Local railway Speyer – Neustadt

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Neustadt – Speyer
Line of the local railway Speyer – Neustadt
Route number (DB) : 3452
Course book section (DB) : ex 282a, 282k (1944)
Route length: 29.1 km
Gauge : 1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend
   
 0.0 Speyer local station ( location )
   
 B 9
   
 B 39
   
 2.8 Dudenhofen ( location )
   
 Speyerbach
   
 7.0 Harthausen ( location )
   
 Hainbach
   
 9.7 Schwegenheim ( location )
   
 13.2 Weingarten ( location )
   
 Kaltenbach
   
 15.0 Freisbach ( location )
   
 Modenbach
   
 17.0 Gommersheim ( location )
   
 18.9 Geinsheim ( location )
   
 21.8 Duttweiler ( location )
   
 B 39
   
 25.4 Lachen-Speyerdorf ( location )
   
 A 65
   
 29.1 Neustadt Lokalbf ( location )

The Neustadt – Speyer local railway , also known as the Gäubahn , Gäubähnel or Pfefferminzbähnel , was a meter-gauge local railway from Speyer to Neustadt an der Weinstrasse that ran through the Palatinate Gäu . It was opened in two sections from 1905 to 1908 to connect the communities in the Gäu to the railway network. In 1956, passenger and freight traffic was stopped on the railway line, which was then dismantled.

history

Railway projects within the Gäus

Front Palatinate route network in 1873. The then projected railway line from Neustadt to Germersheim is shown there

Already in the course of the construction of the Palatinate Ludwig Railway , there were considerations of running the route via Speyer and from there on to Neustadt. However, this failed because of the resistance of the state of Bavaria, to which the Palatinate belonged at the time. In 1873 a memorandum was written in which the project for a route from Neustadt to Germersheim was dealt with. The Bavarian government was skeptical of the project, as in their opinion such a route would have represented competition to the existing east-west connections within the Vorderpfalz . In Westheim, the planned line was to flow into the Germersheim – Landau line, which was opened in 1872 . In 1888 a committee called for the construction of a line from Speyer via Harthausen, Schwegenheim, Weingarten, Gommersheim, Altdorf and Venningen to Edenkoben. At the end of 1891 his efforts failed because the Palatinate Railways did not certify that such a line was in economic operation. A little later, on the initiative of Neustadt, a concession existed according to which Lingenfeld was to form the eastern end point. However, this brought the city of Speyer on the scene. The latter managed to convince the people of Neustadt to force a route to the cathedral city. The Palatinate Railways also advocated such a meter-gauge line .

Construction and first years

In 1904 the construction of the Speyer - Geinsheim section began on the account of the Palatinate Ludwig Railway Company , which, together with the Palatinate Northern Railway Company and the Palatinate Maximilians Railway Company, formed the administration and operating company of the Palatinate Railways from 1870 . In order to open up as many localities as possible, a longer route through the Gäu was chosen than would have been necessary on the direct route. While the construction was welcomed in most places, there was occasional resistance, probably most violently in Dudenhofen . The main reason was the route of the railway through privately owned properties and fields. The company opened on August 26, 1905. Initially, three locomotives were stationed on the branch line, and four from 1907. Although the route passed the site, Dudenhofen initially had no stop after the municipality declined financial participation.

The construction of the direct continuation of the line to Neustadt followed due to the emerging nationalization of the Palatinate railway network at the expense of the Bavarian state . It was delayed because there were problems to find a suitable route through the city and to link it with the local railway junction. On October 31, 1908, the meter-gauge railway was tied through to Neustadt; there it ended at a local train station, which was built east of the main train station at the level crossing on Speyerdorfer Straße. On January 1, 1909, the line, like all Palatinate lines, became the property of the Royal Bavarian State Railways .

The long distance between the Neustadt main station and the local train station, which required a longer footpath, led to plans that the line should be converted to standard gauge; others planned to electrify the route and extend it to the main station. The latter failed, on the one hand, because the Maximiliansbahn had to be crossed under a corresponding passage , and on the other hand, because the extensive freight traffic had to be handled mainly via trolleys , for which electrical operation would have been a hindrance due to a necessary safety distance. The train station in Geinsheim was expanded to become a train crossing point as part of the extension.

In 1919 Dudenhofen was also given a stop, but only a waiting hall completed in 1921 in contrast to the train stations elsewhere. From 1920 the Deutsche Reichsbahn was the operator of the line. In 1922, the line was incorporated into the newly established Ludwigshafen Reich Railway Directorate , which succeeded the previous Railway Directorate . In the course of the dissolution of the Ludwigshafen management, the Mainz management became responsible on April 1, 1937.

