbahn , sometimes also the Klingbachbahn , was a 9.46 km long state branch line, which branched off from the Palatinate Maximiliansbahn at Rohrbach-Steinweiler station (today Rohrbach) and led to Klingenmünster . It was opened in 1892. Passenger traffic ended in 1957, freight traffic followed in 1968. The route was then dismantled. It got its name from the Klingbach , a southern Palatinate tributary of the Rhine, which it follows along its entire length.
history
Planning and construction
As early as 1865 there were first plans to build a branch line at Rohrbach-Steinweiler station from the Palatinate Maximiliansbahn Neustadt – Landau – Winden – Wissembourg / Karlsruhe through the Klingbachtal via Klingenmünster to Bergzabern. In particular, the community of Billigheim promised an economic upswing from such a railway line.
Construction work began in 1888. The construction of the embankment was carried out by a building contractor from Lingenfeld . Italian construction workers were also brought in to help. It is unclear today, however, whether such people from China were also involved.
The line from Rohrbach-Steinweiler to Klingenmünster was then opened on December 1, 1892. It was affectionately known as " de Wisseritscher " in the vernacular .
The plans to tie the Klingbachtalbahn through to Bergzabern and thus create a connection to the Winden – Bad Bergzabern railway line, which opened in 1870 , failed.
There were also efforts to extend the route beyond Rohrbach further along the Klingbach via Herxheim to Rülzheim . As early as 1894, two years after the line was opened, a non-binding design license for a “secondary line” from Rohrbach to Herxheim was granted. In Herxheim in particular, there were those interested in such a rail connection, who specifically contacted the responsible committee in Klingenmünster. However, technical difficulties that would have been expected during construction and operation prevented the Klingbachtalbahn from being extended towards the Rhine . After Herxheim received a rail connection to Landau in 1898, these plans were finally abandoned. The route was heavily frequented for many years.
accident
On December 30, 1948, late in the morning at the unbarred level crossing on the road from Rohrbach to Steinweiler, which was not far from the junction from the main line, there was a collision between the Klingenmünster – Landau passenger train and a truck carrying the 64 450 locomotive and two wagons derailed. While the train driver and stoker got away with minor injuries, the truck driver died and his passenger suffered a fractured skull.
Shutdown
Passenger traffic ceased on June 1, 1957. Of the routes branching off from the Palatinate Maximiliansbahn, the Klingbachtalbahn was the first to suffer this fate.
In the following years a so-called " consumer goods traffic " was carried out. In 1966, the Deutsche Bundesbahn determined an annual deficit of 246,000 DM for the Klingbachtalbahn. It also forecast an investment requirement of around 870,000 DM and came to the conclusion that only a complete closure would make economic sense.
On September 24, 1967, freight traffic, which has only been operated sporadically since then, came to an end. A year later the line was also dismantled.
traffic
In its last years of operation, traffic was carried out with class 64 steam locomotives and rail buses from the Landau depot . In addition, a mixed train (freight train with passenger transport, GmP) ran every morning from Landau to Klingenmünster. The route was last recorded in the timetable of the Deutsche Bundesbahn under the number 282c.
Operating points
Rohrbach (Palatinate)
The Rohrbach (Pfalz) train station is located on the eastern outskirts of Rohrbach . In the first 22 years of its existence it was the only stop between Landau and Winden. In the first decades of its existence it was called Rohrbach b. Landau, later it was renamed Rohrbach-Steinweiler due to its importance for the Steinweiler community . On December 1, 1892, this was the starting point for the Klingbachtalbahn to Klingenmünster , which lost passenger traffic in 1957 and goods traffic ten years later. With the cessation of freight traffic and the dismantling of the track systems, the station was also given up as a block , so that it has only been a stopping point since then. Since the opening of the Steinweiler stop in 1999, it has had the current name. Its former station building is a listed building.
Cheap home Mühlhofen
Cheapheim-Mühlhofen station had an overtaking track and an additional siding. The station building is located north of the track system.
Ingenheim-Appenhofen
Ingenheim-Appenhofen station had a total of 3 tracks. The station building was also with him north of the track system.
Heuchelheim blades
Heuchelheim-Klingen station had 2 tracks. The reception building and goods shed are to the north of it.
Klingenmünster
Klingenmünster station had a total of 4 tracks in an east-west orientation. The reception building is larger than at the aforementioned operating points. To the east of the reception building were a goods shed and a locomotive shed.
Relics
The exit station Rohrbach-Steinweiler has meanwhile been dismantled to the stopping point and renamed " Rohrbach (Pfalz) " in 1999 , when Steinweiler received a local stopping point on the Maximiliansbahn in the same year. The "Klingbachtalbahnsteig" and the stump tracks were preserved until 2006 before they gave way to a bypass road.
The so-called " Klingbach Cycle Path " from Vorderweidenthal to Hördt , which has now been created, runs between the former Heuchelheim-Klingen and Billigheim-Mühlhofen stations on the former route of the Klingbachtalbahn. The station buildings are all still preserved. In Klingenmünster, however, the goods shed disappeared around the turn of the millennium, which was built according to a standard design by the Pfalzbahn , while the former locomotive shed east of the station is still there. In the Ingenheim-Appenhofen train station, the building of which has long since passed into private ownership, a form signal was also set up.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Sturm, p. 239
- ↑ a b c d e f Heilmann / Schreiner, p. 120
- ↑ Sturm, p. 240
- ↑ Michael Heilmann, Werner Schreiner: 150 years Maximiliansbahn Neustadt – Strasbourg . 2005, p. 25th f .
- ↑ Michael Heilmann, Werner Schreiner: 150 years Maximiliansbahn Neustadt-Strasbourg . 2005, p. 88 .
- ↑ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - Southern Wine Route district. Mainz 2020, p. 83 (PDF; 10 MB).
- ↑ a b c d Original plan documents . 1956.
literature
- Fascination Railway - Heimat-Jahrbuch 2008 District Südliche Weinstrasse, Verlag Franz Arbogast Otterbach, ISSN 0177-8684
- Michael Heilmann, Werner Schreiner: 150 years of Maximiliansbahn Neustadt-Strasbourg . pro MESSAGE 2005, ISBN 3-934845-27-4
- Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways (= publications of the Palatinate Society for the Advancement of Science . Volume 53 ). pro MESSAGE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2005, ISBN 3-934845-26-6 .
- Andreas Bachtler, Günter Nuss: The Klingbachtalbahn - memory of the Rohrbach branch line , Klingenmünster, self-published , 2010
