Pinkatalbahn

Friedberg – Szombathely
Course of the Pinkatalbahn
Route length:	68 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	C3
Maximum slope :	18  ‰
Minimum radius :	188 m
Top speed:	100 km / h
Legend Alternating paths to Aspang and Vienna 0.0 Friedberg 551  m above sea level A. Thermenbahn to Fehring and Graz Elevated Road Tunnel (524 m) 4.466 Pinggau Leisure Center (until July 31, 2011) 508  m above sea level A. 5,000 FROM 6,980 A2 7.426 Schäffernsteg 474  m above sea level A. 10.181 Sinnersdorf (until July 31, 2011) 422  m above sea level A. 10,700 State border Styria / Burgenland 13,536 Pinkafeld (until July 31, 2011) 391  m above sea level A. 14,182 Pinkafeld School (until July 31, 2011) 383  m above sea level A. Pinka 15,583 52,433 Altpinkafeld (until July 31, 2011) 381  m above sea level A. 49.968 Riedlingsdorf (until July 31, 2011) 370  m above sea level A. 8.2 Top riflemen 392  m above sea level A. 6.3 Bad Tatzmannsdorf 4.0 Protect AB dairy (closed) 0.0 42.614 Oberwart 320  m above sea level A. 40.2 Oberwart shopping center 310  m above sea level A. Track connection from Unger Stahlbau GmbH 39,400 ÖBB / SRB border 37,340 Rotenturm on the Pinka 294  m above sea level A. 31,890 Großpetersdorf 309  m above sea level A. 32.045 AB Agricultural Cooperative 30.165 Welgersdorf 27.132 Hat. Hannersdorf 268  m above sea level A. 24,871 Castle Eisenberg (Pinkaóvár-Csejke) 253  m above sea level A. 21.772 Schandorf (Csém) 250  m above sea level A. 19,573 Hat. Chess Village (Csajta) 260  m above sea level A. Track connection precast concrete plant from Kölbl-Bau GmbH. 17.065 Rechnitz (Rohonc) 300  m above sea level A. 16.796 Preservation limit (track removed behind) 13,478 State border / Bucsu (Butsching) Torony (servant) Sé (Scheibing) Olad from Kőszeg (Güns) and Sopron (Ödenburg) Sopron – Szombathely railway line from Sopron (Ödenburg) via Bük (Wichs) Hungarian Western Railway from Győr (Raab) 0.0 Szombathely (Steinamanger) to Nagykanizsa (large churches) to Szentgotthárd (Sankt Gotthard) and Graz

The Pinkatalbahn ( Hungarian Szombathely – Pinkafő-vasútvonal ) is a railway line in southern Burgenland ( Austria ) and in the neighboring Hungarian province of Vas (Eisenburg) . The name is derived from the Pinkatal , in which a large part of the route was built. In connection with current plans to reactivate the connection to Hungary, the name GrenzBahn was created for the railway line . In its greatest extent it connected the Hungarian city of Szombathely (Steinamanger) with Friedberg on the Wechselbahn . A branch line leads from Oberwart to Oberschützen . Until 1921 the Pinkatalbahn was a Hungarian route and the traffic was directed to Steinamanger. The connection to Friedberg to Wechselbahn was only established after the cession of Burgenland from Hungary to Austria and opened in 1925.

Currently, only the section from Friedberg to Rotenturm on the Pinka is used for freight traffic. Regular passenger traffic between Friedberg and Oberwart has been suspended since 2011.

history

Most of today's Pinkatalbahn was built under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hungary , since Burgenland was Hungarian territory until 1921. The development of the railway started from Szombathely (Steinamanger), which is still an important railway junction in western Hungary today. After a successful technical inspection by the police on December 15, 1888, the Steinamanger-Pinkafelder Lokalbahn AG was able to officially open the Steinamanger-Pinkafelder Vicinalbahn on the following day and to open the general traffic from Szombathely via Rechnitz and Oberwart to Alt Pinkafeld on December 17, 1888 to hand over. A branch line, the local line Felsőőr-Felsőlövő from Oberwart via Bad Tatzmannsdorf to the mining town of Oberschützen, followed on March 25, 1903. In the neighboring Tauchental there was a mine whose lignite was transported by cable car to Oberschützen. The onward transport took place from there by rail. A continuation of this railway to Kirchschlag in the Bucklige Welt was planned, but could not be implemented due to insufficient funding.

