Maxau Railway
The maxau railway was a 9.7 km long, in 1862 opened railway line, which the ancients Karlsruhe train station with the Rhine at Knielingen , close to the Hofgut Maxau association. The connection to the Palatinate railway network near Maximiliansau was established in 1865 by extending the existing ship bridge over the Rhine . The line was built by the city of Karlsruhe, operated by the Baden State Railways and later taken over. In the course of several modifications in 1895, 1913 and 1938, the route was changed and the original route was abandoned. The line connected the industrial and port facilities in the west of Karlsruhe, as well as the Baden and Palatinate railway network in the course of the connection from Winden to Maximiliansau, which was able to increase its transport importance through the double-track Rhine bridge near the hamlet of Maxau .
history
Origin of the route
The first efforts to build a railway line from Karlsruhe to the Rhine can be traced back to the year 1853, when the first submission of the cities of Karlsruhe and Pforzheim to the Baden head office of water and road construction was put on record. With the help of such a railway line, the two cities wanted to achieve better access to Rhine shipping than was possible with the then Rhine port near Leopoldshafen , which was only insufficiently connected to the city and the hinterland. In addition, such a railway line should create a connection with the neighboring Palatinate .
A renewed submission in 1857 was also unsuccessful, but the grand ducal government confirmed the advisability of such a connection, but did not want to take action itself, as it did not expect it to be profitable. The city of Karlsruhe then applied for a concession for such a rail link. On July 27, 1861, this was granted on the basis of a law of September 6, 1860.
The line was built within two years and opened on August 5, 1862 between Karlsruhe and the Rhine near Maxau. Intermediate stations were created at the Mühlburger Tor in Karlsruhe, in Mühlburg and in Knielingen. The route led from the old Karlsruhe train station on Kriegsstrasse through today's streets of Mathystrasse, Otto-Sachs-Strasse, Hildapromenade, Ludwig-Marum-Strasse, Sonnenstrasse and Rheinbrückenstrasse. With the commissioning of the ship bridge at Maxau and the connection with the Maximiliansau – Winden railway of the Palatinate Maximiliansbahn-Gesellschaft , the line was completed in 1865. Rail freight traffic across the Rhine began on May 8, 1865, and passenger traffic on July 1, 1865. The construction of the line cost 607,000 guilders , the construction of the Rhine bridge another 164,000 guilders.
Similar to other privately built railway lines in Baden , the Baden State Railways also took over the management of the Maxau Railway at the expense of the City of Karlsruhe. It was not until over 40 years later, in 1906, that the route was nationalized. The Rhine bridge was operated by the Maximiliansbahn.
While the state railway administration had assumed that the line would not be operated economically when it was planned, the line quickly developed into the most profitable private railway in Baden with returns of up to 31.5%. On the one hand, the supraregional traffic with the Palatinate and the Saarland , on the other hand, the urban port completed in 1866 (today Maxau yacht harbor ) at Maxau train station contributed to this. However, with the opening of the 20 kilometers downstream fixed Rhine bridge near Germersheim in 1877 , the supra-regional freight traffic migrated to this, as the Maxau ship bridge had only a low load-bearing capacity.
Modifications and extensions
In the second half of the 19th century, the old Karlsruhe (main) train station developed more and more into a bottleneck in the Baden rail network, so that at the end of the 19th century plans were developed to convert or relocate the facilities. A first step towards relief was the construction of a new marshalling yard in the south of the city, which was opened on May 1, 1895. To connect this station to the Maxau Railway, a five-kilometer freight train line was built across the newly created Westbahnhof, which connected to the existing Maxau Railway to the west of Mühlburg.
Finally, the Karlsruhe passenger station was also replaced by a new building further south, which was opened on October 23, 1913. In this context, the Maxau Railway was given a new route: the new line leaves the main station in a westerly direction, bypasses Bulach to the south and joins the existing freight connection from the marshalling yard to Knielingen at Grünwinkel . A new train station was built on Honsellstrasse for the people of Mühlburg.
The old route through the south-west and west of Karlsruhe was abandoned and partially built on. The station at the Mühlburger Tor was demolished. In contrast, the section west of the Mühlburger Tor including the old Mühlburg train station on Fliederplatz remained as a siding to the municipal gas works and was only gradually abandoned in the course of the 20th century. Today the former railway line can still be recognized by the wide green strips along the Hildapromenade, Ludwig-Marum-Straße or Seldeneckstraße and Sonnenstraße.
