- Ludwig South-North Railway
project.
The railway ran from
Lindau on Lake Constance via Kempten,Augsburg ,Nuremberg andBamberg to Hof where it linked up with the Saxony-Bavaria railway company.Background
Following the successful experiment involving the construction of a railway connecting
Munich toAugsburg , which had opened on 4 October 1840, committees sprang up in many parts ofBavaria to plan private railways. The government determined that the building of further railways should become a state responsibility, however. On 14 January 1841 Bavaria concluded with Saxony andSaxe-Altenburg an agreement to build a railway connectingLeipzig withNuremberg , which would cross into Bavaria at Hof. The parties committed to have the railway ready for operation within six years.The Bavarian government decided to extend the railway past
Augsburg (already connected by rail toMunich , the capital city) through theAllgäu as far as Lake Constance. The necessary legislation was passed in Munich on 25 August 1843. With a budgeted cost of 51.5 Million Guilders, it was planned that the entire length would be ready within ten years. The section between Augsburg and Hof would account for 33 Million Guilders. Space for two tracks would be prepared, but initially only a single track would be laid. Responsibility for the construction would be given to Chief Engineer August Pauli and, initially, the French born railroad pioneer Paul Camille de Denis, though Denis had been taken off the project in 1842 in order to take over the construction of a line connectingLudwigshafen (at the time also ruled by Bavaria) withSaarbrucken (subsequently named the "Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn-Gesellschaft"/"Palatinate Ludwig Railway").Construction and subsequent development
Northern Section Hof to Nuremberg
The privately owned Saxony-Bavaria Railway Company, in which the governments of Saxony and
Saxe-Altenburg held a minority stake, started work on the Saxon end of the railway line in 1841.In Bavaria, following the establishment in 1841 of the
Nuremberg based Royal Railway Building Commission, work began on ground preparation in 1842, but due to topographical challenges of the kind familiar to later generations of railway builders, serious construction began only in 1843. Sometimes conflicting objectives included the avoidance of over steep sections while nonetheless connecting as many towns and cities as possible with the railway. Nevertheless, on the slopes of the Fichtelgebirge (Hills) betweenNeuenmarkt andWirsberg , the route incorporates a stretch with an average gradient of 23‰.The first stretch of line, between
Nuremberg andBamberg , was opened to passengers in October 1844. The full 203 kilometers of the northern section were opened in five successive stages, the fifth, between Hof and the frontier with Saxony, opening in November 1848. A celebration of the opening of the first sections of the line took place atNuremberg on 25 August 1848, which was the king's birthday, by when the line already extended north as far asNeuenmarkt .Although the Bavarian part of the project had overshot the agreed six year time line, it was still ready ahead of the Saxon part, full opening of which which was delayed by topographical challenges until 1851.
To the north of Nuremberg, at
Erlangen where the line ran parallel to the Ludwigs canal (the Rhine-Main-Danube canal of that time), the railway incorporated the 306 meter long Burgberg tunnel, Bavaria's oldest railway tunnel.From 1852 there was a connection at
Bamberg with the new Ludwig West Railway towardsWürzburg ,Aschaffenburg and, by 1854, the Hessean frontier atKahl .After the unification of Germany in 1870, Hof ceased to be a frontier town and the line became a significant component of the national rail network. Between 1862 and 1892 the opportunity was taken to install a second track, for which space had already been allowed at the time of the original construction: by 1939 electrification had been completed from
