Ittersbach – Pforzheim railway line
| Ittersbach – Pforzheim | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Course book section (DB) : | 304d (1944) , 319e (1964) |
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| Route length: | Overland route: 16.15 km City route Pforzheim: 2.61 km |
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| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power system : |
(from 1931) 1200 volts = from Brötzingen: 600 volts = |
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| Power system : | (1911-1917/18) 8000 volts ~ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Ittersbach – Pforzheim railway , also known as the Pforzheimer Kleinbahn , Kleinbahn Pforzheim , Kleinbahn Pforzheim – Ittersbach or Ittersbacher Bähnle , was a 18.76-kilometer-long meter- gauge small railway in Baden-Württemberg . The narrow-gauge railway linking 1900-1968 Pforzheim with Dietlingen , Ellmendingen , Ottenhausen and Ittersbach in the western region of the city of gold . Due to its idyllic route in the area of the Alb-Pfinz-Plateau , the railway was also given the nickname Panorama Railway . Originally, it formed an operational unit with the adjoining Busenbach – Ittersbach railway line, and in this way was also linked to the Alb Valley Railway to and from Karlsruhe .
history
Origin of the railway line
The first efforts to build a local railway from Pforzheim to the western area were made around 1880. In the newspapers of Dietlingen, Ellmendingen, Ittersbach and Weiler, Pastor Leutwein described the arduous journey of the rural population to the city of Pforzheim and called for an improvement in the situation. In 1888 a railway construction company from Heidelberg applied for a concession to build a steam tram from Pforzheim to Ellmendingen. In 1891 the central administration for Secundairbahnen Herrmann Bachstein from Darmstadt tried to obtain this concession. In 1894 a committee was formed to cope with the flow of commuters into the rapidly growing city. Together with a committee that had formed in Karlsruhe with the aim of realizing a railway line from Karlsruhe to the Albtal, a company was found in Lenz & Co from Stettin that was ready to build a railway line from Karlsruhe via Ettlingen to Bad Herrenalb to be built with a branch to Pforzheim.
Directed by BLEAG
The Ittersbach – Brötzingen (opened on January 2, 1900) and Brötzingen – Pforzheim Leopoldplatz (opened on July 2, 1901) sections were created as a side branch of the Alb Valley Railway. The operating company was the Badische Lokal-Eisenbahnen (BLEAG), which initially handled the traffic with steam locomotives , between 1911 and 1917 with electric vehicles and then again in steam operation. The overhead line was dismantled again in 1917/1918. In 1911 the city of Pforzheim took over the section between Brötzingen and Leopoldplatz, expanded it to two-track and set up a tram service . The small train was thus the impetus for setting up the Pforzheim tram . From then on, the Albtalbahn trains ended in Brötzingen, some were taken over by the Pforzheim tram until 1917 and transported on to Leopoldplatz with electric locomotives of the city tram. When BLEAG electrified the Albtalbahn and its branch line to Pforzheim with alternating current (8000 volts, later 8500 or 8800 volts) at the end of 1911 , the Brötzingen small station had to be specially equipped for the system change.
The traffic on the ittersbach – Pforzheim route was characterized by heavy rush hour traffic in the morning and evening, for which long trains had to be used, while the traffic during the rest of the day was low. The freight to some quarries in the section between Ittersbach and hamlets took after World War considerably. The route could no longer be operated to cover costs. As the economic situation of BLEAG continued to deteriorate, it applied on July 8, 1930 to shut down the Busenbach –Ittersbach – Brötzingen line on September 1, 1930. The Baden Ministry of Finance agreed to shutdown on January 2, 1931. A modest emergency operation was carried out at the expense of the neighboring communities until January 31, 1931, after which the railway operation ended.
