Ybbstalbahn

Waidhofen an der Ybbs – Kienberg-Gaming
Gstadt – Ybbsitz

Logo of the NÖVOG

Route number (ÖBB) :

156 01 Waidhofen - Kienberg-Gaming
157 01 Gstadt - Ybbsitz

Course book route (ÖBB) :

132

Route length:

70.9 + 5.7 km

Gauge :

760 mm ( Bosnian gauge )

Maximum slope :

19 ‰

Top speed:

60 km / h

Legend

	Transition from the Rudolfsbahn
0.000	Waidhofen an der Ybbs
	Schwarzbach Viaduct
1,586	Waidhofen an der Ybbs Schillerpark 366 m above sea level A.
1.983	Waidhofen an der Ybbs Lokalbahn 367 m above sea level. A.
2,800	Waidhofen an der Ybbs Vogelsang 367 m above sea level A.
2.993	AB Rothschild domains
3.857	Waidhofen an der Ybbs Kreilhof 371 m above sea level A.
5,468 0.000	Gstadt	375 m above sea level A.

0.328	Ybbs (steel girder bridge)
0.450	Schütt
1.280	EK B 22
1.286	Little Ybbs
1.463	Steinmühl
3.007	AB Riess
3.369	Ederlehen
3.401	EK B 22
4,575	EK B 22
4.831	Gurhof
4,886	EK B 22
5.486	Little Ybbs
5.527	AB Ybbsitzer Agriculture & Forestry
5.732	Ybbsitz	405 m above sea level A.

5.793	EK B 21
7.647	Gaissulz	381 m above sea level A.
11.113	EK B 21
11,600	Furth- Prolling	396 m above sea level A.
12,350	Mirenau	397 m above sea level A.
13,752	Opponitz	403 m above sea level A.
13,877	EK B 21
14.0	Opponitzer Tunnel (87 m)
16.057	Seeburg	408 m above sea level A.
19,453	Hohenlehen	420 m above sea level A.
22,566	Kleinhollenstein	435 m above sea level A.
23.830	Saimannslehen	440 m above sea level A.
25.509	Grosshollenstein	449 m above sea level A.
28,800	Oisberg	458 m above sea level A.
31,452	Blamau	468 m above sea level A.
33,049	Koenigsberg	474 m above sea level A.
34.787	Obereinöd	484 m above sea level A.
35.973	Sankt Georgen am Reith	487 m above sea level A.
39.506	Kogelsbach	505 m above sea level A.
44,063	Göstling on the Ybbs	524 m above sea level A.
47,427	Stiegengraben-Ybbstalerhütte	549 m above sea level A.
52.146	box	577 m above sea level A.
53.555	Lunz am See	585 m above sea level A.
	Forest railway to Langau
54.0	Lunz Amonhaus	598 m above sea level A.
55.2	Gasthof zur Paula	621 m above sea level A.
56.0	woodapple	628 m above sea level A.
59.7	Pfaffenschlag	694 m above sea level A.
61.9	Wetterbach Viaduct (79 m)
63.1	Chicken nest	597 m above sea level A.
63.3	Chicken Nest Viaduct (94 m)
66.2	Mine	516 m above sea level A.
67.9	Gaming	460 m above sea level A.
66.9	Gstetten	403 m above sea level A.
70.9	Kienberg - Gaming	391 m above sea level A.
	Transition to the Erlauftalbahn

47.9682 14.76605Coordinates: 47 ° 58 ' N , 14 ° 46' E

The Ybbstalbahn was a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 760 mm ( Bosnian gauge ) located in Mostviertel in Lower Austria . The main route originally followed the valley of the Ybbs from Waidhofen an der Ybbs to the market town of Lunz am See , where the mountain route to Kienberg-Gaming begins. In Gstadt a branch line branched off to Ybbsitz .