Nuremberg as far asBamberg . In 1945, however, following theSecond World War , Germany was partitioned, withBavaria in the US occupation zone (which subsequently became part ofWest Germany andSaxony in theSoviet occupation zone (which subsequently becameEast Germany ). The line lost importance. In the 1960s, over a ten kilometer section betweenMarktschorgast andStammbach , the second track was removed since the level of traffic had become too low to justify maintenance of a parallel track over this mountain section.The railway's decline was reversed with the unification of the two post war German states: since 1990 the line has recovered much of its former importance. The route of the northern section of the Ludwig South-North railway has changed little since 1848 and is set out with information on the current status of upgrades and usage (in German language entries, pending further translation work) at the following pages:
* Railway Section Nuremberg to Bamberg
* Railway Section Bamberg to HofCentre Section Nuremberg to Augsburg
Work had also started on the central section in 1843, and the first section, between
Oberhausen andNordheim was opened in November 1844. By the end of 1849 the entire middle section had been completed. The capital was linked in to the national rail network on 1 June 1846 when theMunich -Augsburg railway found itself nationalised in return for a shareholder compensation payment of 4.4 Million Guilders.The section ran relatively indirectly between Nurmenburg and Augsburg, partly for topographical reason and partly because it was hoped this would facilitate an interchange at
Nordlingen with the Württemberg rail network, an aspiration that would be fulfilled from the Württemberg side of the frontier only in 1861.At
Donauwörth the line included Bavaria's second oldest tunnel, although the 125 meter long tunnel would become redundant for its original purpose after 1870 when the route roundDonauwörth was changed. Today the south-eastern end of the tunnel, which lies directly beyond the site of the former station, has been converted for warehousing and residential uses.outhern Section Augsburg to Lindau
Before the southern portion of the railway had been completed, work had already begun in
Augsburg on the Maximilian Railway "(Bayerischen Maximiliansbahn)" which would run westwards towardsNeu-Ulm and the frontier with Württemberg. The landscape to the west of Augsburg was less challenging than the route to the south, and the line towardsUlm could already be opened as far asDinkelscherben on September 26, 1853.By 1852 the Ludwig South-North railway extended as far south a
Kempten where a large timber bridge built for two tracks carried it over the RiverIller . The bridge would be replaced by a concrete structure, but not before 1906. Just 7 kilometers further along the line towardsImmenstadt , atWaltenhofen , came another large timber bridge. This 53 meter long structure would be replaced by a steel bridge in 1900. Between Immenstadt and Lindau the line follows two difficult mountain passes in order to avoid Württemberg, at that time still a foreign state. The final 1.8 kilometers, opened early in 1854, ran along the wall protecting the town from Lake Constance.The entire route having been completed on March 1, 1854, 566 kilometers of line with space for two tracks had been completed in less than eleven years: this represented a remarkable achievement in view of the resources then available.
Commissioning progress
ources and further reading
*De|Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn
*German|Bahnstrecke Bamberg–Hof|2008-06-24 concerning the section between Bamberg and Hof
*German|Bahnstrecke Nürnberg–Bamberg|2008-06-24 concerning the section between Bamberg and Nuremberg* Markus Hehl: "Eisenbahn im Allgäu. 150 Jahre Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn". (Eisenbahn-Kurier Special 46) EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993
* Stephan Kuchinke: "Die Ludwigs-Süd-Nordbahn von Lindau nach Hof". Transpress, Stuttgart 1997 ISBN 3-613-71064-1
* Steffen Lüdecke: "Die Schiefe Ebene. Eine legendäre Eisenbahnstrecke". EK-Verlag. Freiburg im Breisgau 1993 ISBN 3-88255-833-4
* Carl Asmus: "Eisenbahnen im Allgäu", Teil 1, 2, und 3; als "Eisenbahn-Journal"-Sonderausgaben; ISSN: 0720-051 X (Teil 1), ISBN 3-922404-44-8 (Teil 2), 3-922404-31-6 (Teil 3)
* Wolfgang Klee/Ludwig v. Welser, Bayern-Report, Bände 1–5, Fürstenfeldbruck, 1993–1995.
* Dt. Reichsbahn, Die deutschen Eisenbahnen in ihrer Entwicklung 1835–1935, Berlin, 1935.
* Scheingraber, Günther, Die Königlich Bayerischen Staatseisenbahnen, Stuttgart, 1975
* v. Welser, Ludwig: Bayern-Report, Bände 4–9, Fürstenfeldbruck 1994–2001
* Walther Zeitler/Helge Hufschläger, Eisenbahnen in Schwaben - 1840 bis heute", Motorbuch-Verlag, 1980
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