Lower Kochertalbahn

Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld-Ohrnberg

Route number :

9491

Course book section (DB) :

782 (1993)

Route length:

22.6 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Maximum slope :

8.3 ‰

Minimum radius :

180 m

Top speed:

50 km / h

Legend

		Frankenbahn from Würzburg
		Neckar Valley Railway from Heidelberg S 41
		Elsenz Valley Railway from Heidelberg S 42

	0.0	Bad Friedrichshall Hbf (formerly Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld)

		Frankenbahn to Heilbronn S 41 S 42
	1.1	Kochendorf North
	2.6	Cooker (83 m)
	4.1	Oedheim
	8.1	Degmarn
	9.7	Kochertürn
	11.3	Neuenstadt West
	11.4	Brettach (12 m)
	12.0	Neuenstadt (Kocher)
	13.0	Cooker (80 m)
	13.2	A 81
	14.2	Oxen
	17.5	Stone hob
	20.5	Möglingen (stove)
	21.0	Cooker (89 m)
	22.6	Ohrnberg

The Untere Kochertalbahn was a standard gauge private branch line of the Württembergische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (WEG) in northern Württemberg . It ran as a branch line from Bad Friedrichshall to Ohrnberg and followed the lower reaches of the Kocher .

With a length of 22.6 km it was the longest stretch of the WEG. It was opened in two stages: on September 15, 1907, the railway reached Neuenstadt , and on August 1, 1913, it was extended to Ohrnberg. After the cessation of operations on December 27, 1993, the initially planned integration into the Heilbronn Stadtbahn network failed . The route can now be used as a cycle path .

history

Prehistory, planning and construction

In the era before the railway was built, Neuenstadt was on the stagecoach route from Heilbronn via Mergentheim to Würzburg and was therefore well developed in terms of transport. With the continuous opening of the Stuttgart – Heilbronn – Würzburg (today's Frankenbahn ) line in 1869, which ran from Jagstfeld in a northerly direction along the Jagst (western fork railway), Neuenstadt was sidelined. The plans for the construction of the Kocherbahn Heilbronn– Hall , opened in 1862 and which was to be led eastward via Neckarsulm and the lower reaches of the Kocher, promised a remedy . However, the places in the Weinsberger Tal and the city of Heilbronn succeeded in implementing a more southerly route via Weinsberg , bypassing Neckarsulm and Neuenstadt, for which the complex construction of the Weinsberg tunnel was accepted. The motivation for Heilbronn was the plans of the Württemberg state for a Neckar port as a transshipment point between ship and rail in Neckarsulm, so that Heilbronn, as the only transport hub in the region, saw its primacy in danger.

After neither the connection via the Kocherbahn nor the Westliche Gabelbahn was successful, the cities and municipalities petitioned for the construction of a railway line in the lower Kochertal in 1873, but without success. 19 years later, on the occasion of the opening of the Kochertalbahn Waldenburg – Künzelsau on October 1, 1892, the Württemberg Prime Minister announced an extension of the route down the Kocher from midnight . With reference to this, the residents submitted an application for further construction soon afterwards, which was rejected by the Württemberg government, however, with reference to insufficient planning capacities and the heavy burden caused by the construction of main lines. The Kochertalbahn was only extended in 1924, but only as far as Forchtenberg .

While Heilbronn and Neckarsulm flourished through industrialization and Jagstfeld developed into an important railway junction , the lack of transport links in the lower Kochertal led to creeping depopulation . In Neuenstadt trade and industry shrank. The licensing of private railway companies in Württemberg brought new hope since the 1890s. On April 15, 1898, Neuenstadt and the communities Kochertürn , Degmarn and Oedheim formed a railway committee that commissioned Arthur Koppel to carry out studies for a railway. Initial proposals to run the route from the Oberamtsstadt Neckarsulm or Kochendorf into the Kochertal did not meet with the approval of the four municipalities and the royal government, as a connection to the Jagstfeld railway junction appeared to be more convenient and therefore more economical. The topographical conditions also spoke against Neckarsulm from the starting point.

