Nagold Valley Railway

map

Pforzheim – Hochdorf (b Horb)
Route number (DB) :	4850
Course book section (DB) :	774
Route length:	56.165 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	D4 (Pforzheim Hbf – Brötzingen Mitte, D4 (Nagold – Hochdorf (b Horb))) CE (Brötzingen Mitte – Nagold)
Legend from Stuttgart 0.091 Pforzheim central station 280 m to Karlsruhe 1.200 Pforzheim Durlacher Strasse (planned) 1.300 Infrastructure border DB Netz / AVG 1,865 Pforzheim Maihälden Pforzheimer Kleinbahn (until 1968) 2.815 Brötzingen middle 2.925 Pforzheim-Brötzingen to Bad Wildbad Königskurve from Birkenfeld (Enz) 3.400 Infrastructure boundary AVG / DB Netz Enz 3,614 Brötzinger Tunnel (406 m) 4.400 Pforzheim- Dillstein 283 m 5.157 Weißensteiner Tunnel (371 m) 5.737 Pforzheim- Weißenstein 287 m 7.402 Zelgenberg tunnel (560 m) 9.000 Grunbach-Salmbach 297 m 10.200 former state border Baden / Württemberg 12.256 Unterreichenbach 308 m Unterreichenbach railway bridge 15.733 Monbach - Neuhausen 316 m 18.8 + 131 Bad Liebenzell 319 m 18.8 + 181.6 18.9 + 80.0 Mileage jump 21.800 Ernstmühl 335 m 23.511 Hirsau 344 m 25,850 Calw (since 1989) Bundesstrasse 296 from Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen 26.800 Calw (until 1989) 27.500 Nagold 27.646 Rudersberg tunnel (477 m) Kentheimer Bridge 30,322 Bad Teinach / Neubulach 349 m 31,072 Schlossberg tunnel (280 m) 32.700 Valley mill 358 m 34,940 Kengeltunnel (226 m) 37.087 Wildberg (Württ) 372 m 37.216 Wildberger Tunnel (253 m) 40.175 Bettenberg tunnel (166 m) 41.700 Emmingen (reactivation planned) 403 m 45.846 Nagold 426 m Narrow-gauge railway to Altensteig (until 1967) 46.500 Nagold city center 47.457 Nagold-Steinberg 48,454 Nagold-Iselshausen 450 m 52.000 Gündringen 482 m 53.832 Hochdorf tunnel (1557 m) from Schiltach 56.256 Hochdorf (b Horb) 511 m to Eutingen im Gäu Swell:

Nagoldtalbahn train in Pforzheim main station , the starting point of the route (2006)

The Nagoldtalbahn is a main line in Baden-Württemberg . It runs in the northern Black Forest from Pforzheim to Hochdorf (b Horb) and mostly runs in the valley of the Nagold river . The route is mainly operated by DB Netz , the section from Pforzheim (exclusive) to Brötzingen Mitte by Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG).

The DB ZugBus Regionalverkehr Alb-Bodensee (RAB) passenger trains travel the entire length of the route and have been referred to and advertised as a cultural railway together with the trains on the Tübingen – Horb railway since 2005 . The main depot for the trains of the cultural railway is in Tübingen-Derendingen not far from the Tübingen main station. Among other things, the trains are serviced and refueled there.

The diesel railcars used run every two hours between Pforzheim and Tübingen , and every hour between Pforzheim and Horb . From Monday to Friday, the offer between Pforzheim and Nagold is increased every half hour during rush hour. In addition, the last train of the day runs from Pforzheim to Reutlingen every day, but from Tübingen it is run under a different train number.

topography

The Nagold Valley Railway runs on the northeastern edge of the Black Forest . From Pforzheim it does not initially follow the course of the eponymous Nagold , but the Enz , before after three kilometers in the Brötzingen district the Enztalbahn branches off to Bad Wildbad and the Nagoldtalbahn reaches the Nagoldtal through a tunnel . It follows its course to Nagold and shortens the route through several spur tunnels , so that the railway line between Calw and Nagold is several kilometers shorter than the course of the road.

