Valhalla Railway

Valhalla Railway
99 253 as a memorial in Regensburg
Route number :	5862
Course book section (DB) :	last 424g
Route length:	23.4 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Maximum slope :	33  ‰
Minimum radius :	37 m
Legend 0.0 Regensburg - Stadtamhof (until 1933) 332.4 m 0.4 Regensburg Dultplatz (until 1933) 0.7 to the roof tile factory Zinstag (1900-1917) 0.7 Regensburg- Steinweg (until 1918) 0.9 rain 1.0 Regensburg- Reinhausen (until 1933) 1.27 Start of own track body 1.4 Regensburg-Reinhausen (from 1933) 2.3 Regensburg- Weichs Regensburg – Weiden railway line 3.2 from Regensburg Walhallastraße 3.2 Local train station Walhallastr (from 1892) 3.5 Regensburg lime works 4.6 Regensburg- Schwabelweis 5.6 Stauferfeld 6.5 Tegernheim 8.9 Donaustauf 328.5 m 10.0 Valhalla 10.8 for fluorspar loading 11.4 Sulzbach (Danube) 12.5 Demling quarry 13.9 Demling 16.3 Brook 17.5 Frengkofen 19.0 Kruckenberg 22.0 Wiesent 23.4 Wörth (Danube) 324.9 m

Former stop of the Walhallabahn on Donaustauferstraße in Regensburg

Former Locomotive shed in Wörth on the Danube

The Walhallabahn , also popularly known as "Walhallabockerl" , was a meter- gauge narrow - gauge railway from Regensburg - Stadtamhof to Wörth an der Donau . The railway owes its name and its origin to the Walhalla near Donaustauf, which lies on the line . The Walhalla was built from 1830 to 1842 by the Bavarian King Ludwig I as a temple of fame for German culture on a ridge above the Danube . Due to the lack of transport links, however, it was rarely visited until the Walhalla Railway opened. The builder and original operator of the railway was the private Lokalbahn Aktien-Gesellschaft (LAG) from Munich , after its liquidation in 1938, the Walhalla Railway was also nationalized . In 1968 it was finally shut down.

Construction and operation

On September 23, 1888, the LAG received the Bavarian concession to build the 8.9 km long section to Donaustauf. This was opened on June 23, 1889 for passenger traffic. It was not until May 1, 1892, that the railway also started freight traffic. Until 1902, operations were carried out exclusively with B-coupled tram locomotives . Up to 1.27 km in Reinhausen, the railway had to use inner-city roads before it could switch to its own railway body along the road to Donaustauf.

A continuation of the railway to Wörth / Donau was made possible by the Bavarian concession of December 23, 1900. This 14.5 km long section was put into operation on May 1, 1903. While on the first section the passenger traffic by the visitors of the Walhalla predominated, after the extension of the route the freight traffic also became more important. At the intersection with the state railway line leading to Schwandorf at the local train station Walhallastraße, the railway built a large reloading facility by 1903, including a. with two gantry cranes for loading timber onto standard gauge wagons. The trolley pits were also located here for the use of trolleys for the transport of standard-gauge freight cars, which began on May 1, 1911 . During this time, the company built its own workshop in Donaustauf, which was expanded again by 1925.

In today's Regensburg districts Stadtamhof, Steinweg and Reinhausen, the Walhallabahn was an obstacle because of the use of the streets and at the crossroads and was involved in some accidents with carts. In addition, the smoke from locomotives was a problem in the narrow streets. Therefore, there have been attempts over decades to make rail operations here more difficult and to stop , especially since the Regensburg tram would have liked to take over the replacement traffic. All this led to the curiosity " Fahnerlbua ". This, a seasoned man, had to precede every train, which was only allowed to travel at walking pace anyway, and warn the rest of the traffic with a red flag. After a long court dispute, the railway had to give up its first kilometer of the route on July 17, 1933 and set up a new terminus in Reinhausen at the fork in the road Donaustaufer Straße / Brennesstraße, to which the Regensburg tram was then extended accordingly.

Nationalization and decommissioning

With the nationalization of the Lokalbahn AG on August 1, 1938, the Deutsche Reichsbahn also took over the Walhallabahn. After the Second World War, use of the railway decreased noticeably here too. From 1956, the DB used two diesel locomotives on the Walhalla Railway, which were no longer needed due to the closure of the narrow-gauge network in the Palatinate. The section from Reinhausen to the reloading station Walhallastraße was closed on May 31, 1959, and passenger traffic was discontinued on October 1, 1960 on the entire route. On December 31, 1968, the last freight train from the Wörth terminus on the Danube ran on the Walhalla Railway.