Overview map from the time the route was built

On December 18, 1898, Koppel proposed a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 750 millimeters from Jagstfeld to Neuenstadt. On January 25, 1899, Koppel and the municipalities agreed on the exact route, the location of the stations and the other formalities. The municipalities had to provide land for the route free of charge and also to make a one-off grant of 50,000 marks per train kilometer. The towns thereupon submitted the plans to the Württemberg government, which on July 29, 1899 granted the concession for the construction of the narrow-gauge railway and approved a state grant of 20,000 marks per railway kilometer. This also motivated the communities along the Kocher between Neuenstadt and Künzelsau to request a gap in the Kochertalbahn Waldenburg – Künzelsau.

In the meantime, on May 13, 1899, the WEG with the Koppel representative Köhler became the first director of the Arthur Koppel company. WEG took over seven further construction and operating concessions for branch lines from Koppel nationwide. She examined the existing plans and proposed an adjustment to standard gauge due to the favorable terrain and economy (freight wagons could be transported continuously) . The municipalities agreed to this and, with the new contract of January 2, 1901, undertook to bear the additional costs of 5,000 marks per train kilometer themselves. The state of Württemberg approved the project with its new concession of July 25, 1902. This now provided for a state subsidy of 28,000 marks per kilometer, but a maximum of 338,000 marks. The construction of the route was to be completed within four years.

Neuenstadt railway station before its opening (1907)

At the end of 1904, construction work could be started from the west with the route through Jagstfeld and the Kocherbrücke near Hagenbach . In the construction of the upper section, however, there were delays: Since Neuenstadt and Bürg could not agree on the location of the terminus - Bürg requested the station directly on the opposite side of the stove - Bürg announced his support for the project. It was only when the other municipalities took over the outstanding amount that construction could begin at the eastern end of the route in 1906.

Construction work was completed in 1907, with a one-year delay compared to the state requirement. The construction went without major accidents; the construction costs amounted to 1.49 million marks. Finally, on September 14, 1907, the inauguration of the Jagstfeld – Neuenstadt branch line took place. The following day, the WEG began regular operations.

Arrival of the opening train on August 1, 1913 in Ohrnberg

Extension to Ohrnberg

While construction was still going on as far as Neuenstadt, WEG began planning to extend the line to Ohrnberg, after the communities of Gochsen , Kochersteinsfeld , Möglingen and Ohrnberg had petitioned for the line to be extended at the beginning of 1907 . On May 17, 1910, Württemberg granted the WEG the concession for the construction and operation of the extension with a term until November 1, 2000. The state subsidy was 30,000 marks per kilometer of railroad. The neighboring communities pledged to contribute a total of 80,000 marks and to provide land free of charge.

Construction work began on November 1, 1911, including the construction of two more bridges over the Kocher. The construction time extends over a year and a half to July 1913, the construction costs amounted to 1.072 million marks. On August 1, 1913, the Neuenstadt – Ohrnberg section of the Lower Kocher Valley Railway was officially opened. The completion of the branch line network in the area of today's Heilbronn district came to an end.

In 1924, the Deutsche Reichsbahn extended the Kochertalbahn Waldenburg – Künzelsau to Forchtenberg. The approximately 13-kilometer gap between Forchtenberg and Ohrnberg was no longer possible - although it was still debated in 1953 on the 40th anniversary of the route to Ohrnberg. Plans for a continuation from Ohrnberg to Öhringen or to Brettach - Bitzfeld - Bretzfeld also turned out to be no longer feasible.

Postcard from Melchior Ruoff, which ran in 1908, showed a view of Degmarn and a fictional passenger train was drawn in anticipation of the train

Further development (1912–1990)

After the opening, the traffic volume developed promisingly. Up until the First World War , the railway carried around 120,000 people a year. Thanks to the economic boom in the later 1920s, the volume of traffic increased to 350,000 people per year. Since the necessary maintenance work on the line was not carried out due to the First World War and the crises in the 1920s, refurbishment could not begin until 1933.

During the Nazi era , a siding was set up in 1937 for the Oedheim military airfield at the level of today's Hirschfeld Park, which led out about two kilometers in a south-easterly direction from the Kocher valley. Towards the end of World War II suffered the route severe damage, particularly by strafing and bombing in the area of the railway station Bad Friedrich-Jagstfeld in which also the station building was destroyed. On November 8, 1944, a bomb hit the railroad track near the Kocherbrücke near Bad Friedrichshall-Hagenbach, but operations continued for the time being. Only after the Wehrmacht had blown up all three Kocher bridges on their retreat to the south on April 1, 1945 between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., train traffic was no longer possible.