After the First World War, this part of Hungary became part of the Republic of Austria and its state railways through the Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1921; Rechnitz and Bucsu became border stations. On November 15, 1925, the Alt Pinkafeld - Friedberg line was connected to the rest of the Austrian rail network on the Wechselbahn . Memorial plaques at the train stations in Pinkafeld and Friedberg commemorate this event (see photo).

On October 12, 1944, at around 2:30 p.m., light English fighter planes coming from the north attacked the passenger train 1548 coming from Rechnitz at low altitude in Rohrbach an der Lafnitz; the train driver Alfred Brenner was killed and five men and two women injured. At 4 p.m. Friedberg train station was shot at by four fighter planes with on-board weapons, injuring around 20 people.

On February 28, 1953, all traffic to the Hungarian state railway east of Rechnitz was interrupted and the border crossing was closed on March 1, 1953 . On the Hungarian side, the track systems have meanwhile been largely dismantled.

The closure of the lignite mining on August 8, 1968 meant a great loss of freight traffic volume for the section to Oberschützen. Passenger traffic was gradually abandoned, specifically in the following sections:

• October 18, 1982: Großpetersdorf – Rechnitz
• 0June 2, 1984: Oberwart – Großpetersdorf
• June 30, 1987: Oberwart – Oberschützen
• 0August 1, 2011: Friedberg – Oberwart

The scheduled passenger traffic from Friedberg to Oberwart recently included direct connections for commuters to Vienna and regional traffic to Friedberg. In regional traffic, locomotives of the 5022 series were in use, which replaced the 5047 railcars at the beginning of June 2008 . In locomotive - hauled passenger transport (express trains to Vienna), the 2016 series with city ​​shuttle sets was used in particular.

In March 2010, the repeatedly postponed extension of passenger traffic to Großpetersdorf was assumed to be safe for 2011, but in April 2011 it was announced that rail-bound passenger traffic would cease on August 1, 2011 (among other things as a result of an annual loss of 500,000 euros) is replaced by a bus service.

From August 16, 1989 to summer 1997, the Südburgenländische Regionalbahn GmbH continued to operate steam trains and occasional freight trains between Oberwart and Oberschützen. After that, the track fell into disrepair and became impassable.

Current development

Friedberg – Altpinkafeld – Oberwart

The line is operated by the ÖBB, since August 1, 2011 only in freight traffic. In a press release on May 31, 2012, the environmental spokeswoman for the Green Party, Christiane Brunner, stated that the ÖBB had applied for the line to be completely closed. According to the SPÖ traffic spokesman, Anton Heinzl, this claim would lack any factual basis. At the beginning of October 2012 it was announced that the ÖBB subsidiary Rail Cargo Austria (RCA) intends to end freight traffic on the route on December 31, 2012. After the complete discontinuation of freight transport was originally planned, it was taken over by the Steiermärkische Landesbahnen ( Steiermarkbahn ) in early April 2013 .

On December 1, 2013, freight traffic between Friedberg and Oberwart was also threatened with a permanent end. As emerged from a letter from ÖBB, the infrastructure contract with the railroad connection owners was terminated on November 30, 2013. The connection points would have had to be removed so that operation would no longer have been possible. This would have affected the Kern woodworks, Kelag, Austrotherm , the brickworks, warehouses and Unger Steel, which in future would have to handle their transports by road. The Steiermärkische Landesbahnen, which contractually took over the freight traffic for the ÖBB subsidiary Rail Cargo Austria, could no longer have carried out this activity. The regional transport coordinator of Burgenland, Peter Zinggl, ruled this out and emphasized: “We have the solution at the table, so to speak. The probability that it will work is high. "

In December 2016, the ProBahn Südburgenland initiative announced that the volume of goods had increased from 50,000 tons in 2013 to 100,000 tons.

Takeover by the Province of Burgenland

In April 2015, the state of Burgenland announced that the state would take over the railway line from ÖBB as beneficial owner in 2016, so that freight traffic would initially continue to be ensured. In mid-2017, the purchase of the Friedberg – Oberwart railway line was decided at a meeting of the Supervisory Board of Transport Infrastructure Burgenland (VIB), the line was taken over by the Province of Burgenland via the VIB as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Burgenland regional holding company. The federal, state and local authorities should share the costs; the federal government should assume 50 percent.