Locomotives

No. LAG	No. DR / DB	design type	Manufacturer	Factory number	Construction year	Remarks
			Steam locomotives
13		Bn2t	Krauss & Co.	2104	1889	Retired in 1911
14th		Bn2t	Krauss & Co.	2105	1889	Retired in 1911
39		Bn2t	Krauss & Co.	3146	1895	Sold in 1918
61	99 251	C1'n2t	Krauss & Co.	4823	1902	Retired in 1956
67	99 252	C1'n2t	Krauss & Co.	5173	1904	Retired in 1959
62 II	99 253	C1'n2t	Krauss & Co.	5929	1908	Retired in 1960, now a locomotive monument in Regensburg-Stadtamhof
1		Bn2t	Krauss & Co.	1814	1887	1910 from the Ravensburg – Weingarten local railway , retired in 1928
2		Bn2t	Krauss & Co.	1818	1887	1910 by the Ravensburg – Weingarten local railway, sold to the Regensburg pulp works in 1927 (whereabouts unknown)
63		Cn2t	Krauss & Co.	2019	1889	Prussian T 31.1 , 1921 sold by the Myslowitz coal mine in 1928 to the Wallersdorf – Münchshöfen railway . 1931 retired and scrapped after an accident
64 II	99 261	Dh2t	YES Maffei	4200	1926	1961 retired and scrapped
	99 281 II	Cn2t	Weidknecht	165	1910	1949 Retired and scrapped by the Wangerooger Inselbahn in 1955
	99 291 II	Cn2t	Orenstein & Koppel	4801	1911	1949 sold by the Wangerooger Inselbahn in 1952 to the Mosbach – Mudau railway line . 1955 retired and scrapped
			Diesel locomotives
	V 29 951	B'B '	Arnold Jung locomotive factory	11463	1952	1956 Retired and scrapped by the local railway Ludwigshafen – Meckenheim in 1969
	V 29 953	B'B '	Arnold Jung locomotive factory	11465	1952	1956 Retired and scrapped by the local railway Ludwigshafen – Meckenheim in 1969

poem

At the beginning of the construction of the railway from Donaustauf to Wörth an der Donau on April 1, 1902, local poet Josef Feller wrote :

"Send us a party in April"

Walhallabahn – terminus at Wörth an der Donau around 1908

“Today it’s just going seriously, o
Dees Baua vo 'da Eisenbo'.
Now hack it and shovel it well,
And stamp it and masonry without ruah,
And lay it flat and large,
So that it has a nice look.
And nail it firmly to d'Schwell'n,
So that it doesn't slip, if you want,
So that the Bockerl doesn't degloast
And eppa goar en d'Doana roast.
And be really hardworking 'all' with'nand
And do it to us Wörtherers koa 'shame':
Legts Enk only really goodi 'nei,
En Hiagst everything has to be firti'.
That there is no hate in the end, mia san Fretta,
And nothing would come of us mei 'Letta
And woas i' finally soag'n no want:
Send us no fei 'yes - in April! "

literature

Former Railway embankment near Kruckenberg

• Josef Dollhofer: The Walhalla-Bockerl. History of the Walhalla Railway with a special treatise on the local railway stock corporation in Munich . MZ-Buchverlag, Regensburg 1972.
• Walther Zeitler: The railway in the Bavarian Forest. Verlag Morsak, Grafenau 1970, p. 67 ff.
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 7: Bavaria . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2002, ISBN 3-88255-666-8 .
• Deutsche Reichsbahn: The German Railways in their Development 1835–1935. Berlin 1935.
• Hermann Bürnheim: Localbahn A.-G. Munich. Gifhorn 1974.
• Ludwig Schindler: From the history of the Walhallabahn. In: City Guide Wörth. Attenkofer, Straubing 2008, ISBN 978-3-936511-52-9 .
• Wolfgang Löckel: Unforgettable Valhalla Railway . (Eisenbahn-Bildarchiv-Volume 32). EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-88255-371-0 .
• Wolfgang Löckel: Unforgotten Walhallabahn Volume 2 . (Railway picture archive volume 50). EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-88255-475-5 .

Web links

Commons : Walhallabahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Walhallabahn: A contribution from the SWR's "Eisenbahnromantik" series

Coordinates: 49 ° 1 '35 "  N , 12 ° 5' 48.1"  E