In the course of 1946, operations could be resumed: on August 15 to Neuenstadt, on September 23 to Möglingen and on December 21 to Ohrnberg. From 1944 until the end of the war, the wrecks of shot down Allied aircraft that came here via the siding were collected at the airfield . After the scrap yard was closed in 1948, the track became superfluous and removed soon after.

From 1951 to 1952 the German Federal Railroad (DB) built a new building for the destroyed station building at Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld station. The building, which was located on an island until it was destroyed , was replaced by a building on the eastern side of the Bundesbahn facilities, on which the WEG passenger train tracks had previously been located. From this point in time, the WEG also used the DB facilities for passenger traffic.

WEG was one of the first private railways in Germany to consistently convert its train transport from steam locomotives to diesel multiple units in order to increase efficiency . In 1956 , the brand-new T 06 diesel multiple unit replaced all three existing steam locomotives, which enabled a significant reduction in travel time . Nevertheless, from the early 1950s onwards, passenger traffic decreased continuously, in addition to the increasing individual traffic, also due to the bus line established by WEG in 1949, which connected the lower Kochertal with a double-decker bus to Neckarsulm and Heilbronn without having to change trains and with a shorter journey time. In 1955, the newly founded WEG subsidiary WEG-Kraftverkehrs-GmbH (KVG) took over bus operations.

Beet campaign in Oedheim (October 1992)

The school traffic carried by rail to the new central schools in Neuenstadt and Bad Friedrichshall created a base load in passenger traffic, but was not very profitable. Freight traffic developed ambivalent after the Second World War: New rail connections to industrial companies in Bad Friedrichshall-Kochendorf and Neuenstadt ensured a temporary increase. In the 1970s, freight traffic increased significantly in the autumn due to the more efficient removal of sugar beet to Südzucker's plants , so that beet transports made up 85% of freight traffic in the last quarter of the year from around 1980. The other goods volume fell continuously.

From 1977 on, steam- hauled museum trains of the Eisenbahnfreunde Zollernbahn (EfZ) ran on the Untere Kochertalbahn several Sundays a year . The local communities celebrated the 75th anniversary of the line on October 2, 1982 with a ceremony in Neuenstadt, to which special steam trains operated by the Society for the Maintenance of Rail Vehicles (GES). Occasionally, museum steam locomotives were used in front of photo freight trains and as a plan steam service in beet transport.

In 1981 WEG introduced train radio on the line .

Ohrnberg station with VT 23 (right) and sidecar (left), February 1993

Light rail planning and decline

In December 1991, the state of Baden-Württemberg with financial support from the program to improve the traffic situation in Baden-Württemberg and the city and district of Heilbronn initiated the public transport model for 1992/1993 with the reorganization of the overall transport plan . As part of this study, the potential of an improved public transport infrastructure in the Heilbronn area by means of expanded bus or train services and the option of a light rail operation based on the Karlsruhe model was examined. The Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld-Kochersteinsfeld section in the Heilbronn district was taken into account. The result of the study presented on September 25, 1992 was the recommendation to include this section of the Untere Kochertalbahn in the network of the Heilbronn Stadtbahn that was born from the study . The estimated investments for the section Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld-Kochersteinsfeld alone amounted to 35.4 million German marks (DM).

By the end of the 1980s at the latest, operations on the Lower Kocher Valley Railway developed in a deficit due to the decline in traffic, with annual losses of DM 60,000 to 240,000. In addition, Südzucker AG announced that it would stop transporting beet to the sugar factory in Offenau , which made up the largest part of goods traffic, at the end of 1993. The WEG took this as an opportunity to request the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport to be released from the obligation to operate on December 31, 1992. She presented the plans to the affected municipalities on June 17, 1992. They rejected the project and demanded at least continued operation until the beet traffic ceased, as well as subsequent conservation of the line to Kochersteinsfeld in order to enable the later light rail operation.