Shutdown

After the Second World War, the railway line came under the control of the Association of Southwest German Railways (SWDE) , which was incorporated into the newly founded Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) in 1949 . The latter incorporated the route into the Mainz Federal Railway Directorate , to which it assigned all railway lines within the newly created federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate . It was last referred to in the timetable as route 282a. The farewell trip took place on June 2, 1956. With the timetable change on the following day, passenger traffic on the route was stopped. The long journey time of one and a half hours and the parallel bus line from 1952, whose journey times were significantly shorter, made operating the route unprofitable. The closure met with great protest from the population.

The sugar beet campaign on the Neustadt – Harthausen section began for the last time on September 26 of that year and lasted until the end of the year. At the same time, the Palatinate bus company in Neustadt and the Merl company from Speyer were pursuing plans to resume traffic and purchase new railcars for them. However, this failed because of the purchase price demanded by DB. In order to minimize further protests, the railway was quickly dismantled from February 1957 by the Speyer company Rudolf Wohlfahrt . In the same year, the neighboring communities bought back the railway line including the railway buildings.

traffic

Opening schedule in 1905

passenger traffic

In 1905 four trains per day ran between Speyer and Geinsheim in each direction. The 1918 timetable had a total of five pairs of trains.

Freight transport

In terms of freight traffic, the route was primarily used to transport manure , cattle and agricultural products. In addition, the Lachen-Speyerdorf airfield had a siding.

vehicles

The first locomotives were three two-axle steam locomotives of the Pfälzische L 2 series , which were initially given the names GEINSHEIM, FREISBACH and WEINGARTEN and the numbers XXV to XXVII and belonged to the Neustadt depot . After the Deutsche Reichsbahn took over operations in 1920 , they were assigned the operating numbers 99 003 to 99 005. In 1945 these locomotives were retired.

Another XXX locomotive was added in 1916 . From 1931 until it was discontinued, three three-axle locomotives of the Prussian T 33 were in use on the line.

In 1952 , the DB procured three narrow-gauge V29 series diesel locomotives from the Jung locomotive factory for the Palatinate local railway lines Mundenheim – Meckenheim and Neustadt – Speyer .

Operating points

Speyer local train station

The local train station was located immediately to the west of the main train station . After the line was closed, parts of its buildings were leased by a freight forwarder based in Frankenthal. After the goods shed initially disappeared in the following years, the rest of the buildings followed in the early 1970s.

Dudenhofen

The station was on the northeastern outskirts of Dudenhofen. It opened in 1921. The construction costs for the waiting hall totaled 59,565 marks. At the beginning of 1973 the station building was demolished.

Harthausen

Former Harthausen station

The station was on the southern edge of Harthausen on the local Bahnhofstrasse .

Schwegenheim

Schwegenheim station in 1910

The station was on the northeastern edge of Schwegenheim, today Bahnhofstrasse 57.

Vineyard

Former Weingarten train station

The station was on the northeastern edge of Weingarten on the local Bahnhofstrasse .

Freisbach

The station was on the northeastern edge of Freisbach on the local Kirchstrasse .

Gommersheim

The station was on the western edge of Gommersheim on the local Kirchstrasse .

Geinsheim

The station was on the northern edge of Geinsheim on the local Böchinger Strasse . In addition to the station building, he had a locomotive shed, a loading bay and a goods shed.

Duttweiler

The station was on the northern edge of Duttweiler on the local Kreuzbergstrasse .

Lachen-Speyerdorf

The station was located between the suburbs of Lachen and Speyerdorf, which had not yet merged structurally when the railway was in operation. In September 1959 the station building was torn down. In 2020, the foundations of the former train station were excavated as part of construction work.

Neustadt local train station

In contrast to its counterpart in Speyer, the station was located far outside of the Neustadt settlement area at that time and from the standard-gauge main station on today's Speyerdorfer Strasse . It had an administration building that also served as a residential building, a machine house, a station building and a goods shed. It had a total of six tracks, two of which were adjacent to corresponding tracks for loading standard-gauge freight cars. There was also a locomotive shed.