Takeover by the city of Pforzheim
The importance of the railway line for commuter traffic prompted the city of Pforzheim to take over the railway connection between Brötzingen and Ittersbach in municipal hands. On January 28, 1931, the citizens' committee approved the project. The route was therefore transferred from BLEAG to the Pforzheim municipal tram - which in turn became part of the Pforzheim municipal utilities (SWP) on January 1, 1939 . At the same time, the line was electrified again, this time with 1200 volts direct current . As early as May 24, 1931, the operation with electric railcars could be reopened. At the same time, the tram hall, which was later also used to house the Pforzheim trolleybus vehicles , was expanded to accommodate the small trains.
By using the railcars, the travel speed could be increased, so that the journey time between Pforzheim and Ittersbach was reduced by 15 minutes to 49 to 51 minutes. By sharing the tram tracks, the trains ran through to Leopoldplatz again, but only with the 600 volts of the Pforzheim tram. To make the railways more attractive, was at least in the two-hour clock down. In addition to the stations or stops at Ittersbach, Ottenhausen, Weiler, Ellmendingen, Dietlingen and Brötzingen that already existed during the Albtalbahn era, five further stops were added in 1931 at Feldrennach , at the Hochmühle between Ittersbach and Ottenhausen, at Niebelsbach (Württemberg) , at Graefenhausen , and on created in the northern outskirts of Birkenfeld . However, these five new stations were of little importance, four of these five breakpoints were far away from the eponymous towns and Hochmühle is only a small hamlet .
Despite initially increasing passenger numbers, the operation of the small railroad remained deficit. In 1937 it carried 921,000 passengers, the freight traffic was insignificant with annual transport rates of well under 10,000 tons of freight.
During the Second World War , the railway line between Brötzingen and Ittersbach remained largely undamaged, while operations between Brötzingen and Leopoldplatz were suspended until 1948 due to the severe destruction of the city of Pforzheim. The course book for 1946 states the carriage hall as the terminus, this also applies in 1948 and 1949, but some trains ended at Durlacher Strasse and began at Goethestrasse. The Leopoldsplatz appear until the winter timetable 1949/1950 again in the course book . As a result of hamster trips and the move of bombed-out Pforzheim residents to the suburbs, the number of passengers rose to over 1.1 million in the first post-war years. The new upswing was followed by a slow but steady decline in passenger numbers in the 1950s and 1960s.
Shutdown
At the beginning of the 1950s, the line was in such a dilapidated condition that the question of decommissioning arose , especially since the annual operating deficit was around 150,000 German marks . With the help of a grant from the state of Baden-Württemberg, it was possible to carry out the urgently needed track renewals and to avert the closure that had already been decided - the importance of the railway for rush hour traffic was still too great for a closure to be politically justifiable.
But despite the renovation of the line that began in 1954, the small railroad had nothing to oppose the competition from private cars and the omnibus . From the mid-1950s, the number of passengers fell continuously to 550,000 passengers in 1967, while the operating deficit rose steadily. After the Pforzheim tram was shut down on October 10, 1964, only the few small trains to and from Ittersbach ran on the Pforzheim tram tracks between Leopoldplatz and Brötzingen. On November 14, 1964, the railway also lost its connection to the Albtal Railway, at that time the AVG temporarily shut down the Busenbach – Ittersbach section, and the Panoramabahn became an island operation . Freight traffic ended on July 16, 1966, although it had only played a role in the first two decades. Due to insufficient passenger numbers and an excessively high operating deficit of around 400,000 DM annually, the city of Pforzheim finally decided in 1967 to shut down small rail operations on August 3, 1968. However, the tornado that swept across the Alb-Pfinz plateau in the summer of 1968 over Pforzheim caused as early as 10 July 1968 for the premature end of the railway because it destroyed the line between Brötzingen and Dietlingen. Nevertheless, on August 3, an official farewell train operated on two sections that had not been destroyed.
Since then, buses operated by Stadtverkehr Pforzheim GmbH & Co. KG ( SVP ) have been operating on the Ittersbach – Pforzheim route . Initially, the route was called Line A , today's name is Line 720 .