Dismantling the line near Oedheim (Feb. 2006)

Kocherbrücke near Bad Friedrichshall-Hagenbach in May 2008

Since an additional freight volume of 100,000 tons per year through the transport of excavated earth appeared to be in prospect from 1993 and plans for a main freight track in Neuenstadt arose, the WEG decided not to discontinue this in 1993 for the time being. The last regular passenger train ran on the line on February 28, 1993, before the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport issued approval on April 1, 1993 to permanently cease passenger traffic and to temporarily release it from the obligation to operate freight traffic . The last museum train ran on October 10, 1993. With the end of the beet campaign in 1993, a freight train ran for the last time between Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld and Ohrnberg. The last official day of operation was December 27, 1993. After that, traffic ceased and the route became orphaned. The level crossings were gradually asphalted . The Kochersteinsfeld – Ohrnberg section was then shut down and converted into a cycle path through the Hohenlohe district that is part of the Kocher-Jagst cycle path .

The situation for the railways only changed seven years later: In the updated public transport model 1999/2000 published in 2000, the profitability of light rail operations was examined again on behalf of the city and district of Heilbronn. Since the originally assumed passenger potential was not found to be realistic, the study recommended that the project for a light rail system in the lower Kochertal should not be pursued any further. Other factors that were identified as unfavorable were high investments with simultaneous operational disadvantages due to the need to go crazy in Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld and the shorter travel times of express buses between Heilbronn and Neuenstadt. Therefore, the district council of the district of Heilbronn decided in its meeting on July 22, 2002 to forego the standardized assessment and not to include the Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld-Kochersteinsfeld route in the target concept 2010 for the Heilbronn urban railway. The city of Neuenstadt took this as an opportunity to use the conveniently located railway line to bypass the town .

The WEG thereupon advertised the route for takeover in accordance with Section 11 of the General Railway Act and, after no interested party could be found by December 27, 2002, applied for deedication , which was granted on June 21, 2003. After long negotiations, the neighboring communities took over the route after the WEG dismantled all of the remaining track systems in early 2006. At the end of 2007 the Neuenstadt bypass was completed. The remaining route was then also expanded as part of the Kocher-Jagst cycle path, the official opening took place on June 13, 2009. The costs for the 19 km long section totaled € 3.7 million and were borne by the state of Baden-Württemberg, the district of Heilbronn and the neighboring communities. The main cost factor was the demolition and rebuilding of the Hagenbacher Kocherbrücke, which cost € 1.1 million after the renovation had proven to be too expensive.

business

The headquarters of the management for the entire route was in Neuenstadt station. Ohrnberg has been the home station for all vehicles since the extension, and the previously used locomotive shed in Neuenstadt could be abandoned. A workshop in Ohrnberg enabled minor repairs. At the end of the long track system there was a two-tier engine shed and an older, single shed. The rooms on the ground floor of the reception building were used as service rooms. In Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld, the staff and waiting rooms of the state railway were available for the route to Ohrnberg.

vehicles

Steam locomotives

WEG took the route in 1907 initially with two brand-new four-coupler - tank locomotives in operation. The machines were procured from the Humboldt mechanical engineering company in Cologne as wet steam compound engines and had the WEG internal numbers 11 and 12. Locomotive 12 was stationed in Ohrnberg until 1959 and was scrapped on site after the end of operation. Locomotive 11 came to the Amstetten – Gerstetten route in 1933 and later to the Vaihinger Stadtbahn .

The WEG locomotives 14 and 15, both four-couplers with wet steam compound engines, replaced the 11. They were built in 1908 by Borsig for the Kleinbahn Bremen – Thedinghausen (BTh) and acquired in 1914 by WEG, which initially operated them on the Nürtingen– Neuffen started. The two locomotives remained on the lower Kochertalbahn until they were retired (1956 and 1960) and were then scrapped in Ohrnberg.

At times, WEG used additional second-hand single machines on this route:

Locomotive 16 was a three-coupler with wet steam twin engine and was built in 1911 by Hohenzollern AG for the Kaldenkirchen – Brüggen small railway . In 1922 she came to WEG, initially on the Nürtingen – Neuffen line, and later on to Ohrnberg.

Locomotive 19 was a four-coupler with a wet steam compound engine. It was built in 1906 by Borsig for the Eberswalde-Schöpfurther Railway and came to WEG in 1926, except on the Untere Kochertal Railway , it was also used between Nürtingen and Neuffen.

Locomotive 20 was briefly in use in 1932: the wet steam four-coupler was built by Hanomag in 1914 for a sugar factory in Cape Town , but was no longer delivered because of the First World War. It was then used on the Flensburg port railway until it was taken over by WEG in 1932. Because of its insufficient steam production, it was unsuitable for use on the long route between Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld and Ohrnberg and was then used as a replacement locomotive on various WEG routes.