From Nagold to the south, the landscape changes from the Black Forest to the Gäu . Already south of Wildberg , after the Bettenberg tunnel, the route leaves the valley floor and climbs 100 meters in altitude along the slopes of the Nagold and the confluent Steinach for 13 kilometers. South of the Nagold suburb of Schietingen, it leads through the Hochdorf tunnel to the Upper Gäus plain and reaches its end point ( 511  m ) at the Hochdorf (b Horb) train station . There it is linked to the Eutingen im Gäu – Freudenstadt railway line , which in turn connects it to the nearby Gäu Railway .

Due to the difficult topographical conditions in the Black Forest, the route leads over numerous artificial structures. A total of 21 bridge structures that are longer than 20 meters are passed. Most of the time, the Nagold or the parallel federal highway 463 is crossed. In addition, the line has nine tunnels, of which the Hochdorf tunnel between Gündringen and Hochdorf is the longest and also the highest. The Hochdorf Tunnel was at the same time the longest tunnel in the route network of the Royal Wuerttemberg State Railways (KWSt.E.) , which was well ahead of the Weinsberg Tunnel .

history

Planning and construction

On February 18, 1865, a state treaty was signed between Baden and Württemberg , which included the construction of two railway lines. One route should run from Pforzheim to Wildbad, the other from Pforzheim to Calw. On April 25, 1865, the then Minister of State Karl von Varnbüler introduced the third fundamental railway law in Württemberg by means of a ministerial lecture, with which the construction of the Nagold Valley Railway was finally decided.

The main reasons for planning such a route were, on the one hand, the intention to create a rival line to the Badische Hauptbahn Mannheim - Basel in north-south direction to Switzerland , especially since in Basel between the Badischer Bahnhof and the Swiss train station at that time still the Closing the gap was missing.

On the other hand, the section between Calw and Horb, together with the also planned Württemberg Black Forest Railway Stuttgart –Calw, was to form part of a north-south main line, which until then ran from Stuttgart via Tübingen to Horb via the Upper Neckar Railway , which was opened in 1864 . A direct connection from Stuttgart via the Gäu to the south was initially not tackled due to the difficult topographical conditions.

However, the construction of railway lines in the northern Black Forest was delayed by the coalition war of 1866 . In the years between 1868 and 1872 a total of four laws were passed that were supposed to secure the financial means for the construction of the Nagold Valley Railway. In addition, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871 delayed construction work on the route, which KWSt.E. have carried out.

Royal Württemberg State Railways (1868–1920)

As a section of the Enz Valley Railway, operations between Pforzheim and Brötzingen began on June 11, 1868. The Calw - Nagold section was initially built as part of the Württemberg Black Forest Railway, which began in Stuttgart, and opened on June 20, 1872.

On June 1, 1874, the Brötzingen - Calw and Nagold - Hochdorf sections were opened under the direction of senior building officer Carl Julius Abel . At the same time, the subsequent line to Horb went into operation, which is now included in the neighboring lines from Eutingen to Freudenstadt (line 4880) and from Stuttgart to Horb (line 4860).

The Royal Württemberg State Railways designated their main routes according to rivers, regions or relations. The official name of the route through the Nagoldtal was therefore always only Nagoldbahn during the time of the monarchy. The addition "-tal" only appeared in the time of the Reichsbahn and Bundesbahn. The German Federal Railroad referred to the Nagoldbahn in its advertising from the 1950s as the "Eastern Black Forest Railway".

Until the Second World War , the Nagoldbahn began at a separate, Württemberg terminus in Pforzheim, which also served the Enzbahn trains and was located on the Durlach  - Mühlacker line away from the Baden train station . At that time, the lines to Hochdorf and Wildbad formed two independent, single-track lines that ran parallel to each other, despite their common course to Brötzingen. A distinction was made between a “Nagoldbahngleis” and an “Enzbahngleis”.

