Palatinate Railway

The Palatinate Railway or "Pfalzbahn" was a early German railway company in the period of the German Empire prior to the First World War. As the 'United Palatinate Railway' based in Ludwigshafen, it was formed on 1 January 1870, by the unification of the following railway companies:

*The Ludwig Palatinate Railway ("Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn") with convert|181|km|abbr=on of line
*The Maximilian Palatinate Railway ("Pfälzische Maximiliansbahn") with convert|70|km|abbr=on of line
*The North Palatinate Railway Company ("Gesellschaft der Pfälzischen Nordbahnen") with convert|42|km|abbr=on of route: this included the line belonging to the Neustadt - Dürkheim Railway Company ("Neustadt-Dürkheimer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft") whose shares had been taken over by the North Palatinate Railway.

By Spring 1889, the railway network had grown to convert|664|km|abbr=on; of which convert|12|km|abbr=on was in Alsace-Lorraine and convert|8|km|abbr=on in Prussian Rhineland. It handled through traffic from north and south Germany into the southern Rhineland, to Lorraine and France, as well as from north Germany into Alsace, Switzerland and to Italy.

The three united private railways remained officially independent until they were nationalised on 1 January 1909, and merged into the Royal Bavarian State Railways.

Sources

*Based on a translation of the de.wikipedia article at [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfalzbahn Pfalzbahn]

ee also

*Palatinate (region)
*List of Bavarian locomotives and railbuses
*List of Palatine locomotives and railbuses

External links

* There is an English-language discussion forum at [http://germanrail.8.forumer.com/ Railways of Germany]