After the shutdown
After the railway line was shut down, the track systems were completely dismantled, but the three reception buildings in Ottenhausen, Weiler (as a clubhouse for small animal breeders) and Ellmendingen were retained and continue to be used as private residential buildings; Ittersbach station has been in operation again since October 16, 1975. In Ittersbach, the wagon hall of the small railway was also preserved, it is now used by a commercial enterprise.
The route itself was also largely preserved (mostly as a desert ), only in the area of a few through-streets it was built over with residential buildings. In addition, two shorter sections of the railway line cycle paths have been set up, on the one hand on the 2.5-kilometer section between the western edge of Pforzheim in the Arlinger district and a former field path crossing between Birkenfeld and Gräfenhausen (this section is a convenient ascent for cyclists from the Enztal Towards the west) and on the other hand on the approximately two kilometer long, now continuously paved section between Ellmendingen and Weiler. Some of the cycle path sections are only graveled and therefore not suitable for racing bikes , for example . On some other sections, agricultural paths also run on the former railway line.
As further relics there are numerous mast foundations along the route , and some street names are still reminiscent of the Pforzheimer Kleinbahn. These include Bahnhofstrasse and Eisenbahnstrasse in Dietlingen as well as the street Am alten Bahndamm in Ittersbach.
Reactivation plans
At the end of the 1990s, the success of light rail operations in the greater Karlsruhe area sparked a discussion about the re-establishment of a rail link between Pforzheim and its western environs. The construction of a rail connection from Ittersbach via Straubenhardt and Neuenbürg to Birkenfeld with continuation on the tracks of the Enztalbahn to Pforzheim was examined. However, this route would have been a new route, that is, independent of the routing of the previous panorama railway. However, a profitability study presented in 2006 on the previous plans showed an unfavorable cost-benefit ratio, so that the plans cannot be expected to be implemented anytime soon. Since the end of 2009 the local councils have been actively discussing the implementation of the new light rail. A route Ittersbach - Weiler - Ellmendingen - Nöttingen - Singen with a connection to the local S-Bahn and railway line is also being considered.
vehicles
The vehicles used before 1931 are described in more detail in the article on the Alb Valley Railway. For the operation of the small train, the city of Pforzheim procured five four-axle railcars (601 to 605) with 4 × 50 kilowatts, which were able to pull up to five trailer cars, from the Rastatt wagon factory . Four two-axle sidecars were purchased from the Fuchs wagon factory , and eleven sidecars were taken over from the Pforzheim tram fleet. In 1938 a self-made four-axle sidecar was added. In the course of the modernization in 1956, the Kleinbahn received a sixth four-axle multiple unit (the 606 open- plan car ) and four matching sidecars from the Rastatt wagon factory . For freight traffic, the Kleinbahn had also taken over some freight cars from BLEAG as early as 1931 .
After the shutdown of the small railway, some vehicles were sold to the United Bern-Worb-Bahnen in Switzerland , some remained in a museum, the rest was scrapped.
literature
- Klaus Bindewald, Die Albtalbahn: history and future , regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher, 1998, ISBN 3-929366-79-7 .
- Dieter Höltge, Albtalbahn and Kleinbahn Pforzheim-Ittersbach , Verlag Wolfgang Zeunert, 1976.
- Kurt Schwab, tram and small train in Pforzheim , Kenning Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-927587-64-8 .
- Gerd Wolff, Hans-Dieter Menges: German small and private railways. Volume 2: Bathing . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-653-6 , p. 150-161 .
- Peter-Michael Mihailescu, Matthias Michalke: Forgotten railways in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0413-6 , p. 52-60 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2. Karlovy Vary Traffic Day on Friday, November 14th [2008]: Information about the development of local public transport and discussion about Ittersbach . karlsbad.de , accessed on April 13, 2013.
- ↑ Planning for a new tram route for the municipality of Keltern noted. Meeting of the Building, Planning and Environment Committee on March 20 [2013] . karlsbad.de , accessed on April 13, 2013.