In addition, a connecting curve was created near Brötzingen , which enabled continuous journeys from Stuttgart via Calw to Wildbad. The reason for this was that the state of Württemberg and above all the then King Karl wanted the trains starting in the state capital Stuttgart to run to the spa town of Wildbad, which is considered the Württemberg counterpart to Baden-Baden, for as long as possible within their own national territory. The detour via the Nagoldtalbahn combined with a change of direction in Calw was accepted, although a short section of this route between Birkenfeld on the Enz Valley Railway and Unterreichenbach also ran through Baden territory. The aforementioned connecting curve in Brötzingen was therefore often referred to as the “Königskurve”.

Long-distance trains also ran between Calw and Horb from Stuttgart via the Württemberg Black Forest Railway to Singen am Hohentwiel and on to Lake Constance or Schaffhausen . However, since the route from Stuttgart via Eutingen im Gäu to Freudenstadt was opened only five years later , using the Stuttgart - Böblingen  - Horb route has since been a significantly shorter route from Stuttgart to Switzerland, which is why long-distance traffic then switched to this connection. Against this background, the Eutingen - Hochdorf section was expanded to two tracks and operated accordingly from 1887.

German State Railroad (1920–1945)

The occupation of the city of Offenburg by France in 1923 meant that the express trains from Karlsruhe to Basel , which normally ran on the Rhine Valley Railway , had to be rerouted over the Nagold Valley Railway and the Höllental Railway . For this reason, the Grunbach-Salmbach and Monbach-Neuhausen stops were equipped with long sidings and thus upgraded to train stations.

In 1933 the Eutingen station was relocated to its current location, since then some Nagoldtalbahn trains via Hochdorf (b Horb) no longer went to Horb, but to the new Eutingen station.

For strategic military reasons, the Horb - Hochdorf - Calw - Leonberg  - Kornwestheim route served as a relief route for the Gäubahn, which in 1940 actually served as a deployment line for the western campaign. Therefore, the official "passing places" mentioned strategic incurred on the track between Nagold Hochdorf and Calw operating stations bed Berg and Kengel . They did not have any public transport systems and were probably only in operation for a few weeks in 1940. Its commissioning was kept secret within the railway itself, only its decommissioning is officially documented. Their location in the forest area and incisions in front of tunnels was chosen so that they were difficult to see from the air. Internally, their needs could only be justified with “increase in route performance”. For the same reason, the Kapellenberg block point was built between Calw and Althengstett on the Württemberg Black Forest Railway . The tracks were probably dismantled again on the occasion of the Russian campaign, but were no longer there at the end of the war. For the same reasons, the Iselshausen station received a crossing track, and the crossing track of the Althengstett station on the Württemberg Black Forest Railway was extended. The length of all these crossing tracks was 550 meters, which corresponded to the standardized length of a military train (500 m) plus one or two locomotives.

Between the end of the war and the rail reform (1945–1993)

After the Enzbrücke was blown up in the course of the bombing of Pforzheim during the Second World War, the Pforzheim-Weißenstein train station served as the northern start and end point until it was rebuilt. From 1948 the route was again open to traffic. In the following years, numerous stops on the way were shut down due to a lack of profitability, in some cases as with the Grunbach-Salmbach and Talmühle stops , their location far from larger residential areas was decisive.

The Nagold Valley Railway experienced a further loss of importance through the abandonment of the Calw depot : In October 1953 it was converted into a branch of the Pforzheim depot, a further year and a half later it was given up as a formal office. After it had been used to park and maintain rail vehicles for almost two decades, it was finally abandoned and dismantled in the 1970s.

The old Calw train station , abandoned in 1989

After passenger and freight traffic was discontinued on the Württemberg Black Forest Railway between Weil der Stadt and Calw in 1983, the Calw station lost its function as a connecting station . The narrow-gauge railway to Altensteig branching off in Nagold had already been shut down in 1967.

In 1989, signaled train control was introduced on the Nagold Valley Railway . This means that until 2011 the stations in Unterreichenbach, Bad Teinach, Wildberg and Nagold were remotely controlled from the train station in Bad Liebenzell, and this system was used to set points , signals and barriers from a central point. In Calw, at the same time as the SZB went into operation, a new stopping point in the building of the newly created Central Bus Station (ZOB) was put into operation . With the creation of this central local transport hub, the old station was given up for passenger transport.