Accidents

1905 accident

In the course of its 50-year history, several accidents have occurred on the railway line:

  • On May 25, 1905, and thus during the construction phase of the line, a material train derailed near Schwegenheim . The driver was killed and a worker sustained a broken arm.
  • On September 12, 1919, a train starting in Speyer between Harthausen and Dudenhofen derailed. The locomotive crashed into a nearby stream. Some of the passengers were injured.
  • On November 15, a 20 year old woman arrived at Geinsheim train station late. While the train was leaving, she reached the running board and so went with it at first. However, due to the snowfall, she slipped and got under the train. This severed her legs and crushed her arm. She eventually died.
  • On December 15, 1922, a railway maintenance worker in Speyer was on his way from the local to the main train station. He had to cross a siding between the two stations. Because he was carrying wood on his shoulder, he overlooked a moving shunter. This seized him; he died instantly.
  • On September 27, 1928 wagon fell at the level of Branchweilerhofs of the track extending parallel to the road on the tracks and was detected by a train of the relation Geinsheim-Neustadt. The wagon itself was affected, and the locomotive suffered minor material damage.
  • On April 21, 1934, a rail break occurred near Freisbach, as a result of which the locomotive derailed and fell over. You and some of the wagons were affected.
  • On January 13, 1953, a 17-year-old farmer was hit by a train at an open intersection between the railway line and the federal road near Lachen. He was dead instantly.

Relics

Viaduct remnants near Freisbach in the district of Germersheim

Today there are isolated traces in the landscape. The most striking is the rest of a viaduct between Freisbach and Weingarten (Palatinate) , which is a listed building. There is a corresponding notice board there. The station buildings of Duttweiler, Geinsheim, Gommersheim, Freisbach, Weingarten, Schwegenheim and Harthausen are still there and serve as residential buildings. A total of 6.2 kilometers of the former railway line were integrated as fragments into cycling and hiking trails.

See also

literature

  • Klaus Harthausen: The Gäu or Pfefferminzbähnel . In: Landkreis Ludwigshafen (Hrsg.): Heimatjahrbuch des Landkreis Ludwigshafen, Volume 13 . 1996.
  • Klaus D. Holzborn : Railway areas Palatinate . transpress, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-344-70790-6 , pp. 26-27 .
  • Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the "peppermint bail " . The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember. Hekma-Verlag, Maikammer 2009, ISBN 978-3-9808288-5-7 .
  • Edgar E. Stern: The Peppermint Train: Journey to a German-Jewish Childhood . University Press of Florida, Gainesville 1992, ISBN 0-8130-1109-4 .
  • 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 , p. 243-244 .

Web links

Commons : Lokalbahn Speyer – Neustadt  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Detlef Holzborn: Railway Reviere Pfalz . 1993, p. 26 .
  2. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 2 ff .
  3. ↑ Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 243 .
  4. ↑ Andreas Räntzsch: The railway in the Palatinate. Documentation of their creation and development . 1997, p. 18 .
  5. ↑ a b 1956 Pfefferminzbähnl snorted through the Gäu for the last time , article by Alfons Heil appeared in the daily newspaper Die Rheinpfalz
  6. ↑ a b Oskar Lichti: The end of the railway line through the Gäu ( Memento of the original from April 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , published in: Special edition of the “Neustadter” information sheet of the FWG, 1996 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.duttweiler-net.de
  7. ↑ Andreas Räntzsch: The railway in the Palatinate. Documentation of their creation and development . 1997, p. 12 .
  8. ^ Royal Bavarian Railway Directorate Ludwigshafen a. Rhine - Timeline: Establishments - Designations - Dissolutions. bahnstatistik.de, accessed on August 20, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 175 .
  10. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 166 f .
  11. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt – Gommersheim – Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 184 ff .
  12. ^ Klaus Detlef Holzborn: Railway Reviere Pfalz . 1993, p. 27 .
  13. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 193 ff .
  14. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 60 .
  15. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 100 .
  16. ↑ Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways . 2005, p. 244 .
  17. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 244 .
  18. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 98 .
  19. ↑ a b Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 196 .
  20. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 199 .
  21. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 110 .
  22. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 198 .
  23. ↑ a b Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 288 .
  24. ↑ a b Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 287 .
  25. ↑ a b c Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the "peppermint train". The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 286 .
  26. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 125 .
  27. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 79 .
  28. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 124 .
  29. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 57 .
  30. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 102 .
  31. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 104 .
  32. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 111 .
  33. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 122 .
  34. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 131 .
  35. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 154 .
  36. ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - district of Germersheim. Mainz 2020, p. 36 (PDF; 6.5 MB).
  37. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Kroszewski: The story of the “peppermint train”. The Gäubahn Neustadt - Gommersheim - Speyer. Contemporary witnesses remember . 2009, p. 286 ff .
  38. ↑ achim-bartoschek.de: railway track cycling - railway line routes in Rheinland-Pfalz . Retrieved August 27, 2014 .