PATH no.	design type	Manufacturer	Construction year	Serial number	Entry / exit
11	Dn2tv	Humboldt	1906	320	1933 to Amstetten – Gerstetten , 1959 scrapped
12	Dn2tv	Humboldt	1906	321	Scrapped in Ohrnberg in 1959
14th	Dn2tv	Borsig	1908	6679	1914 from BTh to WEG, about 1933 to Ohrnberg, 1956 scrapped in Ohrnberg
15th	Dn2tv	Borsig	1908	6681	1914 from BTh to WEG, about 1933 to Ohrnberg, 1960 scrapped in Ohrnberg
16	Cn2t	Hohenzollern	1911	2722	1922 from KKB to WEG, to Ohrnberg at an unknown time, scrapped in Ohrnberg in 1951
19th	Dn2tv	Borsig	1907	5908	1926 from ESchE to WEG, after 1945 to Ohrnberg, 1959 scrapped in Ohrnberg
20th	Dn2t	Hanomag	1914	7186	1932 from Flensburg harbor railway to Ohrnberg, at an unknown time to other WEG routes, scrapped in Enzweihingen in 1959

Railcar

The steam-free era began on February 14, 1956 with the new T 06 multiple unit purchased from Waggonfabrik Fuchs. It had the Bo wheel arrangement and offered seats for 42 people. It was equipped with buffers and screw couplings and, as a tow car, could also transport freight trains. Two Büssing U11D engines with 210 hp each were installed. From 1956 to 1979 it handled all traffic. Then it came to the Nürtingen – Neuffen line and is still in use today on the Amstetten – Gerstetten museum railway.

On October 3, 1979, the two T 23 and T 24 railcars , which were no longer needed between Nürtingen and Neuffen, replaced the T 06. After the cessation of operations between Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld and Ohrnberg, they were first transferred to Neuffen and are now in use at Westerwaldbahn GmbH .

PATH no.	design type	Manufacturer	Construction year	Serial number	Entry / exit
T 06	Bo	Fox	1956	9056	1979 to Nürtingen – Neuffen , today the Amstetten – Gerstetten museum railway
T 23	Bo	Gmeinder / Auwärter	1968	5442	1979 from Nürtingen – Neuffen , 1996 to the Westerwaldbahn , 2009 to the IGEBA in Krumbach
T 24	Bo	Gmeinder / Auwärter	1968	5443	1979 from Nürtingen – Neuffen , 1996 to the Westerwaldbahn , 2009 to the IGEBA in Krumbach

dare

Initially, three cars were available for passenger transport, and there was also a combined mail and baggage car until the post-transport service was discontinued in 1958. With the extension to Ohrnberg the stock increased to five passenger cars and two trains could be formed. Due to the lack of demand due to the handling of passenger transport with diesel multiple units, the number gradually fell to three by the end of the 1960s and was then completely dismantled. In 1965 the trailer VB 122 came from the WEG route Albstadt-Ebingen-Onstmettingen to reinforce the VT 06 to Ohrnberg. The car was built by Auwärter in 1956 from the chassis of an old passenger car. With the exchange of the T 06 for T 23 and 24, the VB 122 came to Neuffen and the VB 204 sidecar from Neuffen to Ohrnberg, converted in 1958 from a passenger car chassis from 1908. From 1980 until the cessation of operations in 1993, the vehicle fleet of the Untere Kochertalbahn consisted of the T 23 and 24 diesel multiple units and the VB 204 trailer.

In the period between the two world wars, there were three covered and five open freight cars for freight transport . With one exception, these wagons were used by the DB and could therefore also be used outside the WEG route.