Deutsche Bahn (since 1994)

After the Nagold Valley Railway had already lost its importance in supra-regional traffic after the end of the Second World War, the remaining through cars were abandoned by long-distance trains in 1995 . Since then, the route has been used exclusively for local transport. Since the neighboring Enz Valley Railway was increasingly threatened with closure at the same time, it was taken over at the beginning of 2000 by the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG), which set up a light rail service there at the end of 2002 . This resulted in some further improvements in addition to electrification on the section of the Nagold Valley Railway in the Enz Valley . While the Nagold and Enz Valley Railway were previously two independent single-track lines despite their common route to Pforzheim-Brötzingen, the track structure was rebuilt in such a way that the corresponding section has since been consistently double-tracked and can be used by both lines. In addition, the Brötzingen separation station was replaced by the new Brötzingen Mitte station, which is in a more favorable location to the corresponding Pforzheim district. A new stopping point for both routes has also been built between Pforzheim Hauptbahnhof and Brötzingen, Pforzheim Maihälden .

Train in the Brötzingen Mitte station, which was established in 2002 and replaced the old Brötzingen station

As part of a Europe-wide tender for rail operations, the route was taken over by the DB subsidiary DB ZugBus RAB for the 2005/2006 timetable change in December 2005 and marketed under the name "Kulturbahn". With the start of operations, a half-hourly service between Pforzheim and Nagold and an hourly service to Horb were introduced during rush hour. At the same time, operations were switched to modern Stadler Regio-Shuttle RS1 diesel multiple units.

With the 2008/2009 timetable change on December 14, 2008, the Pforzheim-Weißenstein train station was reactivated, which at the same time was restored to its function as a crossing station. At the same time, the Nagold-Steinberg stop, a newly built stop on the route, was inaugurated, which was designated Nagold-Süd until June 14, 2009 . With the 2011/2012 timetable change on December 11, 2011, the complete modernization of the Nagold Valley Railway was completed. All platforms were brought to a uniform height of 55 centimeters and the new stops Nagold Stadtmitte and Nagold-Iselshausen opened. These stops could be completed in time for the State Garden Show 2012 in Nagold. As part of the modernization, the entire Nagoldtalbahn was connected to the electronic signal box (ESTW) Freudenstädter Stern , the management of the signaled train control (SZB) was given up. With the restart of the Pforzheim-Weißenstein train station in 2008, the SZB section from Pforzheim-Brötzingen to Pforzheim-Weißenstein was shortened. The route section in the signaled train control operation had thereby become an island route within the ESTW Freudenstädter Stern. As part of the modernization, the entire route was equipped with Ks signals . The train conductor Bad Liebenzell was officially given up as a separate post on September 30, 2011.

As part of the rehabilitation of the route, all tunnels were also rehabilitated, in some cases even a new tunnel drainage system was installed. In some tunnels, the condition of the old tunnel drainage was still so good that it can be rehabilitated and used again. The renovation of the route was carried out extensively by the construction company Schweerbau GmbH from Stadthagen .

Since then, the Nagold Valley Railway has been operated every half hour on weekdays between Pforzheim and Nagold, in some cases Hochdorf. A new stop called Pforzheim Durlacher Straße is also planned between Pforzheim Central Station and the Pforzheim Maihälden stop .

The city of Nagold put the construction costs for a considered electrification between Hochdorf and Nagold at 16 million euros.

business

Demand stop Monbach - Neuhausen

Calw station in 1872, in operation until 1989

Railway stations and stops

With the Pforzheim main station, Brötzingen Mitte, Pforzheim-Weißenstein, Unterreichenbach, Bad Liebenzell, Bad Teinach, Wildberg, Nagold and Hochdorf (b Horb) there are eight passenger stations on the route. While train crossings are possible on the entire route between Pforzheim main station and Brötzingen Mitte , this is only possible in the above-mentioned stations in the remaining section. With the abandonment of the old Calw train station in 1989, the possibility of crossing there no longer existed. The building of the Weißenstein train station, which was abandoned in the 1980s and reactivated in 2008, is now used by the association Eisenbahn-Freunde-Pforzheim e. V. on the one hand as a museum , in which the operation of a former train station is documented, and on the other hand to accommodate the club's own model railway systems.