With the opening of the new Karlsruhe Rhine port west of Mühlburg in 1901, another freight train line was built from the Westbahnhof to the new Rhine port along Honsellstrasse. The importance of the old Maxau harbor steadily decreased in the following years.
In the 1925 timetable, there were 5 continuous pairs of trains.
The inadequacies of the ship bridge - low load-bearing capacity, hindrance to shipping and high operating costs - led to the construction of a permanent railway bridge south of the ship bridge in the 1930s. The new, two-track bridge was put into operation on January 17, 1938. Because of the changed location, the feeder lines also had to be rebuilt. For this purpose, a new line was built between the Mühlburg train station and the Rhine bridge south of Knielingen. Knielingen received a new train station. The old tracks in today's Rheinbrückenstrasse were closed. The route was used in 1957 and 1967 for the construction of the tram line to Knielingen.
As the last addition to the Maxau Railway before 1945, a connecting curve from the Westbahnhof to the Rheinbahn in the direction of Forchheim was created in 1944 , so that freight trains could run from Rastatt via the Maxau Railway to the southern Palatinate without changing direction . This connecting curve was primarily of strategic importance, was used for a few years after the Second World War and then dismantled.
Changes after 1945
The destruction of the Rhine bridge in the last weeks of the war in 1945 interrupted the continuous railway connection between Baden and the Palatinate. A single-track replacement structure was opened on May 13, 1947. Originally intended as a temporary measure, this structure remained in operation for over 40 years. It was not until April 29, 1991 that a new, also single-track structure was put into operation on the site of the Rhine bridge from 1938 and replaced the temporary structure. The addition of a second track to the structure was completed with the commissioning on May 12, 2000.
The economic development of the 1960s brought the Maxau Railway a strong increase in traffic. The establishment of two refineries north of Knielingen (today MiRO ) and a refinery in neighboring Wörth am Rhein (now closed), the construction of the Daimler-Benz truck assembly plant in Wörth and the construction of a container terminal in the Wörth port increased freight traffic considerably. All the industrial plants mentioned were given sidings to the Maxau Railway and to the Wörth train station. To simplify freight traffic, the Karlsruhe – Wörth line, including the main sidings, was electrified. Electrical operation began on September 29, 1974. Due to the lack of an overhead line west of Wörth, the through passenger trains continued to run in diesel mode.
The plans developed in the 1980s to set up a light rail system around Karlsruhe envisaged the integration of the Maxau Railway into light rail operations right from the start. In 1986, test drives were carried out on the Maxau Railway with a vehicle that had been converted into a two-system light rail vehicle. With the start of the Rhineland-Palatinate cycle , dual-system light rail vehicles have been running between Karlsruhe and Wörth every hour since 1994. After the construction of a connection between the Maxau train station and the tram terminus in Knielingen, these journeys were replaced by the new S5 tram , which connects Wörth with Karlsruhe city center every 20 minutes.
business
The Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof – Maxau – Wörth line is double-track and electrified. The freight train route from the former marshalling yard to the Westbahnhof is single-track.
In passenger transport, the line is part of the Karlsruhe – Landau – Neustadt connection, which is served by local trains in regular intervals, with regional trains and regional express trains alternating. Freight traffic to the Karlsruhe Rhine port, the MiRO refinery, the Stora Enso paper mill at Maxau harbor, the Daimler assembly plant in Wörth and the Wörth state port play an important role .
Only a few relics remain of the original route of the Maxau Railway: some remains of track at Maxau Harbor, the station building on Fliederplatz in Mühlburg and the Hirschbrücke in Karlsruhe's south-west town, which once spanned the tracks of the Maxau Railway.
See also
literature
- Karl Müller: The Baden railways in a historical-statistical representation. A contribution to the history of the railway industry. Heidelberger Verlagsanstalt, Heidelberg 1904, pp. 125–130.
- Ernst Otto Bräunche (Ed.): Rheinhafen Karlsruhe. 1901-2001. INFO Verlag, Karlsruhe 2001, ISBN 3-88190-270-8 ( Publications of the Karlsruhe City Archives 22).
Web links
- Traces of the Maxau Railway at verkehrsrelektiven.de
- Law on the construction of the Maxau Railway at hartmeier.de
- Concession to build the Maxau Railway at hartmeier.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Ritzau: Reich Course Book July 1925. Reprint. 2nd Edition. Ritzau Verlag, Pürgen 1987, ISBN 3-921304-71-7 , timetable field 257.