Mattigtalbahn

Steindorf near Straßwalchen – Abzw Mining 1
Route number :	261 01
Course book route (ÖBB) :	190
Route length:	37 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	D2
Maximum slope :	11  ‰
Minimum radius :	156 m
Top speed:	80 km / h
Legend Western Railway from Salzburg 0.300 Steindorf near Straßwalchen ⊙ 542  m above sea level A. Western Railway to Vienna 1,470 Straßwalchen West 1,580 Connecting railway coal import ( Awanst ) (dismantled) 2.755 Lagermax connecting railway (Awanst) State border Salzburg / Upper Austria 3,665 Feldbacher railway connection (Awanst) 3,740 Connection railway Bodit (Awanst) 4.084 Friedburg 515  m above sea level A. Branch line to Schneegattern (dismantled) 4.851 Connection railway Lugstein (Awanst) 5,700 Lengau 7.115 Teichstätt 10.230 Achenlohe 480  m above sea level A. 11,557 EK B 147 12.988 Munderfing steam saw (1.6.1891 - 10.12.2017) 13,589 Munderfing 466  m above sea level A. 16.355 Schalchen-Mattighofen (since December 11, 2016) 18.090 Mattighofen 444  m above sea level A. Connection railway Lederfabrik Vogl (dismantled) 18,332 EK B 147 20,818 Furth 22.020 EK B 147 24.103 Uttendorf-Helpfau 415  m above sea level A. 26,491 EK B 142 27.559 Wall churches 400  m above sea level A. 31.275 St. Georgen an der Mattig 34,300 Aching (closed) Old route (1873 - 1899) Matty 36.626 Connection rail network Innviertel Railway from Neumarkt - Kallham 36,921 Abzw Mining 1 (end Mattig Talbahn) ⊙ 352  m above sea level A. Innviertelbahn to Braunau am Inn Matty Braunau am Inn 350  m above sea level A. Innviertelbahn to Simbach am Inn

The Mattig Valley Railway (historically also called the Silent World Sea Railway) is a branch line in Austria . It branches off the Austrian Western Railway in Steindorf near Straßwalchen and leads to Braunau am Inn . Most of the route runs in the eponymous Mattig Valley . In 2015, around 2,900 people were transported on an average working day.

history

Section of the Mattigtalbahn in Helpfau-Uttendorf with the Uttendorf-Helpfau stop

Planning, construction and commissioning

After the opening of several railway lines, including the Westbahn in 1859 and the Innviertelbahn in 1870, the Mattig Valley had some catching up to do in terms of railway technology. After a connection between Braunau and the Westbahn seemed increasingly necessary, the building permit was granted in 1871. A route inspection took place from July 22nd to 30th, 1872, with Braunau am Inn as the starting point and Steindorf near Straßwalchen as the end point.

On January 14th, 1873 a newspaper advertisement was published, with which the participation in the railway line was advertised in the form of shares.

In just over a year, the entire line was built by 30,000 workers, many of them Italians, so that it could go into regular operation on September 10, 1873. Oral tradition says that farmers in the community of Schalchen wanted to prevent construction at all costs. Allegedly, the military had to protect the workers from violent opponents. On the opening day, the first train from Braunau, which was decorated with a wreath, was ceremoniously received at Mattighofen station. The construction costs of the line amounted to 4,651,007 guilders.

Financial problems and nationalization

Only two years later, the line was administered because the costs could not be covered. In a comment in the newspaper Salzburger Chronik , at that time they even called for the railway to be dismantled to compensate the shareholders.

“If, by the way, neither the state, nor the province, nor the neighboring municipalities care about the existence of this railway, and do not subsidize it in any way, it would be fair and reasonable if this superfluous railway was torn up again and the proceeds from the tracks and land , Buildings ec. would be returned to the defrauded shareholders and bondholders as some replacement, which replacement would amount to much more than the Elisabeth-Westbahn dares to offer. "

- Salzburg Chronicle : Railway thoughts. 1876

Such a measure would, however, not have been so easily possible under the legal situation at the time, as was recorded in an article in the Linzer Volksblatt the following year. For the author of the article it was clear: "The shareholders of this railway do not receive a Kreutzer [...]" .