Monbach-Neuhausen

The Monbach-Neuhausen station, located between Unterreichenbach and Bad Liebenzell, is a demand breakpoint that had been abandoned in the meantime and was only reactivated in 1998. Its name is very unusual for breakpoints: the first part of the name comes from a stream that flows into the Nagold in the immediate vicinity. The second part stands for the municipality on whose border it is located. There are only a few houses in the vicinity of the stop. The center of the community is around three kilometers away and is separated from the stop by a forest area. The station is therefore used almost exclusively for excursion traffic. Rail travelers are asked by a sign to give the train in question a hand signal.

Calw

→ Main article : Calw train station

The old station in Calw , which was in operation until 1989, still bears witness to the relatively large, listed reception building, which temporarily housed a grocery store after it was closed. Although the two mechanical signal boxes, which are also under monument protection, have remained, the station is no longer of any operational importance. The Calw depot, which was closed as an independent plant as early as 1953, was also located on this station site , but was still used for steam locomotives for 20 years before the buildings were demolished in 1973.

passenger traffic

Train at the exit from Unterreichenbach station

According to the mode of operation , the route is a main line. As part of the Europe-wide tender for rail operations, the route has been served by the DB subsidiary DB ZugBus RAB since the end of 2005 . This operator advertises the railway line as a cultural railway and has also put this name on the outside of its Stadler Regio-Shuttle RS1 line vehicles. The regional trains run every hour . The demand on the Pforzheim – Nagold section, where the train journey is usually shorter than a car journey due to the shorter route, allows for an increase in supply every half hour from Monday to Friday during the day.

As a rule, all stops en route are approached. The trains that only run between Nagold and Pforzheim (except for those that run in the morning) do not serve the Unterreichenbach station or the Monbach-Neuhausen stop . Traffic takes place between five in the morning and midnight . In the nights from Friday to Saturday as well as Sat / Sun there is a later connection. The journeys are extended every two hours to Tübingen , with the direction of travel being changed in Horb .

Since 1996, on Sundays and public holidays between May and October, the so-called Klosterstadt-Express has been running from Tübingen via the Nagold Valley Railway and Pforzheim to the northeast to Maulbronn Stadt . The corresponding trips are carried out every two hours between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. It is advertised with the slogan In the footsteps of Hermann Hesse , because the train connects three cities that represent the stations of the early biography of this writer: Tübingen, Calw and Maulbronn .

Freight transport

Nagold station , the only remaining freight tariff point along the route

The freight lost in recent decades more and more important. The Brötzingen and Weißenstein train stations, which are located in the city of Pforzheim, once had extensive track systems, but these have since been dismantled. After the old Calw station was given up in 1989 and the remaining freight traffic on the Calw – Althengstett section of the Württemberg Black Forest Railway had been discontinued a year earlier, it continued to decline.

The only station that is currently still being used for freight traffic is Nagold. Not least because of the narrow-gauge railway to Altensteig , which was shut down in 1967, Nagold station has always been of great importance for freight traffic. Today in Nagold a trucking company has a siding . Containers, metal products and wood are loaded regularly. As a rule, an operating trip with the 294 series from Böblingen to Nagold takes place from Monday to Friday at lunchtime .

The section between Pforzheim and Nagold can only be used to a very limited extent for freight trains. On the one hand, this is due to the very extensive passenger traffic (sometimes every half hour), to short crossings and to the renovated tunnels. In the Weißenstein tunnel, for example, an approximately 30 centimeter thick shotcrete shell was placed on the inside of the old masonry to renovate and increase the tunnel's stability. The clearance profile is clearly restricted here. Whether the clearance profile was sufficient for class 211/212, 203 and 360–365 locomotives had to be determined on January 30, 2007 with a new test run. The values ​​of the clearance profile were no longer recorded at DB Netz . According to the values ​​determined, the profile is no longer sufficient even for the long-standing class 216 locomotive .

Tariffs and numbering

Due to the territorial affiliation of the railway line, the offer of tickets and tariffs for the use of the Nagold Valley Railway is very complicated. The route runs over the territory of three districts , each of which belongs to its own transport association.

