Munich-Augsburg Railway Company

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The Munich-Augsburger Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was a private stock corporation in the Kingdom of Bavaria , which was founded on July 23, 1837 for the construction and operation of the first Bavarian long-distance railway line from Munich to Augsburg . The industrialist Joseph Anton von Maffei was the board member of the company . After several years of construction, the company began rail traffic on October 4, 1840 and continued it until it was nationalized on October 1, 1844.

Foundation and route construction

Munich-Augsburg Railway (around 1840)
Terminal station in Munich on the Marsfeld (1839 - 1847)
Map section of the Lech Bridge and curved track near Hochzoll (1839)

Even before the opening of the private Ludwig Railway from Nuremberg to Fürth on December 7, 1835, local committees for railway construction were formed all over Bavaria. So also in Augsburg and Munich. On July 31, 1835, a committee consisting of respected Augsburg citizens and banks had asked the king for permission to set up a private stock corporation to build a railway line from Augsburg to Munich. The king finally gave his approval to the committee, which was headed by the Augsburg calico manufacturer Karl Ludwig Forster , on November 28, 1835. A short time later the Augsburg committee merged with the committee in Munich, headed by the industrialist Joseph Anton von Maffei . The necessary route planning was then quickly drawn up by Kreisbaurat Beyschlag and in 1836 the construction management was transferred to the engineer Paul Camille von Denis . He had previously been commissioned to build the Ludwig Railway. The planned route was then presented to the king, who approved it in June 1836.

The construction of the Nuremberg – Fürth railway showed the shortcomings in the construction of railways and the steps necessary to remedy them. Bavaria was very far-sighted here and was a leader in Germany: as early as August 1836, consultations were held under the chairmanship of the State Minister Prince von Öttingen-Wallerstein and with the participation of other representatives from government circles, which led to the adoption of the fundamental provisions for all railway statutes in Bavaria , the came into force on September 28, 1836. In this law, among other things, in Section 16 (XVI.) The gauge of the railways is determined (from 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches English measure). In section 17 (XVII.) The necessary load-bearing capacity of the rails is regulated, in section 18 (XVIII.) The steam power is specified in normal operation. On November 17, 1837, the law on the compulsory assignment of real estate for public purposes was passed. This generally closed the prerequisites for building a railway.

The Munich-Augsburg railway company was founded on July 23, 1837. Joseph Anton von Maffei took over the management. On July 3, 1837, she had already received the royal concession. Due to delays in the granting of the state license, there were initially difficulties with the subscribers.

The actual construction of the single-track railway line began with the groundbreaking in Lochhausen, west of Munich, on February 9, 1837. In Augsburg, construction work began on April 2, 1838 in the area of ​​the terminus. After a short time, however, difficulties arose in building the route. After prolonged rainfall, it was found that culverts and bridges were too small. The necessary enlargement of these structures resulted in a considerable increase in costs from originally 3 million guilders to more than 4 million guilders. The construction through the Haspelmoor was also problematic . Since there was little experience in railway construction in Germany, engineering tasks of this kind had to be solved without a model. The planning officer Johann Himbsel, who was involved in the construction, therefore developed a new construction technique for the route through the moor. After the initial drainage of the moor, he had slightly tapering pits dug downwards at intervals of about 1 meter with a depth of about 1.20 meters and then filled these checkerboard-like spaces with clay and tamped them down. <

The lowest point of the railway line was at a height of 489 meters above sea level in Augsburg. In the further course the slope increased to the high point in Hattenhofen (542 meters) and then fell to 520 meters at the train station in Munich. The route crossed the rivers Lech, Paar, Amper and Würm. All of these river bridges were built using wood. The rails with 24.9 kg / m, like the locomotives, had to be procured from England, while the rail chairs were supplied by Bavarian ironworks.

In Augsburg, on September 3, 1838, the track from the station at the Roten Tor to the Lech Bridge near Hochzoll was used for an opening ride on horses. In Munich, a provisional train station was built in the area of ​​today's Hackerbrücke .

opening

Before the opening of the entire route with a length of almost 62 kilometers, various sections of the route coming from Munich were put into operation:

date section length
September 3, 1838 Augsburg - Spickel 2.5 km
September 1, 1839 Munich - Lochhausen 12.5 km
October 27, 1839 Lochhausen - Olching 6.6 km
December 7, 1839 Olching - Maisach 5.7 km
September 14, 1840 Maisach - Althegnenberg 14.8 km

The section in Augsburg, which was opened on September 3, 1838, was operated only with a horse-drawn tram . A contract coach drove there every day on the 2.5-kilometer route to the Spickel restaurant on the Lech with four cars.

The entire railway line was finally opened to traffic on October 4, 1840. In Munich, this date had been pushed, as the first trip should take place at the same time as the opening of the Oktoberfest . The two locomotives JUPITER and JUNO brought the inaugural train with 30 fully occupied wagons from Munich to Augsburg on that day. After about two and a half hours of travel, the train was received at Augsburg train station in front of the Red Gate by the mayor at the time, Carron du Val, with the magistrate and a group of financiers.

Locomotives

All locomotives belonged to the Patentee class

The company acquired a total of eight locomotives that were fired with wood from various manufacturers. All of them had inner cylinders and a 1A1 wheel arrangement.