passenger traffic

Excerpt from the course book from 1944

After the opening of the entire route, the passenger train offer comprised four pairs of trains on weekdays and five pairs of trains on Sundays . On Wednesdays, an additional pair of trains ran between Jagstfeld and Neuenstadt. The travel time for the 11.9 kilometers was 62 to 72 minutes. This access offer remained constant until the end of the Second World War. In 1938 a passenger train took 56 minutes to complete the entire route to Ohrnberg. From 1950 the train service only comprised three pairs of trains with a journey time of 60 to 70 minutes. In addition, there was a pair of trains between Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld and Kochersteinsfeld. This train offer remained constant in the following years. By switching operations to diesel multiple units, travel time was reduced to 42 minutes. From 1970, additional school trains enriched the timetable. It was not until 1983 that the WEG ceased operations on weekends from Saturday lunchtime to Monday morning, at a time when this had already been implemented for the other WEG routes. In 1984, the train only included a pair of trains in both directions, plus a train from Ohrnberg to Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld, a pair of GmPs and a GmP from Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld to Ohrnberg. For school traffic there was a pair of trains and a single train from Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld to Neuenstadt and a pair of trains from Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld to Kochersteinsfeld. The journey time was 43 minutes, with a GmP it was 64 to 91 minutes. In 1985 the timetable offered an additional pair of trains, but was continuously reduced afterwards: in 1989 there were two pairs of trains on working days outside of school traffic, from 1990 only one in the form of the GmP.

Development of passenger numbers 1908–1990

The annual number of passengers after the opening was around 120,000. The extension of the line to Ohrnberg in 1913 barely increased this number and rose to around 350,000 by 1919. After that, the number fell steadily, reaching a minimum of 80,000 in 1935. After the end of the Second World War, the numerous hamster trips led to the maximum number of passengers of 470,000 people. Due to the increasing individual traffic and the bus routes competing since 1949, the number of passengers fell again and reached its all-time low in 1966. The orientation of the transport offer towards school traffic to the central schools established in the 1950s in Bad Friedrichshall, Oedheim and Neuenstadt was able to stimulate the traffic volume somewhat, even if the school traffic was not very profitable.

Freight transport

Freight traffic along the lower Kochertal developed satisfactorily in the early years and with no particular focus. In the freight transport, among other things, the bell foundry and fire-fighting equipment factory Bachert , the Unterland AG (today: Hengstenberg ) and the gasworks in Kochendorf and various quarries and sawmills were supplied, in addition, the agricultural trade last made a share of almost 10%; there were cooperative camps at the train stations in Oedheim, Neuenstadt, Kochersteinsfeld and Möglingen. After the Second World War, additional customers were acquired at Kochendorf Nord train station with a manufacturer of office and storage systems and a waste oil recycling company. In 1962 and in the 1970s there were plans for an oil refinery between Oedheim and Kochertürn, which would have received a siding. However, the project failed due to popular resistance.

The entire route to Ohrnberg was served in general cargo traffic, with at least one wagon a day in recent years. In Neuenstadt there was a large shed for the storage of general cargo. The WEG served other locations in the Kocher Valley from Neuenstadt by truck ; After the cessation of general cargo traffic in the lower Jagsttal by the DB on December 31, 1979, WEG also took over the general cargo transport there by truck. After the DB completely shifted general cargo traffic to the road on December 31, 1989 and thus no longer delivered freight wagons to WEG, a forwarding company operated the traffic from Heilbronn by truck.

Development of freight volume 1908–1990

After World War II, transporting sugar beets to the sugar factories was paramount during the fall campaign. From the 1970s onwards, modern loading systems procured by cooperatives supported the automatic transfer of beets from trailers to open freight cars . Fixed systems were in Oedheim, Kochertürn, Gochsen and Ohrnberg, there was a movable system in Kochersteinsfeld and temporarily in Neuenstadt. During the campaign in 1990, for example, 600 to 700 freight wagons were handled per month, and a maximum of 20 outside the season. These transports made up around 85% of the total freight traffic volume, so that the shift of beet traffic to the road at the beginning of the 1990s, alongside the uncompetitive passenger traffic, was decisive for the demise of the railway line.

Apart from beet transport, there were no more important customers in freight transport in 1993 after the Bachert fire fighting equipment factory went bankrupt in 1987, the waste oil recycling facility had moved and Hengstenberg and the sawmills in Gochsen had moved to the streets.