The kk priv. Kaiserin Elisabeth-Westbahn (KEB), to which the Mattigtalbahn was leased, was responsible for the operation . It was also KEB that was accused of the poor financial situation of the railway. Heinrich Klinkosch, member of the Austrian House of Representatives, accused the company of deliberately ruining the Mattig Valley Railway in order to be able to take it over cheaply.

In May 1877 the state finally decided to purchase the Mattig Valley Railway for 875,000 guilders and to renovate it financially.

Route relocation in 1899

Until 1899 the Mattigtalbahn in Braunau, unlike today, did not run over a section of the Innkreisbahn, but had its own route to Braunau station. The route crossed the Mattig between the villages of Aching and Aselkam and continued in the direction of today's Franz-Schubert-Straße.

In the summer of 1899 a severe flood occurred that interrupted the Mattig Valley Railway in several places. The flood destroyed both the bridge over the Mattig and parts of the railway embankment. Since restoring the bridge would have meant a very high cost burden, the decision was made to also run the remaining part of the route east of the Mattigufers and to connect the route to the Innkreisbahn near Dietfurt (today Mining 1 junction ). On this, the Mattig could be crossed on a bridge, which also had to be rebuilt due to the flood. In place of the destroyed Mattigtalbahn bridge, a footbridge was temporarily built to enable passengers to change trains.

The southern part of the old route is no longer recognizable as such today. In its place there are agricultural areas and a street in the area of ​​the village of Maierhof. The connecting railway operated by AMAG is now on the northern part of the route .

According to press reports, a male skeleton was found about one meter deep during the excavation work for the new route. A criminal case was not excluded.

Events in the first half of the 20th century

Around 1915, considerations were made to relocate the starting point of the Mattig Valley Railway from the Steindorf district to the main town of Straßwalchen. It was expected that this would bring “great economic benefits”. In addition, there would have been a direct connection to the Straßwalchen - Mondsee connection that was planned at the time. Since no high costs for the laying were to be expected, the mood in Straßwalchen was positive in this regard. However, both the relocation of the Mattig Valley Railway and the line to Mondsee were never realized.

Until the 1920s, the top speed was 30 km / h. Before the Second World War, however, the railway was expanded and the speed increased to 60 km / h. After joining the German Reich , the Mattigtalbahn was automatically owned by the German Reichsbahn . As a result, the then relatively modern railcars were withdrawn and replaced by steam-powered locomotives. The train operation could not be maintained during the war, so that train cancellations and delays lasting several hours were the order of the day.

On December 15, 1943, a serious accident occurred at the former Uttendorf-Helpfau train station. The passenger train coming from Braunau collided with a mail car due to a wrongly set point . This then jumped off the tracks. Two dead and three injured were the result. Despite the terrible incident, the train was reportedly only an hour late.

From April 16, 1945, the trains only ran at night to avoid bombing. At the beginning of May, traffic on the route finally came to a standstill. The Braunau-Simbach railway bridge was blown up. A few months later, on July 4, 1945, passenger traffic was officially resumed. In 1950, single railcars were running again for the first time and in 1960 the speed limit was increased to 80 km / h.

Operation after the steam locomotive era

The last scheduled steam train ran in 1971.

Despite everything, the number of passengers decreased from year to year. Last but not least, a poorly coordinated timetable was the cause of this problem. In the 1980s, this was revised and the travel comfort increased in order to win customers. However, the optimizations did not bring the desired success. In the mid-1990s the annual loss of the route was 5.15 million schillings, and the ÖBB threatened to reduce or even stop passenger transport in May 1996, as no further potential for savings was seen. Such measures could be averted by a contract between the state of Upper Austria and ÖBB, which secured the operation of the Upper Austrian regional railways for another 20 years.

