Lavant Valley Railway

Zeltweg − Celje
ÖBB 5022 in Bad St. Leonhard station
Lavant Valley Railway to the state border at Lavamünd
Route number (ÖBB) :	457 01
Route number :	31
Course book route (ÖBB) :	620
Route length:	approx. 166 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	D4
Maximum slope :	27.5  ‰
Minimum radius :	174 m
Legend Rudolfsbahn from St. Michael 0.000 Zeltweg 669  m above sea level A. Fohnsdorf Railway to Pöls Rudolfsbahn to Villach Pöls Connection to the Zeltweg power plant Mur Zeltweger Strasse 537 4.353 Weißkirchen (until July 31, 2010) 687  m above sea level A. Gaberl Street Granitzenbach 7,580 Eppenstein (until July 31, 2010) 726  m above sea level A. 8,568 Schaffer sawmill connecting line 12,554 Kathal (until July 31, 2010 ) 789  m above sea level A. Amering Street 541 13.274 Connecting railway Johann Pabst Holzindustrie 16,351 Shelter (until July 31, 2010) 871  m above sea level A. Obdacher street Obdacher street 880  m above sea level A. State border Styria / Carinthia 23,072 Tax host (until July 31, 2010 ) 876  m above sea level A. 24,571 Reichenfels-St. Peter (formerly Bf, until July 31, 2010) 845  m above sea level A. 29.729 Stora Enso Timber connecting railway 31.117 Bad St. Leonhard (PV until December 9, 2017) 703  m above sea level A. Lavant Obdacher street Klippitztörl Street 34.244 Connecting line RZ Holzindustrie 34.493 Wiesenau (until December 9, 2017) 660  m above sea level A. 34.726 Connecting line RZ Holzindustrie 36.228 Preblau-Sauerbrunn (until December 9, 2017) 640  m above sea level A. 37.929 Twimberger Tunnel north portal (255.21 m) South highway 38.184 Twimberger Tunnel south portal 38.645 Twimberg (until December 9, 2017) 606  m above sea level A. Lavant Packer Street 40.641 Eulofen tunnel (110.02 m) Packer Street Lavant 42.80 Raderwirt (until September 26, 1976) 541  m above sea level A. 46.850 Frantschach-St. Gertraud (PV until December 9, 2017) 490  m above sea level A. 49.296 Connection sawmill Offner Packer Street 50.426 Wolfsberg 462  m above sea level A. Weissenbach Street Lavant Packer Street 51.933 Priel (until November 21, 2011) 450  m above sea level A. 52.642 Wolfsberg Reding (since November 21, 2011) 450  m above sea level A. 52.87 Connection to the "paint factory" (until 1985) Gemmersdorfer Strasse 54.786 St. Stefan in Lavanttal 433  m above sea level A. 56,447 Connection to mining "New Shaft" 56.9 PMS connecting track Stefaner Landesstrasse 59.775 St. Andrä in the Lavant Valley 408  m above sea level A. Ettendorfer Strasse Mettersdorfer Strasse 63.038 Mühldorf in the Lavant Valley 395  m above sea level A. Koralm Railway from Graz Hbf Koralm Railway Lavanttal Lavant Koralmbahn to Klagenfurt Hbf Kollnitzer Strasse 66.636 St. Paul 379  m above sea level A. Jauntalbahn to Bleiburg Rainzer Strasse 69,500 St. Georgen in the Lavant Valley 374  m above sea level A. 72,600 Altacherwirt 360  m above sea level A. 75,402 Ettendorf 361  m above sea level A. 75.632 Connection to the Cimenti sawmill Lavant 78.385 Lavamünd market 353  m above sea level A. 79.165 Lavamünd 354  m above sea level A. 82.60 Rabenstein - Leifling ~ 83.1 State border Austria - Slovenia 86.50 Dravograd Trga / Unterdrauburg Market Outside Carinthian Railway to Villach 88.40 0.0 Dravograd Meža / Unterdrauburg Carinthian Railway to Maribor 1.2 Otiški vrh / Ottischnigberg 1943 as Kronenberg (Styria) 3.2 Šentjanž pri Dravogradu / St. Johann ob Drauburg 1943 as Lindenhof (Styria) 5.9 Sveta Jedert / St. Gertraud in 1943 as Gertrauden 10.0 Slovenj Gradec Mesto / Windischgraz Neustadt 1943 as Windischgraz town 11.2 Slovenj Gradec / Windischgrätz 1943 as Windischgraz 409  m above sea level A. 13.1 Šmartno pri Slovenj Gradcu / ... 1943 as Hartenstein (b Windischgraz) 15.1 Turiška Vas / Turkish village in 1943 as Turkish village 18.7 Dovže / Dousche 1943 as Döllsach 573  m above sea level A. 22.4 Mislinja / Missling 1943 as Waldegg (Styria) Tunnel (150 m) Tunnel (150 m) 25.5 Gornji Dolič / Ober Dollitsch in 1943 as Türkenkogel Packing tunnel 1 (600 m) Packing tunnel 2 tunnel 31.0 Paka / Pack 1943 as a pack 34.2 Selo / Selle 1943 as Schallegg 37.5 / 36.9 Velenje / Wöllan 1943 as Wöllan 368  m above sea level A. 35.6 Pesje / Hundsdorf 1943 as Hundsdorf ~ 35.6 Coal railway to Skale 33.0 Šoštanj - Topolšica / Schönstein-Bad Topolschitz 1943 as Schönstein-Warmbad 31.3 Florjan 1943 not listed Skorno tunnel (149 m) 25.3 Paška Vas / Packdorf 1943 as a packing village 23.3 Šmartno ob Paki / Rietzdorf 1943 as a pack stone 315  m above sea level A. 17.5 Polzela - Braslovče / Heilenstein-Fraßlau 1943 as Heilenstein-Fraßlau 309  m above sea level A. A1 motorway 13.3 Šempeter v Savinjski dolini / St. Peter in 1943 as Petersdorf (Sann) 275  m above sea level A. 8.6 Žalec / Sachsenfeld in 1943 as Sachsenfeld 257  m above sea level A. 7.0 Petrovče / Petrowitsch 1943 as Arndorf (b Cilli) 250  m above sea level A. 1.7 Celje Lava / Cilli 1943 not listed 241  m above sea level A. South runway from Maribor / Marburg 0.0 Celje / Cilli 1943 as Cilli 241  m above sea level A. - Southern Railway to Zidani Most / Steinbrück