Accidents

In 1964, the Süddeutsche Rundfunk made the film Dangerous Living with the stuntman Arnim Dahl . One scene was created on the Lower Kochertal Railway between Oedheim and Bad Friedrichshall-Hagenbach at the level of the Merckle aircraft factory at the time, which is now the airfield at Hirschfeldpark. From the moving train, Dahl was supposed to climb a rope ladder into a helicopter flying above him . He couldn't get hold of the ladder, fell down the embankment and had to be hospitalized with serious injuries.

course

Kocher Bridge near Bad Friedrichshall-Hagenbach (1907)

Idle line after dismantling in Degmarn (Apr. 2008)

Since the construction of the Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld train station (now Bad Friedrichshall Hauptbahnhof ) in 1952, the Untere Kochertalbahn started at the Deutsche Bundesbahn train station. Before that, the WEG had its own simple track system and a connecting track for the transfer of freight cars. There was no separate office building at that time.

Behind Jagstfeld, the railway ran through the Kocherwald and reached the edge of Kochendorf north of the Kocher at Kochendorf Nord station, which had siding for various industrial companies. The only level crossing secured with barriers was the subsequent intersection of the L 1096 Bad Friedrichshall- Züttlingen . After 2.5 kilometers, the train reached the Kocher behind Hagenbach, shortened a loop using the first of a total of three truss bridges over the Kocher and came back to the Kocher in Oedheim. Several buildings had to give way to the route between the castle and the river.

The now following loop of the wide and not deeply cut valley to Kochertürn followed the route and thus reached Degmarn. The station building there was demolished in 1971 and the station was downgraded to a stop in 1981. The Kochertürn train station was opposite the village and could be reached via a bridge. At Neuenstadt West, at the mouth of the Brettach , the railway line had to be secured by extensive retaining walls to the Kocher. The following station in Neuenstadt with its spacious reception building was located below the city near the Kocher.

Following the second Kocher bridge, the railway passed under the Kocher valley bridge of the A 81 and reached Gochsen. The subsequent train stations of Kochersteinsfeld and Möglingen were close to the slope of the Kochertal. Before Ohrnberg the route changed the river side for the last time. The systems for maintaining the vehicles were located in Ohrnberg, today a district of Öhringen. Service rooms were available in the large reception building.

Characteristic of the Lower Kochertal Railway between Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld and Neuenstadt were the half-timbered , clinker-brick railway station buildings with service and waiting rooms as well as goods sheds . The buildings that extended to Ohrnberg were much simpler. The buildings in Kochendorf Nord and Degmarn, as well as the buildings in Gochsen and Möglingen, were each structurally identical.

Relics

Former stop in Möglingen, today village square (July 2008)

The route of the Untere Kochertalbahn was largely preserved and now takes up a bicycle path for almost its entire length. In Neuenstadt, the north bypass has been using the route since 2007. The former embankment to the Oedheim military airfield can still be seen in some places along the Glückshalde.

Seven of the nine station buildings are still preserved today (as of 2011). The Oedheim building is still inhabited and has been in the middle of a wasteland since the line was dismantled. The municipality has not yet made any concrete plans for future use. The same applies to the currently vacant train stations in Kochertürn and Neuenstadt, although the listed reception building in Neuenstadt housed the management of the WEG-KVG until 2007. The station building in Gochsen can still be recognized as such by the station sign and is now used as a clubhouse.

The former station area in Möglingen, which was redesigned into a village square, is remarkable. Various railway relics such as a carriage, a station clock and the station sign on the former station building point to the former railway. The reception building is now used, among other things, as a polling station. In the former station area in Ohrnberg, which is now a listed building, there is now a shop and trade fair construction company, with old railroad cars being used as storage rooms.

Station building Kochendorf Nord, today restaurant (July 2008)
Railway station in Oedheim (Jan. 2006)
Dismantled route in Gochsen (July 2008)
Reception building in Ohrnberg (July 2008)

Public transport in Kochertal today

With the exception of Bad Friedrichshall , the towns and communities on the former Untere Kochertalbahn no longer have a connection to the rail network.

The 625 feeder buses, which are integrated into Heilbronn's local transport system, give the city of Neuenstadt am Kocher , its districts of Stein am Kocher and Kochertürn , the Oedheim district of Degmarn and Oedheim itself, the districts of Bad Friedrichshall - East and Bad Friedrichshall- North / Mitte access to the regional rail transport at Bad Friedrichshaller Hauptbahnhof every 60 minutes . In the Bad Friedrichshall — Oedheim — Bad Friedrichshall section, these feeder buses have been compressed to every half hour by the additional 628 line.

literature

Wikisource: Memorandum for the opening of the Jagstfeld – Neuenstadt a. Kocher - sources and full texts