The route also appeared again and again later in published ÖBB documents as a route to be checked. However, the ÖBB, the states of Upper Austria and Salzburg as well as various municipalities began to invest in the route and it was finally classified in the ÖBB target network 2025+ in the supplementary network category. Routes in this category are given a "needs-based attraction".

An almost hourly regular timetable has existed since December 2009 . These and other optimizations (see section Operation ) led to an increase in passengers of 32% between 2006 and 2015.

The newly built Straßwalchen West stop went into operation in December 2013. The stop at the KTM Mattighofen plant planned for 2015 was realized in 2016 and has been available to passengers as the Schalchen-Mattighofen stop since the 2017 timetable.

In December 2017, the Mattigtalbahn received a completely redesigned timetable. This became necessary because the frequency of the S-Bahn running there was compressed on the western line. In addition, the connections with the Railjet stops at Neumarkt-Köstendorf station could be synchronized, which makes the Mattigtalbahn more attractive as a starting point for long-distance connections on the western line. However, the changes meant that the steam saw Munderfing stop was closed and the Teichstätt and Achenlohe stops were only served to a limited extent. The missing stops have been partially replaced by Postbus stops. In return, almost all connections to Freilassing were tied through, so that there is no need to change trains in this direction.

One of the most spectacular accidents occurred in 2019 at the Achenlohe stop. A freight train collided with a truck at a level crossing and dragged it along with it. The truck was thrown with great force into the former station building, which was used as a residential building until this incident. The building had to be completely demolished and was replaced by a shelter. Since diesel had penetrated the ground, extensive renovation measures were necessary, which made it necessary to block the section of the route for weeks. There were no serious injuries.

At the moment the train stations in Mauerkirchen, Mattighofen and Munderfing are still manned by dispatchers, only the Friedburg train station is remotely controlled from Steindorf near Straßwalchen.

Former branch line Friedburg – Schneegattern

Mattigtalbahn branch line Friedburg-Schneegattern
Geographical data
country	Austria
state	Upper Austria
Route data
Route length:	6.0 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	40 km / h
Legend Main line from Steindorf near Straßwalchen 0.0 Friedburg ⊙ 515  m above sea level A. Main line to Braunau am Inn 6.0 Snow gate (dismantled) ⊙ 535  m above sea level A.

The single-track, 6 km long line, which started from Friedburg station, was built in 1887 initially only for freight traffic. In 1895 it was then taken over by the Kk Staatsbahnen . The purchase price was paid off in 20 annual installments. In the further course of the branch a forest railway system emerged in the Kobernaußerwald, which was used for the transport of wood. Passenger traffic was only approved in May 1899. The passenger numbers show that this never played a particularly important role on the route. In 1910 only 2,272 tickets were sold. A further construction of the line to Ried im Innkreis was considered, but never realized. In 1992 the traffic was stopped due to the permanently decreasing transport performance. It was dismantled over the next few years.

business

Timetable

Hourly intervals are offered from Monday to Friday. The first train leaves Braunau station at 4:17 a.m., the last at 8:34 p.m. In the opposite direction, the first train leaves Freilassing at 8:03 a.m., the last train at 9:03 p.m. In the morning hours there is approximately half-hourly traffic. A 2-hour cycle is offered on weekends and public holidays. Crossings take place in Friedburg, Munderfing, Mattighofen and Mauerkirchen. Most of the connections are tied directly to Freilassing in Bavaria. The trains also make several stops within the city of Salzburg. Among other things at the Salzburg main train station.

Since December 2017, some stops along the route (and beyond) are no longer served or only served to a very limited extent. According to ÖBB, this is the only way to synchronize with the Railjet at Neumarkt-Köstendorf station. The Westbahn's need for additional train path capacities is another reason for these restrictions.

