Leased railway

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Leased railway is a public transport railway line in the former Kingdom of Bavaria . These railways were built with private capital and leased to the Royal Bavarian State Railways . The first leased railway was the route from Neuenmarkt to Bayreuth .

history

On the right the leased railway just before Bayreuth Central Station, on the left the line from Warmensteinach , 1987

The first Bavarian railway lines were privately built, including the first German railway from Nuremberg to Fürth and the railway from Munich to Augsburg, which opened in 1840 .

At the end of 1840, King Ludwig I decided to build the first state-financed railway. It was to lead from Augsburg via Nuremberg to the northern state border at Hof , whereby the city of Bayreuth hoped to be included in the route. To the chagrin of the city fathers, the route through the Rotmain- and Trebgasttal was abandoned in favor of the shorter variant from Kulmbach to Neuenmarkt . Neuenmarkt was reached from Lichtenfels on October 15, 1846 and, due to its location at the foot of the Inclined Plane, received extensive railway systems.

The Munich – Augsburg railway line was also operated by the state from 1844 as part of the Ludwig-Süd-Nordbahn . A financial crisis in mid-1846 - not only limited to Bavaria - caused the loan sources used by the state to dry up a year later. All railway constructions were put on hold for several months. After that, all available funds were concentrated on railway construction in the northern Bavarian region. In this context, the topographically demanding route to Hof was completed on November 1st . The crisis meant that private initiatives were looked for again for further railway construction.

In any case, the development of the agricultural Bavaria was only slow. Ludwig I regarded the “steel roads” as unpleasant competition for his favorite project, the Danube-Main Canal , which he saw as the means of transport of the future. Under Maximilian II the state treasury was empty and state railway construction was out of the question. His son Ludwig II later preferred to invest millions in dream castles rather than in the country's infrastructure. The backwardness of Bavaria, where the first German railroad ran, was a bitter reality in the 19th century.

The concept of leased railways was created against this background . After the rejection of his request, Bayreuth had already asked for permission on January 31, 1845 to set up a stock corporation for the construction of a branch line from Neuenmarkt. This request was initially not granted, only a second request from 1850 brought new life to the project. A "Royal Resolution" of July 25th of that year read as follows: "We permit, in the appropriate cases, applications for the lease of the operation of private railways to be brought to Us by the relevant ministries of state for the account of the state."

The contract subsequently concluded between the municipality of Bayreuth and the “Royal Bavarian State Government” included the financing and construction of the railway, including all buildings, through the city. The operation was leased to the state government for a period of 50 years, with a "lease schilling" of 55,000 guilders to be paid at the end of each budget year. The government undertook to operate the railway and reserved a purchase right against payment of the construction capital. On this basis, the first Bavarian leased railway was built from October 1852 and opened on November 28, 1853.

With the "Lease Railway Ordinance" of June 20, 1855, the basis for further such projects was created. It provided for a five percent "pension" for the repayment and interest on the investment capital. The state provided the rolling stock from the start, and the railway systems were to be left to him after a contractually predetermined lease period.

After the Bayreuth leased railway , seven more routes were created in Bavaria based on this concept. They are not to be confused with the privately built and operated routes such as the extensive network of the Bavarian Eastern Railway and the numerous private local railways of the LAG and other operators.

stretch

After the railway from Neuenmarkt to Bayreuth , the following lines were leased as further leased lines (with the opening date):

The line was built by the owners of the coal mine near Stockheim and then leased and operated by the Bavarian state.

Leased railways in Baden

Baden was the only German state to also introduce leased railways. The concept differed from the Bavarian one, and the term "leased railway" was not common, instead they spoke of "private railways" or "private side railways". The first such railway was the Wiesental Railway, which opened in 1862 and was 22 kilometers long from Basel via Lörrach to Schopfheim . By the mid-1870s, nine more routes were licensed.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Zintl: Bayreuth and the Railway, p. 18
  2. ↑ Bernhard Ücker: The Bavarian Railway 1835-1920, p. 24/25
  3. ↑ a b Lok Magazin 6/2007, p. 74 f.
  4. ^ Robert Zintl: Bayreuth and the Railway, p. 19
  5. ↑ Manfred Bräunlein: Franconian Railways, p. 144
  6. ↑ Dieter Ziegler: Railways and State in the Age of Industrialization, p. 321
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Robert Zintl: Bayreuth und die Eisenbahn, p. 25
  8. ↑ a b c Dieter Ziegler: Railways and State in the Age of Industrialization, p. 323
  9. ↑ 100 years of the Frankenwaldbahn in: Eisenbahn Magazin 1/1986, p. 21 ff.
  10. ↑ Dieter Ziegler: Railways and State in the Age of Industrialization, p. 325ff