Hermann Bürnheim: Württemberg Railway Company. The story of an important private railway . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-613-01145-X .
Christian Jelen: Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld - Ohrnberg . In: Wolf-Dietger Machel (Ed.): Secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany then & now . GeraNova, ISSN 0949-2143 (loose-leaf collection).
Petra Schön: Branch lines in the Heilbronn area . In: The Heilbronn tram. Rail traffic between Eppingen and Öhringen . Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher 2005, ISBN 3-89735-416-0 , p. 21-36 .
100 years of the Kochertalbahn . In: Thomas Seitz (Ed.): Oedheimer Hefte . No. 7 . Self-published by Thomas Seitz, Oedheim 2007.
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 : Untere Kochertalbahn - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Udo Erlewein: 125 years of the railway in Bad Friedrichshall. A piece of local history . City of Bad Friedrichshall, Bad Friedrichshall 1991, p. 17 .
↑ Claus-Jürgen Renelt: The public transport model for the city and district of Heilbronn from the years 1992/1993 and 1999/2000 . In: The Heilbronn tram. Rail traffic between Eppingen and Öhringen . Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher 2005, ISBN 3-89735-416-0 , p. 41-55 .
↑ Ralf Muth: A death in installments for the train into Kochertal . In: Heilbronner Voice of July 23, 2002 .
^ ^A ^b Siegfried Lambert: A new pearl for pedal knights . In: Heilbronner Voice of June 9, 2009 . ( at Stimme.de ).
↑ Wolfgang Müller: Old bridge in ruins . In: Heilbronner Voice of August 21, 2008 . ( at Stimme.de ).
↑ ^a ^b Erlewein (1991), p. 16
↑ ^a ^b ^c Waltraud Langer: In the train station with a dog and chickens . In: Heilbronner Voice from August 17, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).
^ ^A ^b Waltraud Langer: Former train station, today a bikers' meeting place . In: Heilbronner Voice from September 6, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).
↑ Waltraud Langer: On the trail of the "duck killer" . In: Heilbronner Voice from August 11, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).
↑ Waltraud Langer: On hold . In: Heilbronner Voice of August 24, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).
↑ Hartmut Müller: A small place with a heart presents itself . In: Heilbronner Voice of July 24, 2008 . ( at Stimme.de ).
↑ Peter Hohl: Hohenlohe: Almost two thirds vote against S21 exit . In: Heilbronner Voice of November 27, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on January 3, 2009 in this version .

[erlewein_s17-1] Udo Erlewein: 125 years of the railway in Bad Friedrichshall. A piece of local history . City of Bad Friedrichshall, Bad Friedrichshall 1991, p. 17 .

[renelt-2] Claus-Jürgen Renelt: The public transport model for the city and district of Heilbronn from the years 1992/1993 and 1999/2000 . In: The Heilbronn tram. Rail traffic between Eppingen and Öhringen . Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher 2005, ISBN 3-89735-416-0 , p. 41-55 .

[hst-20020723-3] Ralf Muth: A death in installments for the train into Kochertal . In: Heilbronner Voice of July 23, 2002 .

[hst-20090609-4] A ^b Siegfried Lambert: A new pearl for pedal knights . In: Heilbronner Voice of June 9, 2009 . ( at Stimme.de ).

[hst-20080821-5] Wolfgang Müller: Old bridge in ruins . In: Heilbronner Voice of August 21, 2008 . ( at Stimme.de ).

[erlewein_s16-6] Erlewein (1991), p. 16

[hst-20110817-7] Waltraud Langer: In the train station with a dog and chickens . In: Heilbronner Voice from August 17, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).

[hst-20110906-8] A ^b Waltraud Langer: Former train station, today a bikers' meeting place . In: Heilbronner Voice from September 6, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).

[hst-20110811-9] Waltraud Langer: On the trail of the "duck killer" . In: Heilbronner Voice from August 11, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).

[hst-20110824-10] Waltraud Langer: On hold . In: Heilbronner Voice of August 24, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).

[hst-20080724-11] Hartmut Müller: A small place with a heart presents itself . In: Heilbronner Voice of July 24, 2008 . ( at Stimme.de ).

[hst-20111127-12] Peter Hohl: Hohenlohe: Almost two thirds vote against S21 exit . In: Heilbronner Voice of November 27, 2011 . ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 8, 2012]).