Vehicles and sets of cars

DB class 642 in ÖBB Cityjet and Salzburg Verkehr Decals on the Braunau train station, which is currently under renovation

From the 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s, rail buses of the 5081 series were mainly used for passenger transport, then and also primarily diesel railcars of the 5047 series , which were largely replaced by the DB series 628 of the Südostbayernbahn with the timetable change in December 2017 . This measure was necessary due to the connection of the trains to Freilassing main station and the mandatory use of the punctual train control PZB 90 . Since the timetable change in 2019, these have in turn been replaced by the DB series 642 , which is the equivalent of the ÖBB series 5022. Some of the trains have already been covered with ÖBB Cityjet and Salzburg Verkehr designs. Since 2005, the 2016 type of locomotive has been running  together with CityShuttle cars (mostly 4–5 cars) in push-pull operation.

Freight transport

Among other things, there are mixed freight trains between Bavaria and Salzburg-Gnigl ​​(Vbf) several times a day . Due to the limited longest train length of the Innviertelbahn and the shorter haulage with diesel vehicles, some freight trains made up of tank wagons also run from Bavaria to Vienna-Stadlau and to Slovakia via the Mattigtalbahn. There are also shunting goods trains between Steindorf and Mattighofen on weekdays.

Current situation and further development

Outdated sleepers, tracks and switches have been gradually replaced since 2014. Smaller renovation work on the station buildings is also ongoing. The framework plan for 2017 to 2022 plans to invest 13 million euros in making the route more attractive.

Operations along the route are to be streamlined in order to save costs. Remote control operation is provided.

Various parties (including probahn and Grüne ) are calling for the Mattigtalbahn to be expanded as an electrified S-Bahn. A reopening of the Aching stop is also required.

Serious collisions with road vehicles repeatedly occur on the route. Many level crossings are only secured with St. Andrew's crosses and stop signs. The number of these transitions should be greatly reduced.

From 2019, further plans envisage a partial rebuilding of the railway stations in Steindorf near Straßwalchen and Neumarkt-Köstendorf . In addition, the Mattig Valley Railway is to be extended to Neumarkt-Köstendorf. This is to be done via a third track along the western railway line. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on May 21, 2019. This work also includes the electrification of the line to Friedburg, which should be completed by 2021. In the future, the Salzburg S-Bahn will run to Friedburg station and will be on part of the Mattigtalbahn. In a concept paper by ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG, the complete electrification of the Mattig Valley Railway was proposed. The state of Upper Austria will finance this measure so that the Mattigtalbahn will be fully electrified by 2030. Current plans assume completion in 2027.

Web links

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

• ÖBB infrastructure information on the extension of the Mattigtalbahn
• Current timetable of the ÖBB
• Photo reportage with photos from 1985 and 1987
• Photos of the stops and train stations along the route
• Driver's cab ride from Steindorf near Straßwalchen to Braunau am Inn (on youtube.com)

proof

Bibliography:

• Chronological summary of the history of Schalchen , Heimatverein Schalchen
• Collection of Uttendorfer Heimatblätter by Max Högl

Individual evidence:

1. ↑ From the silent world sea railway. New waiting room at the Inn, April 7, 1894 ( Original, ANNO )
2. ↑ An attentive railway administration. New waiting room at the Inn, November 9, 1901 ( Original, ANNO )
3. ↑ ^{a b} Answer 2886 / AB-BR / 2016 from April 11, 2016 by Gerald Klug (PDF), accessed on April 16, 2017.
4. ↑ emission Strasswalchen-Braunau railway. Linzer Volksblatt, 14 January 1873 ( original, ANNO )
5. ↑ ^{a b} Heimatverein Schalchen. Retrieved July 7, 2019 . 
6. ↑ K. k. priv. Empress Elisabeth Railway. Opening of the Braunau-Strasswalchen railway line. Wiener Zeitung, September 22, 1873 ( Original, ANNO )
7. ↑ From the Mattigthale. Salzburg Chronicle, September 18, 1873 ( Original, ANNO )
8. ↑ Braunau-Straßwalchnerbahn. Linzer Volksblatt, April 1, 1876 ( original, ANNO )
9. ^ The railway line Braunau - Steindorf. The local community of Lengau in the political district of Braunau am Inn in Upper Austria, 1911 ( original, Upper Austria State Library )
10. ↑ Railway thoughts. Salzburg Chronicle, April 1, 1876 ( original, ANNO )
11. ^ House of Representatives. New Free Press, April 18, 1874 ( Original, ANNO )
12. ↑ Acquisition of the Braunauer-Straßwalchen railway by the state. The Fatherland, March 14, 1877 ( Original, ANNO )
13. ↑ Trace relocation. Tages-Post, October 27, 1899 ( Original, ANNO )
14. ^ The relocation of the Braunau – Steindorf line. Salzburger Volksblatt, 23 August 1915 ( original, ANNO )
15. ↑ Relocation of the railway connection from Steindorf to the Straßwalchen station. New waiting room at the Inn, September 4, 1915 ( Original, ANNO )
16. ^ Federal Railroad on an advertising trip for the Steindorf-Braunau route. Braunauer Rundschau, November 16, 1995.
17. ↑ Silent shutdown. derstandard.at, September 23, 2010, accessed on April 16, 2017 . 
18. ↑ Zielnetz 2025+ (PDF) , p. 27, accessed on May 1, 2017.
19. ↑ My district: "New ÖBB stop Straßwalchen West"
20. ↑ New ÖBB stop Schalchen-Mattighofen brings many advantages for commuters and train drivers in the region. oebb.at, November 28, 2016, accessed on April 16, 2017 . 
21. ↑ Oberösterreichische Nachrichten: New stop: 1.2 million euros will be invested . ( nachrichten.at [accessed on April 17, 2017]).
22. ↑ Serious traffic accident in Achenlohe: truck thunders into the train and house wall - driver seriously injured, residents in shock. Retrieved July 7, 2019 . 
23. ^ The railway line Braunau - Steindorf. The local community of Lengau in the political district of Braunau am Inn in Upper Austria, 1911 ( original, Upper Austria State Library )
24. ^ Railway history Alps - Danube - Adriatic. Retrieved April 28, 2017 . 
25. ^ Elmar Oberegger: On the railway history of old Austria. October 13, 2011, accessed June 21, 2013 . 
26. ↑ Unusual train stops in Teichstätt and Achenlohe: Bus solution fought for. Retrieved July 7, 2019 . 
27. ↑ Salzburger Nachrichten: Despite commuter frustration: the timetable in Flachgau will hardly change. Retrieved July 7, 2019 . 
28. ^ DB series 642 for Mattigtalbahn. Retrieved November 19, 2019 . 
29. ↑ Overview of master plan projects ÖBB and ASFINAG. (PDF) bmvit - Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology, January 2017, p. 23 , accessed on April 17, 2017 . 
30. ↑ Target definition 2025+ Results report Appendix AG (PDF) , pp. 26 and 31, accessed on May 1, 2017.
31. ↑ www.salzkammergut-rundblick.at: PROBAHN OÖ-DEMO ON B1 IN LAMBACH. Retrieved April 16, 2017 . 
32. ↑ Some railway crossings are still closed, barriers are very expensive. Retrieved July 7, 2019 . 
33. ↑ Expansion of Steindorf– Neumarkt. infrastructure.oebb.at, accessed on October 6, 2018 . 
34. ^ ÖBB start of construction in Neumarkt am Wallersee. salzburg24.at, May 21, 2019, accessed on May 22, 2019 . 
35. ^ The station renovation in Neumarkt and Steindorf. salzburg.ORF.at, accessed on April 17, 2017 . 
36. ^ Controversy over the Steindorf railway junction. salzburg.ORF.at, accessed on April 17, 2017 . 
37. ^ ÖBB start of construction in Neumarkt am Wallersee. salzburg24.at, May 21, 2019, accessed on May 22, 2019 . 
38. ↑ Traffic: It takes way too long. krone.at, February 27, 2017, accessed on April 22, 2017 . 
39. ↑ 600 million for the rail: All branch lines are preserved. In: nachrichten.at. July 2, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 . 
40. ↑ Because traffic does not end at the state borders. Retrieved July 26, 2019 . 

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap