Upper Kocher Valley Railway

map

Gaildorf West – Untergröningen
Route number (DB) :	9492
Course book section (DB) :	ex 785 (until 2000)
Route length:	18.61 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	10  ‰
Minimum radius :	180 m
Top speed:	50 km / h
Legend Route from Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental 0.00 Gaildorf West Route to Waiblingen 1.65 Gaildorf town 2.90 Under red ARWA 3.60 Under red 4.00 Siding company Dalacker 4.80 Schönberg (b Gaildorf) 5.60 Cooker (63 m) 6.30 Bröckingen 7.95 Altschmiedelfeld 9.90 Sulzbach (cooker) 13.80 Running (stove) 16.45 Wengen 18.10 Cooker (35 m) 18.61 Untergröningen Swell:

The Upper Kettle Valley Railway was a 18.61 km long single-track standard gauge private branch line , as the branch line from the Waiblingen-Schwäbisch Hall railway branched off and along the digester of Gaildorf to Untergröningen led. Operation on the line was discontinued at the end of 2005 and most of the track systems were removed in 2009. The railway was also nicknamed "Klepperle".

history

Untergröningen station without passenger traffic (May 2004)

In 1861 the Gaildorf Railway Committee submitted a memorandum entitled "The Württemberg Railway System and the Authorization of a Kocher Valley Railway". A line from Gaildorf to Untergröningen was planned and built around 40 years later by the Württembergische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (WEG) with the help of a state grant. The route was opened on October 1, 1903.

From the outset it was planned to continue the route via Abtsgmünd and Hüttlingen to Wasseralfingen or Aalen , but the further construction was canceled due to the two world wars. Even a renewed petition from the Abtsgmünd community in 1946 to complete the route as part of war repair work at least from Untergröningen to Abtsgmünd was not approved.

Starting in 1986, the DBK Historische Bahn association organized special trips with steam locomotives on weekends on the route .

Remainder of the crashed railcar VT 114 (formerly SWEG) and diesel locomotive V 125 in Gaildorf West (May 2004)

On May 15, 2000 there was a collision between the only railcar on the route and a locomotive, which is why the local public transport was relocated to a parallel bus line. The buses are provided by Stadtbus Schwäbisch Hall GmbH, which, like WEG, is a subsidiary of Veolia Verkehr GmbH. The Schwäbisch Hall district, however, insisted that rail traffic be continued, and so until May 17, 2001, passenger traffic was served by various WEG railcars. Since then, there has only been freight traffic between Gaildorf West and Laufen with around 20 wagons per month.

Bus instead of train in the Upper Kocher Valley

On April 16, 2004, the route was closed from kilometer 15 due to ailing sleepers . On October 17, 2005, the WEG ceased all operations due to technical deficiencies; it was assumed that the renovation would cost around EUR 2 million per year until 2011. The route was advertised for sale by WEG on June 9, 2006, but did not find a buyer. The regional council of Stuttgart de- dedicated the section Schönberg - Untergröningen by decision of November 7th, 2008. The section Gaildorf West - Schönberg was converted into a siding of the Gaildorf train station on this date, it is to be kept for freight traffic until further notice. In the meantime (May 2017) the connection to the line in Gaildorf West station has been dismantled and replaced by a buffer stop.

On March 31, 2009 the municipality of Abtsgmünd took over the railway area in Untergröningen for further use as a commercial area.

On August 28, 2009, a tourist bicycle trolley operation was opened on the Laufen - Untergröningen section .

Between January 2009 and February 2010, the tracks on the Schönberg - Laufen section were dismantled.

vehicles

The next two three-axle steam locomotives (No. 4 and 5) built at Borsig in Berlin and four passenger cars, one packing car and several freight cars were available to start operations. The two wet steam locomotives were replaced from 1954 by the Wegmann T4 railcar, which was replaced by the T36 railcar from 1975 .

literature

• Hermann Bürnheim: Württemberg Railway Company. The story of an important private railway . 1st edition. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-613-01145-X .
• Gerd Wolff, Hans-Dieter Menges: German small and private railways. Volume 3: Württemberg . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1995, ISBN 3-88255-655-2 .

Web links

Commons : Obere Kochertalbahn  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Photo documentation of a route inspection in April 2003
• Excerpt from the course book from 1944
• Forgotten paths

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Rattling Klepperle . In: Gmünder Tagespost of October 22, 2003.
3. ↑ the rail bus. 6/2005, p. 81.
4. ↑ http://www.railfan.de/nebahn/archiv/23052004.html
5. ↑ ^{a b} current community. Abtsgmünd municipality buys train station. In: Website of the Abtsgmünd community . April 3, 2009, archived from the original on April 15, 2009 ; Retrieved July 31, 2009 . 
6. ↑ On the tracks from “Klepperle” , Gmünder Tagespost of August 29, 2009, p. 18.