On December 11, 2010 the ÖBB operation ended. On December 12, 2010, the infrastructure of the Ybbstalbahn was taken over by the state of Lower Austria. Since then, only the Waidhofen an der Ybbs - Gstadt ( Citybahn Waidhofen of NÖVOG ) and the Ybbsthalbahn mountain line Lunz am See - Kienberg - Gaming ( museum railway of the NÖ Lokalbahnen Betriebsges.mbH ) have been in operation. In the summer of 2013, the museum railway in the western part was expanded to include the Lunz – Göstling section. The other sections of the route had already been closed since early summer 2009 due to storm damage and were discontinued when the state took over . The rest of the route is operated under the name Citybahn Waidhofen .

Route description

Waidhofen an der Ybbs - Lunz am See

The Ybbstalbahn has its starting point on the narrow-gauge platform on the station forecourt of Waidhofen an der Ybbs, where the operating facilities such as the vehicle hall, workshop and the facilities for reloading the goods to the standard gauge are housed. The railway initially serves several stations in the urban area of Waidhofen, which are primarily used for local transport , followed by Gstadt station after 5.5 km, where the branch line to Ybbsitz branched off.

The main line followed the Ybbs, which is crossed twice in a row, the next larger towns are Opponitz , here is the only tunnel of the Ybbstalbahn, and after 25 km Hollenstein an der Ybbs ( Großhollenstein station ). From here, the route was characterized by small stops away from larger settlements, which were mainly used by hikers during the summer, only in Sankt Georgen am Reith was there a significant number of local passengers. The tourism community of Göstling an der Ybbs , which is already in the Scheibbs district, is located at kilometer 44 , followed by the former terminus of Lunz am See after another nine kilometers .

The continuation via the Pfaffenschlag to Kienberg-Gaming and thus the connection to the standard-gauge Erlauftalbahn in the district capital Scheibbs was discontinued in May 1988 and has been operated since 1990 as the Ybbsthalbahn mountain route by the association NÖ Lokalbahnen Betriebsges.mbH .

Until the 1970s, the Lunz am See station was the starting point for a forest railway into the Ois valley to Langau with a 700 mm gauge.

Gstadt - Ybbsitz

A train with a 2091 locomotive leaves Ybbsitz in the direction of Waidhofen (1991)

After Gstadt station, the line branched off from the main line in a sharp left curve and crossed the Ybbs on a steel girder bridge. The train, which follows the valley of the Kleine Ybbs here , served several small stops and ended after almost six kilometers in the market town of Ybbsitz. The railway crossed the state road several times at level crossings , which led to conflict situations with motorists in this section of the route.

Kienberg-Gaming - Göstling (museum train)

The starting point of the museum railway is now the Kienberg-Gaming station, the former end point of the main line of the Ybbstalbahn, which was kilometers from Waidhofen, and at the same time the former terminus of the ÖBB's standard-gauge Erlauftalbahn. Thus, the route description is also made in accordance with the operator's practice in this direction. The operational facilities of the railway are located in Kienberg-Gaming: the locomotive shed with workshop, which has been enlarged since the takeover by the ÖGLB, a turntable , and a completely newly built wagon depot.

Play media file

Trip from Lunz am See to Kienberg and back (2011)

Shortly after leaving the station, the train crosses the main road to Gaming and a little later, on a steel truss bridge, the Pockaubach and the road to Gresten . From here, the line follows a steep, wooded mountain slope to the apex at Pfaffenschlag, where the Gaming stop above the town center is first reached. The more open terrain offers a beautiful panoramic view of the place and the Kartause Gaming , then the train dips into dense high forest, steep rocky areas are repeatedly crossed in deep gullies. In this section are the two landmarks of the mountain route, two steel viaducts in Trestle construction, which were otherwise only used on the Stubaitalbahn in Austria . Both bridges are under monument protection . In 2006 the Hühnernest stop was opened just after the Hühnernest Viaduct . The maximum gradient in this steepest section of the Ybbstalbahn is 34.4 ‰, which is also the steepest gradient of all Austrian narrow-gauge railways with a track width of 760 mm.

At an altitude of 699 m, the route reaches its apex at Pfaffenschlag, which is also the height of the Bodingsattel pass and the parallel state road. In the station of the same name, the water supply of the steam locomotives is replenished, then the route follows the valley of the Bodingbach on its eastern slope. Here, too, the tracks run several times through incisions in the rock, and in particularly steep terrain they are laid on solid retaining walls. After the Holzapfel stop , which was mainly used for loading wood when the plan was in operation, the first houses of the Lunz am See summer resort will soon follow , where the railway line partly runs in a narrow space between the roofs of the houses and a rock face. On August 4, 2007, the Gasthof zur Paula stop was opened right next to the inn and guesthouse of the same name. After crossing the Bodingbach, the museum train arrives at Lunz am See station, which, regulated by a contract, was used together with the planned operation of the Ybbstalbahn of the ÖBB until May 15, 2010. After the track direction Göstling has been banned in the summer of 2009 for the schedule, which was NÖLB from 15 May 2010 on giving by ÖBB the regulation of the railway traffic in the station Lunz am See. Since December 12, 2010, the station has been owned by the state of Lower Austria. The museum railway has been running to Göstling an der Ybbs since July 20, 2013.

As a result of the ten-year procedure for a permanent establishment license that was initiated in March 2014, traffic between Lunz am See and Kienberg-Gaming had been suspended since September 2014. The completion of the procedure is said to have been delayed as a result of a trolley accident and the associated closer examination of the route. The railway has been in operation again since August 8, 2015; the loss of income resulting from the standstill should amount to 50,000 euros.

Train with diesel locomotive of the 2095 series in Waidhofen local station
ÖBB train in Gstadt (2000)
Ybbsitz station, terminus of the branch line
Museum locomotive Yv.2 of the Club 598 in Lunz am See
The Hühnernestgrabenbrücke (2012)
Museum vehicles parked in Kienberg-Gaming station (2009)

history

Debt for 400 kroner from Ybbsthalbahn from February 1, 1902

As early as 1870 it was planned to build a standard-gauge railway line through the Erlauf and Ybbs valleys from Pöchlarn via Kienberg - Gaming to Lunz am See , which was to be extended in a later phase via Göstling an der Ybbs to Hieflau im Ennstal. The stock market crash in Vienna in 1873 brought an abrupt end to the project that was already being planned. Of this route, which would have essentially followed the historic Lower Austrian Eisenstrasse, only the Erlauftalbahn, which opened in 1877, was realized.

In the 1880s, representatives of the Ybbstal again tried to build a local railway, but it was not until 1893 that the tough negotiations with the Reich Ministries could be concluded. The Reichsrat passed a law on December 26th of the same year concerning the manufacture of the Ybbsthalbahn .

With Concessionsurkunde of 22 October 1894, for the local course of Waidhofen an der Ybbs for Kienberg Kienberg-Gaming (Ybbsthalbahn) was the Concessionären the right to Build and operations of a Locomotiveisenbahn of Waidhofen an der Ybbs the state railway line to be executed schmalspurige Localbahn Amstetten - Kleinreifling over Hollenstein , Göstling and Lunz for connection to the state railway line Pöchlarn-Gaming (Ybbsthalbahn) awarded . Even before construction began, a decree by the Ministry of the Interior of September 11, 1895 resulted in the establishment of a stock corporation with an investment capital of 1,612,000 guilders.

On June 1, 1895, the groundbreaking ceremony for the first section from Waidhofen to Groß Hollenstein in Waidhofen took place. The opening of this section took place on July 15, 1896. Three years later, on May 15, 1898, the second section from Groß-Hollenstein to Lunz am See was opened. In the same year, on November 12th, the structurally most difficult third section from Lunz am See to Kienberg-Gaming was opened to traffic. Thus, the construction of the 71 km long runway only took three years. The branch line from Gstadt to Ybbsitz was opened to traffic on March 9, 1899.

With the construction of the railway, the timber rafting business, which supported many families, became uncompetitive and stopped. The iron and steel processing industry, however, was better connected to the Erzberg and at the same time to the main customers in the Danube region and flourished.

Historical photo gallery

Decorated locomotive of the opening train in Großhollenstein, July 15, 1896
Brand new company car DF / s 102
Train with U.12 locomotive in Pfaffenschlag station, 1898
Train with U.15 locomotive in Kienberg-Gaming station, 1899

Suspension of the mountain route and reactivation as a museum railway

Train with Uv.1 at Kienberg-Gaming station

This section of the Ybbstalbahn with the highest incline and a length of 17.5 km was opened in 1898 and connected the upper Ybbstal around Lunz am See and Göstling an der Ybbs with the Erlauftal and via the connection to the standard gauge with the district capital Scheibbs . The migration of the passenger potential to private vehicles and buses on the faster road connection via the Grubberg , as well as the handling of goods traffic via Waidhofen an der Ybbs, led to a continuous decline in income, which has repeatedly brought the mountain route into recruitment discussions since the 1970s . This development actually led to the cessation of operations in May 1988.

In order to anticipate the dismantling of the railway, the association ÖGLB (Austrian Society for Local Railways), which at that time was already successfully operating the Niederösterreichische Höllentalbahn as a museum railway, founded the operating company NÖLB (Niederösterreichische Lokalbahnen), which in 1990 opened the museum on the line leased by the ÖBB opened under the name "Ötscherland-Express".

Economical meaning

The economic importance of the Ybbstalbahn was especially great from its completion in 1898 to around 1960. Today important companies such as Welser Profile or the Böhler-Uddeholm Group have their main plants in Ybbsitz and Böhlerwerk and have been the main employers in this region for many years. Thanks to its strong links to industry and its need for fast loading and transport, the railway itself has also become a major employer.

The Ybbstalbahn was the last narrow-gauge railway of the ÖBB with goods traffic. Because of the tunnel and the Schwarzbach Viaduct in Waidhofen, no trolley or trolley traffic was possible, until the end of operations in 2010 only narrow-gauge cars were in operation.

Development in the 21st Century

In 2006 and 2007 the route of the Ybbstalbahn was damaged in several places by floods of the Ybbs, which in the section between Großhollenstein and Lunz resulted in operational shutdowns and rail replacement services for several months. Both times the damage was only repaired after months, but only the navigability of the route was ensured. However, numerous speed restrictions have not been remedied. Most recently, school transport was the most important mainstay on the route to Lunz am See. With the timetable change in December 2008, however, the offer was further reduced due to the longer travel times on the rail due to the slow driving areas and the school transport was switched to buses. At the same time, with the timetable change in December 2008, the branch route to Ybbsitz was reduced to just one pair of trains in the winter timetable on working days.

Setting the valley section

Citybahn Waidhofen on the Schwarzbach Viaduct in Waidhofen an der Ybbs

A study presented in November 2008 by the traffic planner of Lower Austria, Friedrich Zibuschka, recommended the complete discontinuation of the Ybbstalbahn and its replacement by a bus network. According to the study, this would be much cheaper than the renovation and continued operation of the railway. A cycle path was to be built on the railway line, the section from Göstling to Lunz am See was offered to the ÖGLB association to extend its museum railway operations. A joint initiative by the Pro Ybbstalbahn and Club 598 associations had collected around 5,700 signatures by November 2008 to maintain the Ybbstalbahn. A decision was originally expected by Easter 2009, but postponed several times. In the meantime, there have been private initiatives to found a cooperative to purchase the Ybbstalbahn for one euro from the federal government and to look for an operator for it. These plans are supported by, among others, probahn, the Greens and ex-ÖBB boss Rüdiger vorm Walde .

In the early summer of 2009, heavy rains in the Ybbstal led to mudslides in several places between Gstadt and Großhollenstein and near Ybbsitz, and since then, except for the short section to Gstadt, rail operations have been carried out by bus replacement. Volunteers cleared the route without the consent of ÖBB, but there was no resumption of rail operations despite an ÖBB spokesman's announcement. In January 2010, the takeover of a number of branch lines (some of which had already been discontinued), including the Ybbstalbahn, was announced by the state of Lower Austria .