On September 14, 2017, a contract between the ÖBB, in the person of General Director Andreas Matthä , and the Land of Burgenland, in the person of Governor Hans Niessl , was signed in Oberwart station , with which the Land of Burgenland will cover the entire route between Friedberg station and the ÖBB-Ende in Oberwart takes over. The contract was signed in the Federal President's former saloon car, which was specially brought to Oberwart. The purchase price was not disclosed. For the takeover, the new subsidiary of the state holding company, the “Verkehrsinfrastructurebetriebe Burgenland Gesellschaft” (VIB), was founded, and the 28.616 kilometer long railway line is now owned. Although Governor Niessl emphasized that the railway has a future, there are no plans to resume passenger traffic. As Niessl emphasized, Burgenland has “the best bus route in Austria” with the G1 . VIB managing director Andreas Reiner sees the takeover as a "historic event" and an "impetus for the economy and the communities". Since the municipalities are behind the acquisition, they should also provide co-financing. The fact that the country is now the owner of the route and is maintained by the Voest subsidiary “LogServe” does not change anything for the companies that load around 100,000 tons each year. As Niessl further explained, investments in the maintenance of the route and safety measures are to be made in the next few years.

In 2017 the country bought the route. In the future, it will serve as a test track for self-driving trains.

Oberwart – Rechnitz

After the ÖBB ceased operations in 1989, the Südburgenländische Regionalbahn GmbH (SRB) took over the route and ran it until 2011 in freight traffic and as a fairytale nostalgia train for passenger traffic. Due to the poor condition of the line, operations were stopped in mid-November 2011. In spring 2013 this section of the route was closed and the road traffic signs dismantled. In the summer of 2018 Verkehrsinf Infrastruktur Burgenland GmbH bought the 8.4-kilometer section between Oberwart and Großpetersdorf, so that the total length of the route, which is owned by the subsidiary of the state holding company, is now 34.2 kilometers. In June 2020, freight traffic to Rotenturm on the Pinka was started, the line was revitalized by € 750,000.

Rechnitz – Szombathely

The changed situation after the fall of the Iron Curtain and Hungary's accession to the European Union led to efforts to reactivate the Oberwart – Szombathely rail link for freight and passenger traffic. This would require the construction of a new line between Rechnitz station and Szombathely, as well as the rehabilitation of the line from Großpetersdorf to Rechnitz. In May 2012, Burgenland's overall traffic coordinator Peter Zinggl said: "The door is not closed, there are considerations as to how the future of the railway in Oberwart can be designed. We are in talks about the Szombathely – Oberwart route."

Branch line Oberwart – Oberschützen

Since 2003 the route has been reactivated by the FrOWOS association . Since 2008 there have been nostalgia trips with motorized trolleys in summer .

On December 31, 2009, the line lease agreement in place in 2004 in favor of FrOWOS expired . Since the property owner ( Südburgenländische Regionalbahn GmbH or Schuch company ) intended to sell the route and FrOWOS 'financial resources would not have been enough to acquire the route, the Oberwart – Oberschützen museum railway was about to be shut down in December 2009.

In the spring of 2010, the state bought the Oberwart – Oberschützen line from the Südburgenländische Regionalbahn GmbH for EUR 300,000 with the aim of ensuring the continued operation of museum trains from May onwards. The museum railway is now managed by Kurbad Tatzmannsdorf Aktiengesellschaft. It is still operated by the Friends of the Oberwart-Oberschützen railway line (FrOWOS). As of April 30, 2012, operations were discontinued by order of the authorities. It is unclear whether and when museum traffic will be possible again on this route.

literature

• Creation of the Steinamanger - Oberwart - Pinkafeld railway line . In: Hans Hahnenkamp: The railways in Burgenland at the time of the Habsburg monarchy. 2nd Edition. Self-published, Eisenstadt 1994, OBV .

gallery

• 

  Friedberg station, memorial plaque for the opening (poem by Ottokar Kernstock ) 

• 

  Pinkafeld district heating plant

• 

  Diesel railcar ÖBB 5022 near Riedlingsdorf

• 

  5022 at the entrance to the Oberwart train station

• 

  Burg-Eisenberg station

• 

  Final stop on Rechnitz

• 

  The former bus stop, later Bucsu terminus , today a museum

• 

  The former stop in Torony , today a workshop

• 

  The former stop in Sé , now a residential building

• 

  Railway bridge in Sé

• 

  The former bus stop in Olad , now a residential building

• 

  Railway bridge over Perint, today a footpath ( Szombathely )