The Lavant Valley Railway is a railway line in Austria and Slovenia . It connects the Carinthian Lavanttal to the north with the Rudolfsbahn and further towards Vienna and to the southwest via the Jauntalbahn towards Klagenfurt . The line is single-track and not electrified, it is driven by diesel locomotives and multiple units.

Route

The disused Draubrücke shortly before Unterdrauburg

The Lavanttalbahn branches off in the Styrian Zeltweg to the south from the Rudolfsbahn .

With a maximum gradient of 27 ‰ it crosses the Obdacher Sattel (955 m), which is the highest point of the route, and then follows the Lavant valley via Wolfsberg and St. Andrä to St. Paul , where the Jauntalbahn branches off to the west .

The Lavant Valley Railway continued from St. Paul to Lavamünd near the Austrian- Slovenian border. This section of the route has been removed.

Current usage

Freight traffic takes place on the entire currently existing route Zeltweg - St. Paul. The largest customer is the Mondi paper and pulp mill in Frantschach-St. Gertraud north of Wolfsberg, additional goods are generated by numerous other wood processing companies.

Since the 2001/2002 timetable period, passenger traffic on the Zeltweg - Wolfsberg route has been handled almost exclusively by buses as replacement rail services. A continuous pair of school trains (Knittelfeld -) Zeltweg - Klagenfurt and back only ran on weekdays. On July 31, 2010, passenger traffic on the Zeltweg - Bad St. Leonhard section was completely suspended.

There is regular regional traffic between Wolfsberg and Klagenfurt (via the Jauntalbahn).

Passenger traffic on the St. Paul - Lavamünd route was discontinued in 1997. From 2004 the private Lavamünder Bahn (LBB) ran freight traffic and in the summer of 2007 it operated nostalgic tourist traffic. In 2012, this stretch of the route, which was already impassable between Ettendorf and Lavamünd, was offered for sale by ÖBB, then sold to a German removal company and removed in March 2016.