The Bavarian Oberlandbahn expressed interest in taking over the route, but the state of Lower Austria had described the purchase offer as completely absurd and no better than the buses in terms of traffic quality and, as expected, rejected it. After a new search for prospective buyers in September 2010, the state of Lower Austria took over the Ybbstalbahn on December 12, 2010. The Waidhofen an der Ybbs - Gstadt section has since been operated by NÖVOG as the Waidhofen City Railway. The Gstadt - Ybbsitz and Gstadt - Lunz am See sections have been discontinued. The construction of a cycle path was discussed as a subsequent use of the railway line. A few days before the Lower Austrian state elections in 2013, then Governor Erwin Pröll promised to have the option of maintaining the valley section re-examined after the election. He thinks it is realistic that the operation of the railway together with a new cycle path to be built could bring about a positive development for tourism in the Ybbstal.

On April 15, 2013 the first course in Waidhofen a. d. Ybbs – Gstadt and back, as the residents of the railway line felt disturbed by the early morning whistling of the railcar at the level crossings.

At the beginning of 2014, the tracks between Gstadt and Göstling were dismantled. The Ybbstal cycle path between Gstadt and Göstling was opened on June 17, 2017. It runs mainly on the former Ybbstalbahn route. In mid-July to September 2017, the tracks and the platform were removed from Ybbsitz station. The rubble from the former platforms was also removed. The ground is now flat and sandy.

In March 2018 it was announced that the Mayor of Waidhofen, Werner Krammer (ÖVP), was thinking out loud about the closure of the remaining city railway from Waidhofen to Gstadt. A shortening to the HTL in Vogelsang is also conceivable.

literature

Dieter Stanfel: Ybbstalbahn. Waidhofen an der Ybbs - Gstadt - Ybbsitz / Kienberg-Gaming . Verlag bahnmedien.at, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-9503304-4-1

Oskar Meltzer: The iron scaffolding bridges of the Waidhofen – Gaming local railway . In: Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects . Issue 8/1899, Volume 51, pp. 113–123. - Full text online (PDF; 20.1 MB) .

Sepp Langenecker (Ed.), Festival Committee “75 Years of the Ybbstalbahn” (Ed.): 75 Years of the Ybbstalbahn . Weiss, Vienna 1973, OBV .

Josef Otto Slezak, Hans Sternhart: Renaissance of the narrow-gauge railway in Austria . International Archive for Locomotive History, Volume 36. Slezak Verlag, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-85416-097-6 .

Hans Graf, Endre Braun (photo): The Ybbstalbahn. This volume covers the Waidhofen an der Ybbs - Kienberg-Gaming and Gstadt - Ybbsitz routes . 1st edition, revision 1989. Bahn im Bild, Volume 30. Pospischil, Vienna 1989, OBV .

Walter Krobot, Josef Otto Slezak, Hans Sternhart: Narrow gauge through Austria. History and fleet of narrow-gauge railways in Austria. 327 photos, 1063 vehicle sketches, 23 route plans, 36 station plans, 11 type drawings . 4th edition. International Archive for Locomotive History, Volume 3. Slezak Verlag, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85416-095-X .

Markus Strässle: Narrow-gauge railway activities in Austria . International Archive for Locomotive History, Volume 43. Slezak Verlag, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85416-184-0 .

100 years of the Ybbstalbahn. A narrow-gauge railway is celebrating its birthday . ÖBB, Vienna 1998, OBV .

Werner Schiendl : The mountain route of the Ybbstalbahn. History of the narrow-gauge railway Lunz am See - Kienberg-Gaming . Extended new edition. Branch line documentation, Volume 15. Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn 2005, ISBN 3-933613-52-3 .
Formerly under the title:
With bag and pack to Pfaffenschlag. The history of the narrow-gauge railway Kienberg-Gaming - Lunz am See . Branch line documentation, Volume 15. Kenning, Nordhorn 1995, ISBN 3-927587-31-1 .