Just like the rails, the locomotives also had to be bought in England and shipped to Bavaria via the Rhine and Neckar. The first two locomotives were delivered to Munich on November 29, 1837 and then dismantled and stored in magazines, as no section of the route was completed at that time.

At the start of operations, the vehicle fleet included the aforementioned locomotives, a total of 37 passenger cars from first to fourth class and 12 freight cars. The passenger coaches consisted of a gala coach for the royal family, 3 1st class coaches with upholstered seats and glass windows, six 2nd class coaches also with upholstered seats but without glass windows, 18 3rd class coaches covered with leather curtains and nine open coaches 4th grade with wooden benches.

business

Initially after the opening, the company operated two passenger trains a day, and later even three passenger trains in each direction due to the high demand. In the second year of operation, the railway carried more than 250,000 people in this way. Freight traffic, on the other hand, did not initially play a major role. So only once a week at night were goods transports that were pulled by horses. However, these transports were discontinued after a short time because the implementation was complex and took too long. The horses also damaged the track structure. Only with the use of locomotives in freight transport did the transport services increase here too. In the second year of operation, the railway carried around 80,000 quintals of cargo.

The fares varied depending on the car class. In 1st class, the journey from Augsburg to Munich cost three guilders. You had to pay 2 guilders and 24 kreuzers or 1 gulden and 48 kreuzers for the 2nd or 3rd class. The fourth grade was the cheapest with one guilder. However, it was abolished on March 1, 1941. The hundredweight of freight cost 30 Kreuzers plus a 3 Kreuzer pick-up and delivery fee for the entire route.

Initially, the coal had to be transported far away by road for operation. Only in 1842 after the invention of the spark arrester was it possible to use spruce wood and thus reduce fuel costs from 35,000 guilders to 21,000 guilders per year. A storage shed for fuel with a small workshop was built on the mechanical systems at both terminal stations. 400 kg to 500 kg of coal, later about 5.5 fathoms (about 3.5 cubic meters) of spruce wood were required per trip ; the locomotives needed about 0.7 kg of lubricating oil for this. Since there was still no continuous brake, about every fifth car had to be manned by a brakeman who applied the spindle brake when the signal was whistled.

nationalization

In 1844 the private company was threatened with considerable financial burdens for the Munich-Augsburg railway, after too little had been spent on maintaining the operating resources and railway facilities. Further larger costs were also foreseeable in order to finance the expansion of the line - the double-track expansion was also an issue - in particular the replacement of the temporary wooden station from 1839 on the Marsfeld at the gates of Munich with a station closer to the city. At the same time, the actual return remained well below expectations. The Bavarian state, on the other hand, had meanwhile recognized the advantages of the railroad and was therefore very interested in the takeover.

This initial situation led to the resolution of the company's shareholders' meeting on August 12, 1844 to sell the railway with all its facilities to the state. On October 1, 1844, the Munich-Augsburg Railway became state property. The state paid the shareholders 4.4 million guilders. With the law of May 23, 1846, the Munich-Augsburg Railway Company was formally nationalized on June 1, 1846 and taken over by the Royal Bavarian State Railways .

literature

  • Bernhard Ücker: The Bavarian Railway 1835–1920 . Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-7991-6255-0
  • Horst Weigelt: Bavarian Railways . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1982 ISBN 3-87943-899-4
  • Ludwig von Welser: Bayern Report, Volumes 4–9 . Fürstenfeldbruck 1994-2001

Web links

Commons : Munich-Augsburger Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Walther Zeitler, Helge Hufschläger: The railway in Swabia . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1980, ISBN 3-87943-761-0 , page 9.
  2. ↑ http://www.familie-pohl.at/html/54273382.html ( Memento from June 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ^ A b Walther Zeitler, Helge Hufschläger: The railway in Swabia . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1980, ISBN 3-87943-761-0 , page 10.
  5. ↑ Ücker, pp. 20f
  6. ^ Wolfgang Klee: 1st Bavaria Report. Bavarian railway history, part 1: 1835–1875. Hermann Merker Verlag, Fürstenfeldbruck 1993, ISBN 3-922404-43-X . (Railway Journal Archive series)
  7. ↑ Weigelt, p. 91
  8. ↑ Walther Zeitler, Helge Hufschläger: The railway in Swabia . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1980, ISBN 3-87943-761-0 , page 11.
  9. ↑ Walther Zeitler, Helge Hufschläger: The railway in Swabia . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1980, ISBN 3-87943-761-0 , page 8.
  10. ^ Ernst Erhardt: Festschrift 140 Years of Augsburg Works 1 ; Federal Railway Directorate Munich 1991, pages 18-19.
  11. ↑ a b c Walther Zeitler, Helge Hufschläger: The railway in Swabia . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1980, ISBN 3-87943-761-0 , page 13.
  12. ↑ Weigelt, p. 101
  13. ↑ Walther Zeitler, Helge Hufschläger: The railway in Swabia . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1980, ISBN 3-87943-761-0 , page 14.
  14. ^ Deutsche Reichsbahn: Handbook of the German Railway Lines . Berlin 1935; Reprint Dumjahn 1981 ISBN 3-921426-29-4 , 1839/4