• 

  Szombathely , former railway line, now Alsóőr Street

• 

  Szombathely main train station

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Future of the railways in Southern Burgenland - GrenzBahn infrastructure project goes into submission planning" Burgenland.at of March 13, 2015
2. ↑ The Economist. (...) Pinkafeld, December 15th. (...). In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 8733/1888, December 16, 1888, p. 9, top left. (Online at ANNO ). .
3. ^ Burgenland's new connection with the old states of the Republic of Austria. Opening of the Pinkafeld – Friedberg railway. In: Burgenland freedom. Volume 5, No. 47/1925, ZDB -ID 2588385-9 , p. 1. - Full text online .
4. ↑ Transport. (...) Trains to Großpetersdorf: From 2011 . In: burgenland.orf.at. March 9, 2010, accessed April 27, 2011.
5. ↑ Transport. (...) Annual outflow of 500,000 euros . In: burgenland.orf.at. April 21, 2011, accessed April 27, 2011.
6. ↑ Transport. (...) Off for the Oberwart – Friedberg railway line . In: burgenland.orf.at. April 21, 2011, accessed April 27, 2011.
7. ↑ Brunner: Bures must prevent further ÖBB deforestation plans in the eastern region: again routes in Burgenland and Lower Austria on the dump. on: ots.at , May 31, 2012.
8. ^ ÖBB - Heinzl: Green criticism without an objective basis. on: ots.at , May 31, 2012.
9. ^ "Bahn-Aus als New Year's Eve" Kurier from October 6, 2012.
10. ↑ News on the website of the Steiermärkische Landesbahn from April 3, 2013
11. ↑ Michael Pekovics: Freight traffic before the end? Country says "no" . In: bvz.at , June 17, 2013, accessed on August 22, 2013.
12. ↑ Roland Pittner: Freight traffic doubled, wood and steel are transported by rail . In: kurier.at , December 9, 2016, accessed December 9, 2016.
13. ^ Bieler: Land takes over railway line on ORF-Burgenland from April 17, 2014, accessed on April 17, 2015
14. ^ Oberwart - Friedberg: Freight traffic flourishes on ORF from February 23, 2016, accessed on February 23, 2016
15. ^ BVZ: Land bought from ÖBB railway line Friedberg-Oberwart . Article dated September 14, 2017, accessed September 15, 2017.
16. ^ DerStandard.at: It was decided to purchase the Friedberg-Oberwart railway line . Article dated July 4, 2017, accessed July 4, 2017.
17. ↑ Courier of September 15, 2017: Purchase of the Oberwart-Friedberg railway line sealed (accessed on September 15, 2017)
18. ^ Oberwart-Friedberg: Self-driving trains on ORF from September 27, 2017, accessed on September 27, 2017
19. ↑ Märchenbahn in Großpetersdorf ( Memento of the original from April 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: maerchenbahn.at. Retrieved June 8, 2012. 
20. ↑ Entry Südburgenlaendische Regionalbahn GmbH on www.firmenabc.at accessed on June 16, 2012 ( memento of the original from September 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
21. ↑ Companies benefit from the timber loading point. burgenland.orf.at, June 25, 2020, accessed on June 25, 2020 . 
22. ^ Regional media Austria: Province of Burgenland is expanding freight traffic to Großpetersdorf . In: mein district.at . ( mein district.at [accessed on August 17, 2018]).
23. ↑ kurier.at, May 21, 2012 - The traffic concept is placed in the "round file"
24. ↑ FrOWOS: The history of the railway line . Retrieved September 17, 2015.
25. ↑ Transport. Last hope for the museum railway (...) . In: burgenland.orf.at. January 25, 2010, accessed April 27, 2011.
26. ↑ Transport. Museum railway in the south of the country is discontinued (...) . In: burgenland.orf.at. December 20, 2009, accessed April 27, 2011.
27. ↑ Transport. (...) Land bought the Oberwart – Oberschützen line . In: burgenland.orf.at. March 9, 2010, accessed April 27, 2011.
28. ↑ Company A-Z . In: wko.at. 2011, accessed April 27, 2011.
29. ↑ Transport. (...) Museum train will run again from May . In: burgenland.orf.at. March 9, 2010, accessed April 27, 2011.
30. ↑ Information on www.frowos.at from June 16, 2012
31. ↑ Text in parts online (English) ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 15, 2014.

Remarks

1. ↑ On April 10, 1922, construction began next to Pinkafeld . - See: From Pinkafeld to Friedberg. In: Burgenland freedom. Volume II, No. 7/1922, ZDB-ID 2588385-9, p. 4, bottom right. - (full text online) .

Web links

Commons : Pinkatalbahn  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Citizens' initiative “Südburgenland Pro Bahn”
• Friends of the Museum Railway Oberwart - Oberschützen (FROWOS)