The tariff of the Verkehrsverbund Pforzheim-Enzkreis (VPE) applies between Pforzheim and Monbach-Neuhausen, but since January 1, 2007, tickets from the Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund (KVV) have also been accepted in this section . The route between Unterreichenbach and Nagold-Hochdorf is part of the transport company Bäderkreis Calw (VGC). Hochdorf and the Horb terminus are in the Freudenstadt District Transport Association (VGF). Along the entire route of the marketed as "RegioX ticket", national applies composite ticket of CDV and the metropolitan ticket Stuttgart . The so-called KulTourBahn ticket was initiated by the DB Regio Alb-Bodensee especially for the route as well as the neighboring Upper Neckar Railway and the Klosterstadt Express .

From the Pforzheim main train station to the abandoned Grunbach-Salmbach stop, the route runs within the boundaries of the Pforzheim district . From Unterreichenbach to the abandoned Gündringen stop it crosses the Calw district , with the exception of the Monbach-Neuhausen stop between Unterreichenbach and Bad Liebenzell , which belongs to the municipality of Neuhausen in the Enzkreis .

Although the end point Hochdorf is a district of Nagold, the station of the same name is located in the district of Eutingen im Gäu in the Freudenstadt district . A comparable situation arises with a total of two other stops on the way: Although the abandoned Grunbach-Salmbach stop was on the Pforzheim district, it served the two districts of Engelsbrand . Bad Teinach train station connects to the spa town of the same name, which is around three kilometers away, but is in the district of Calw.

The Nagoldtalbahn is listed as course book route 774 at Deutsche Bahn . In the course books of KVV and VPE it is listed under the line designation R61 . The Klosterstadt-Express , which runs on the Nagold Valley Railway, has its own line designation under the number R99 . In the directory of locally permissible speeds , the number for the entire route is 4850.

Vehicle use

Before the switch to diesel operation, passenger traffic was handled with steam locomotives of the series 24 , 38 , 75 and 93 , among other things . Uerdingen rail buses and locomotive-hauled trains with locomotives of the 212 and 218 series were then used until 1988 . From January 1988, the traffic was denied with diesel multiple units of the 628 series , which were replaced in 2005 by the so-called regio shuttles of the 650 series.

In the case of goods traffic, which was handled by the 57.4 , 57.10 and 93 series at the time of steam train operation , diesel locomotives of the 294 series are now used to operate the Nagold station.

literature

• Hans-Wolfgang Scharf, Burkhard Wollny: The railway in the northern Black Forest. Volume 1: Historical development and railway construction . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1995, ISBN 3-88255-763-X
• Hans-Wolfgang Scharf, Burkhard Wollny: The railway in the northern Black Forest. Volume 2: Design, Operation and Machine Service . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1995, ISBN 3-88255-764-8
• Thomas Estler: Railway Travel Guide Baden-Württemberg. Volume 2 . Transpress-Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-613-71106-0

Web links

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

• Homepage of DB ZugBus RAB (current operator)
• Website of the Kult (o) urbahn, information on the Kultourbahn ticket
• Homepage of the Eisenbahn-Freunde-Pforzheim e. V.
• Images of the tunnel portals

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ^ Albert Mühl, Kurt Seidel: The Württemberg State Railways . Theiss, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-8062-0249-4 , pp. 264 .
4. ↑ ^{a b} Scharf / Wollny, p. 117. (? Which volume is meant?)
5. ↑ Scharf / Wollny, pp. 117f. (? which band is meant?)
6. ^ Hochdorf special, history of the Hochdorf train station ( memento from March 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
7. ↑ MEX should enable direct connections by rail . In: Gäubote . March 13, 2020, p. 15 ( online for a fee ).
8. ↑ ^{a b} railway lines , on the website vpe.de of the Verkehrsverbund Pforzheim-Enzkreis
9. ↑ Kulturbahn-Ticket Alb-Bodensee. DB ZugBus Alb-Bodensee, 2019, accessed on November 21, 2019 : "Experience culture and nature from 13 euros." 

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on April 1, 2009 .