As part of an existing infrastructure as an access route to the Koralmbahn , the Wolfsberg - St. Paul section (around 15.4 km) is to be electrified and electronic interlockings are to be built in the Wolfsberg, St. Stefan and St. Andrä stations. The project thus affects the communities of Frantschach-St. Gertraud, Wolfsberg and St. Andrä in Lavanttal on the feeder route to the Koralmbahn. The passenger traffic in the section between Wolfsberg and Bad St. Leonhard, which had only been operated by rail replacement traffic since March 2017, was finally stopped with the timetable change in December 2017.

history

Share over 200 kroner from the Zeltweg-Wolfsberg and Unterdrauburg-Wöllan railways on January 1, 1898

Historically, the Lavanttalbahn is the route Zeltweg - Wolfsberg - Unterdrauburg - Windischgraz  - Wöllan  - Cilli . At least in the history part, the entire route should be discussed.

Establishment

• Unterdrauburg - Wolfsberg:

The first project for a Lavant valley railway dates back to 1868. In 1863 the southern railway branch line (Marburg -) Unterdrauburg - Bleiburg - Klagenfurt (- Franzensfeste) was opened. It was important for the Carinthian provincial government to also build a rail link from Unterdrauburg to the Lavant Valley. In 1876, a state law decided to build a standard gauge branch line. The kk privileged Southern Railway Company began construction on July 1, 1878. The first train ran the 38.09 km long Unterdrauburg - Wolfsberg line on October 4, 1879. On January 1, 1899, the kk Österreichische Staatsbahnen (kkStB) took over the Lavant Valley Railway .

• Cilli - Wöllan:

The route between the then Styrian cities of Cilli (Celje) and Wöllan (Velenje) served to develop the coal mines of Wöllan. It was built by the Styrian State Railways. The 37.5 km long route was opened on December 29, 1891.

• Wöllan - Unterdrauburg:

This 36.3 km long mountain route went into operation on December 20, 1899. In 1970, operations on the Ottischnigberg (Otiški vrh) - Wöllan section were discontinued and the tracks were removed. The section Ottischnigberg - Oberdollitsch is used today by the Štrekna cycle path .

• Zeltweg - Wolfsberg:

This line was built by the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Railways . After around one and a half years of construction, the line was opened on January 10, 1900.

Changes after the First World War

Worn out Lavamünder Bahn near St. Paul

Due to the peace treaty of St. Germain , the Unterdrauburg railway junction fell to the SHS state (later Yugoslavia ) in 1919 . The corridor traffic Lavamünd - Unterdrauburg - Bleiburg was specified in the contract without border formalities. After the Second World War , this corridor traffic did not start again until 1952. It was also the reason for the construction of the Jauntalbahn , after the opening of the Lavamünd - Unterdrauburg line from May 30, 1965, and largely dismantled.

In 2016 the section from Lavamünd to St. Paul, the former Lavamünder Bahn, was also removed.

gallery

• 

  Bad St. Leonhard train station in Lavanttal

• 

  Wolfsberg Reding stop

• 

  St. Andrä train station in Lavanttal

• 

  Two-axle set of NBiK in the Lavamünd train station of LBB

literature

• Dietmar Rauter, Herwig Rainer: Off the beaten track: The Lavant Valley Railway. Zeltweg - Wolfsberg - Unterdrauburg - Wöllan. St. Paul - Bleiburg (Jauntalbahn) . Wolf Verlag, Wolfsberg 1999. ISBN 3901551395
• 100 years of Lavanttalbahn Wolfsberg - Lavamünd 1879-1979 . Edited by the festival committee. Villach undated

Web links

Commons : Lavanttalbahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://eisenbahntunnel.at/inhalt/tunnelportale/45701.html#twimberg
2. ↑ http://eisenbahntunnel.at/inhalt/tunnelportale/45701.html#eulofen
3. ↑ http://www.kleinezeitung.at/kaernten/wolfsberg/reichenfels/2371746/zuege-sind-endgueltig-abgefahren.story
4. ↑ http://archiv.kleine.at/kaernten/wolfsberg/2721166/lavamuend-steig-dem-zug.story  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ The existing attractiveness of the Lavant Valley Railway. BMK , accessed on February 22, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Negotiation from March 18, 2016 .
8. ↑ cycling. In: turizem-slovenjgradec.si. Retrieved April 29, 2019 . 
9. ^ [1] Kleine Zeitung (accessed March 9, 2016).